About us
openDemocracy is an independent international media platform. We produce high-quality journalism which challenges power, inspires change and builds leadership among groups underrepresented in the media. Headquartered in London, we have team members across four continents.
We are a mission-focused organisation, which means we always think about the impact our journalism can have. Our investigative journalism has triggered legal changes, parliamentary probes, lawsuits and criminal investigations and we also offer a rich diversity of stories and perspectives from across the world. We help voices otherwise excluded from the media to reach larger audiences, and we campaign on key stories, pushing for a more open, democratic and egalitarian world.
Major national and global media frequently pick up our stories. In 2022 alone they included AFP, Al Jazeera, BBC News, BBC World Service, Channel 4 News, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, El País, Financial Times, Forbes, Globo, LBC, Metro, People, Perfil, PM (BBC Radio 4), Politics Live (BBC Two), Sky News, The Guardian, The Herald, the i, The Independent, The New Statesman, The New York Times, The Observer, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Times, The Washington Post, The Week, Univision, UOL and Yahoo! News/Noticias.
openDemocracy.net attracts more than 7m visits per year, and we provide a vital space for analysis, comment, and debate on issues ranging from democracy, gender and human rights to economics and climate change. We have projects publishing in Russian, Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. In the past two years, we’ve been nominated for and won a number of prestigious journalism prizes, from the Gabo Award to the Paul Foot, British Journalism and Press Awards.
You can read our annual report for 2022 here.
Our funding
We depend on support from those who appreciate the importance of our work, both individuals and organisations. Please consider supporting us to help openDemocracy survive and grow.
Inclusivity information
At the end of 2022, openDemocracy had 57 team members, including four fellows – early- or mid-career journalists joining us for six months to develop their skills and careers.
- 53% of our team were women, 42% were men and 5% were gender non-conforming
- 68% were white
- They lived in Armenia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Kenya, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain, Uganda, the UK, Ukraine, the US and Uruguay.
The senior management team had seven members
- 29% were women, 71% were men
- 71% were white
Over the year we hired 23 people, including the fellows
- 59% were women, 37% were men and 4% were gender non-conforming
- 61% were white
The openDemocracy board had 11 members (including some staff members already covered above)
- 36% were women, 64% were men
- 73% were white
We are committed to continuous learning and transparency about our performance on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Financial highlights
In 2022 we received £3.44m in income
And we spent £3.33m
We publish a list of every major donor that funds us each year on our website.
Legal
openDemocracy.net is published by openDemocracy Limited, a UK-registered company (#3855274) wholly owned by the non-profit openDemocracy Foundation for the Advancement of Global Education (company limited by guarantee #04807614).
Executive
openDemocracy's first editor-in-chief was its co-founder Anthony Barnett (2001-07). He was succeeded by Tony Curzon Price (2007-12), Magnus Nome (2012-14), Mary Fitzgerald (2014-21) and Peter Geoghegan (2021-23).