Civic News
Every Voice, Every Vote

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

Through the Lenfest Institute for Journalism's Every Voice, Every Vote, 52 local newsrooms and community organizations will launch civic projects aimed at informing and engaging voters.

Voting. (Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash)
What do you need to know about your 2023 mayoral and City Council at-large candidates to make an informed vote?

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.”

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.

Companies: Lenfest Institute for Journalism / City of Philadelphia / Technical.ly

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

19 tech and entrepreneurship events to check out before the holidays

Are digital navigators the answer to closing Philadelphia’s tech gap?

Expect high-speed internet at 100 Philly rec centers in 2025, Verizon says

EDA officials are ‘hopeful’ Tech Hubs program will live on under Trump

Technically Media