from a recent Mobilize.org press release…

National youth civic engagement organization Mobilize.org released the first report in its series of Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneur Issue Briefs, Money in Politics. The organization, dedicated to Millennial-generated ideas and projects to tackle critical national issues, has adopted a unique strategy to getting Millennial plans into action: give them the information and the financial support necessary to make their ideas a reality.

Mobilize.org is focusing its efforts on empowering members of the Millennial Generation to develop innovative clean election practices, emphasizing the exploration of public finance reforms at the local and state level. While clean election reform benefits our democracy and society as a whole, the Millennial Generation in particular stands to gain considerably from such reform. By changing the system, not only does society have a better ability to reengage young people in politics, but also stands to find solutions to many issues affecting the Millennial Generation that are being inhibited by the current system.

The brief serves as a precursor to the Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneur Money in Politics Grant Summit, which will take place July 18-21, 2008, in Denver, Colorado, focusing upon the impact of special interest-funded campaigns on citizen-centered democracy. Emphasizing the problem at the national level, Mobilize.org, Sunlight Foundation, and Common Cause will challenge Millennials from across the nation to compete for grant monies to support projects working to promote clean elections practices. The call for projects will address campaign finance reform, focusing particular on clean election practices like the public financing of elections, targeting the eighteen states that Common Cause is currently working on public financing within.

Ellen Miller, Executive Director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation, commented on the change potential of the Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneur Initiative:

“Mobilize.org is involved with the most Internet-savvy, network generation of our time. We cannot wait to learn how these young entrepreneurs use the new technologies, the trillions of bytes of information about lobbying, political contributions, and the spending of our tax dollars, and social networks to confront the power of big money in our democracy.”

Application materials for the Money in Politics Summit were also released today and are available on the Mobilize.org website.

For questions or to request copies of the issue brief, please contact Christina Gagnier, Mobilize.org’s Senior Vice President of Policy & Strategic Communications, via phone at (510) 717-3022 or via email at .