Hi all -
Hope your holiday break was good, safe, relaxing, refreshing — whatever it is that you wanted out of it, I hope you got it.
In this final email of 2021, I wanted to reflect on what Run for Something did in this wild year…
First: There are now more than 90,000 people in the pipeline — that 90,000+ young people who’ve raised their hands to run for office since we launched in 2017.
Even more exciting: 2021 is officially our best recruitment year yet.
There’s no single reason for this surge in sign-ups… but a few things we’d attribute this to:
National Run for Office Day in January 2021 was a wild success.
The Georgia Senate win on 1/5, the insurrection on 1/6 + the 1/20 inauguration combo inspired people to step up in January (for good and for fear.)
Our ongoing alumni relational recruitment program (in which RFS alum find folks in their areas to run) and our broader expanded reach as an organization
Our excellent partnership with Snapchat
And most importantly, we’ve been saying since day one: It’s never been about Trump. Young people are seeing how much local leadership matters and they’re not settling for the status quo.
Based on previous benchmarking, ~10% of folks in our pipeline go on to run for office. (Sometimes it takes them years.) The bigger we grow that top of the funnel, the more people actually take the plunge.
We endorsed 358 new candidates for 2021 races (not including our alumni), bringing our grand total to 1,813 all-stars — and while winning is not the only goal, I’m so so so proud that we’ve now elected 637 amazing leaders in 48 states.
Those 637 winners are:
56% women/43% men/1% non-binary
21% LGBTQIA+
58% people of color (including 28% Black, 20% Latinx/Hispanic, 8% AAPI, & 3% Indigenous)
Specifically: 35% are women of color
34% ages 18-30, 65% ages 31-40
16% won education offices, 31% are in state legislatures, 50% hold municipal offices, and 3% won legal roles
We hosted 50+ virtual events, including pipeline intro calls, our “Unapologetically Progressive” series to spotlight alumni, and “See Yourself Running” to drive candidate recruitment. Tens of thousands of people joined or streamed these events.
We raised $128,000 in support of 186 candidates, with $112k of that running specifically through RFS Ascend for 26 candidates in TX, VA, and PA -- and in addition, hustled up another $60,000 from partners.
In addition to all that: We did research to identify exactly how meaningful running local candidates is (you can read about the first round of research in the New York Times or the second round in Time Magazine); kicked off a partnership with Doctors in Politics to recruit more health care workers to run for office; hosted the second annual Alumni Awards; worked with Sister District & EMILY’s List to support folks who came up short in the first campaign in preparing for a second; and so much more.
Plus! We also launched Run for Something Civics, our new 501c3 effort to bring more young people broadly into leadership.
We did all that with a $3.1 million budget… not too shabby!
As we look to 2022, we’ve got a few big priorities — more to come on all this but for now, a sneak preview:
At baseline, we plan to support 700+ local candidates running for office. If our win rate keeps up, that could yield 300+ new elected officials by this time next year.
We’re going to dive deeper on recruiting and support candidates for local election administration roles.
We’re also going to prioritize school board candidates, ensuring they have the materials and training they need to have hard conversations with voters about highly emotional topics.
2022 will be a pivotal year from our democracy.
In part due to decades of neglecting local elections, the structural foundations of the 2022 (and 2024) elections are tough for people who share our values. However, if we can go as big as the moment requires and invest our time and resources in the right strategic places, we can set up the next few years to be (at the very least) fair fights, and ultimately work toward winning sustainable power. We can mitigate the harm being done to voting rights, reproductive justice, climate change, equity, and more.
It’s only barely hyperbolic to say that Run for Something’s work at the local level on a national scale is mission-critical for the future of our republic.
We’re going to work in as many places as possible in as impactful a way as possible. We’re going to continue to transform what leadership looks like. We’re going to stay hopeful — even when it feels hopeless — because we know how much good can happen when good people lead.
If you’re getting this email, you’re the reason all of this is possible. You’ve supported Run for Something in some meaningful way, whether it was with your time, money, attention, community, or simply by cheering us on.
We’re going to celebrate five years of Run for Something in a few weeks — it barely scratches the surface to say this is all so much bigger, more meaningful, and more impactful than we ever could’ve imagined. (And tbh, both way harder and way more fun.)
The next five+ years will be even better because I know we’re doing it together.
On behalf of the entire RFS team, thank you.
Happy new year,
Amanda