Yesterday started out a dreary, bleak, no-good-very-bad day.
(Today, with marches all across the world and proof that the resistance is real, powerful, and not going away — well, today is better. But let’s talk about yesterday.)
We launched Run for Something in the morning, with a gorgeous website courtesy of Jennifer Kinon and her team, a teensy little bit of our own money, and a blurb in Playbook. We emailed our friends, we tweeted, we shared on Facebook, and then we waited.
And almost immediately, the support came flooding in.
We raised enough money to cover our start-up expenses. Nearly 200 people donated in the first 24 hours, and our average gift was only $44. People were tagging friends, sharing on Facebook, and signing up.
And get this: Nearly as many people signed up to run for office — we’ve got a list of almost 200 people who want to take the first step. We weren’t even asking for that yesterday! People just found their way to our website and decided “yes, I want to do this, please help me.”
But what really made our day was the notes we got — people telling me how important this is and how they wanted to help.
We got one email that made us cry, from Sarah, a Missouri college student:
I seriously can’t tell you guys how ecstatically happy I was to discover your page. Not even kidding, you’re my shining beacon of hope on a day that’s been otherwise pretty disheartening. Reading your mission filled me with so much optimism for the future, even when I’ve been having major anxiety about it otherwise. Unfortunately I’m still a poor college student and don’t currently have the funds to donate, but I would love to in the future when I’m more financially stable.
Basically, I want to get involved as much as I possibly can. I want to do whatever it takes to help you guys succeed and build a strong Democratic bench of progressive millennials. Please let me know what can be done. I’m tired of sitting around and feeling hopeless. Knowing that someone is taking up the mantle to organize and fight for the future of the Democratic Party is so inspiring. Reading your platform of what you’re looking for made me clap out loud — it was a helpful reminder that someone still cares about the issues that are most important to me.
All in all, I just wanted to thank you. Thank you for making this website. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for being there, on behalf of all of us disillusioned millennials and progressives. And I really hope we’ll make you guys proud.
This matters. This work matters, it’s hard, and it will take time, money, and support from you. We need to operationalize going through the folks who expressed interest in running, we’ve got list-building and recruitment ads campaigns to get up and running, we have scores of operatives who want to get plugged in to down-ballot races, and we need to pay some lawyers to help us set up some state level PACs (and that’s just to start.)
A whole lot of people asked “how can I help?” Here are five things you can do today:
Donate. If you gave yesterday, thank you! Now set up a recurring donation.
Find one friend or family member who should donate, too.
Make sure you’re connected with us on Facebook and Twitter. Help us reach people beyond our networks.
If you can volunteer some time to help us talk to possible candidates, email us at hello@runforsomething.net with your full name, where you’re located, and how much time you can give — we’ll reach out soon as we settle into a process.
Sign up to run for office! Or send this to someone who should.
That’s it. That’s all we got for now. We’ll be in touch soon with our next steps. We don’t plan on emailing people every day, and we won’t always be asking you for money. (Although to be clear: You should chip in if you haven’t yet.)
But we hope when we reach out, we can count on you to lend a hand, because if you’re a part of this on day one, you get how important this is.
We’re grateful to have your support — and so glad that you’re a part of this community committed to helping young people run and building a progressive bench.
Thank you, thank you, thank you,