Technical.ly is joining a new Philly-wide initiative to help you prepare for the 2023 elections

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism today announced the grantees of its $1.5 million Every Voice, Every Vote, an initiative to engage all Philadelphians in the 2023 elections. Technical.ly is one of 52 local newsrooms and community organizations that will receive funding to launch a civic project aimed at informing and engaging voters.

Lenfest — which has previously supported Technical.ly via the Report for America program — is leading the initiative, while funding is provided by the William Penn Foundation, Lenfest, the Wyncote Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and others.

“We are so pleased to have Technical.ly as a partner in the Every Voice, Every Vote coalition,” said Jim Friedlich, executive director and CEO of the Lenfest Institute. “Philadelphia’s future depends upon entrepreneurship and economic growth. No news organization in our city has done more to report upon the innovation economy. Technical.ly will bring this focus to its coverage of the 2023 election. We look forward to working together to help ensure that enabling Philadelphians to build skills and [jobs] for the future is very much a part of this next election.”

We’re proud to announce the launch of Every Voice, Every Vote, @VoiceVotePhilly, a citywide coalition of more than 50 media & community organizations to put Philly voters and key issues at the center of the 2023 elections for mayor and city council 🗳🌇https://t.co/qULbvsYraC

— The Lenfest Institute for Journalism (@lenfestinst) December 7, 2022

What to expect from our involvement?

Our goal is to engage a range of Philadelphians to develop a community-informed questionnaire, to be sent to both mayoral candidates and City Council at-large candidates ahead of the May primary and November general elections. This questionnaire will focus on skills for economic opportunity that support inclusive entrepreneurship and an equitable workforce of the future — topics Technical.ly has covered extensively.

We certainly have ideas for what questions we could ask those candidates, drawing from our years of probing everyone from mayors to US Senators for their policies related to tech, workforce development and entrepreneurship. But we want to hear what you want to hear from your would-be local officials.

Come January, look for Technical.ly’s call for survey questions related to the local innovation economy. We’ll sift through them and come up with five per office to send to the candidates, then publish their responses. Later in the spring, look, too, for a video explainer from a local influencer about one of those topics.

You can inform each step of that process. Expect more details soon.