VoteRunLead Trains Women to Run for Office This Weekend in Minn

Two hundred women representing 33 states will be meeting in Minneapolis this weekend for the VoteRunLead #RunAsYouAre National Training — to learn how to run for elected office. This must attend conference is for any woman considering a run for office between now and 2021. Women attending the National Training range in age from 19 to 82, and 45 percent are under 35 years old. Out of all of the attendees, 86 percent will be running for office for the first time and plan to declare their candidacy within the next five years!

And what are they running for? 25 percent are interested in a seat on their local City Council; 25 percent want to be a State Representative; 11 percent want to run for U.S. Congress and eight percent for County Commissioner. The remainder are split between Senate, County Board, Mayor, School Board, Advisory Councils, City Commission, County Clerk, Governor, Judicial districts and Town Boards.

There are 71 millennial women attending, 12 LGBTQ, 80 Moms, five active duty or veterans, 30 immigrants or 1st generation Americans — and they all want to run for office!

Speakers, panelists and trainers include many “firsts and onlys” that have run and won!

The keynote presentation will be delivered by Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, the first Somali-American legislator in the U.S.

Other presenters, speakers and trainers include: Erin Vilardi, founder and CEO, VoteRunLead; Lauren Beecham, Women Winning; Cheryl Bergman, Bergman, Inc.; Rhonda Briggins, VoteRunLead co-founder and Board member; Kristen Browde, former candidate, Supervisor, New Castle, New York, 1st transgender candidate endorsed by a major party in New York State; Ash Bruxvoort, Women Food and Agriculture Network; Dawn Crandall, president of the Michigan Excellence in Public Service Series; Habon Daud, Women Organizing Women; Mina Davis, candidate, Nebraska State Assembly; Catherine Emmanuelle, City Council, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, 1st Latina elected to the council; Ashley Fairbanks, digital strategist; Kayla Farhang, IGNITE inaugural Minneapolis Fellow; Rebekah Fitzgerald, founder, Simplified Campaigns; Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota State Representative; Shannon Garrett, co-founder, VoteRunLead; Jehmu Greene, former candidate for DNC; Pakou Hang, Hmong American Farmers Association; Catherine HInshaw, National Hispanic Leadership Agenda; Andrea Jenkins, City Council Member-elect, Minneapolis, 1st African American transgender woman in the nation to be elected to council of a major city; Liz Johnson, co-founder, VoteRunLead; Tishaura Jones, City Treasurer, St. Louis, Missouri; Emily Larson, Mayor, Duluth, Minnesota; Juanita Lewis, Community Voices Heard; Nevada Littlewolf, City Council, Virginia, Minnesota; Sarah Lloyd, Plate to Politics; Brenda Lopez, Georgia State Representative; Erica Mauter, former candidate, Minneapolis City Council, City of Minneapolis Capital Long-Range Improvements Committee; Lulete Mola, Women’s Foundation of Minnesota; Kathleen Murphy, MK Murphy Communications; Atima Omara, Omara Strategy Group; Breanne Olson, Government Affairs, Target; Kimberly Peeler-Allen, Higher Heights for America; Jillia Pessenda, former candidate, Minneapolis City Council, development and communications at Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; Monica Ramirez, LatinasRepresent; Amy Sewell, writer/producer and documentary filmmaker; Rina Shah, political strategist, The Prigova Group, Washington, D.C.; Kristin Slevin, Barbara Lee Family Foundation; Chanda Smith-Baker, Minneapolis Foundation; Patricia Torres Ray, State Senator, Minnesota; Lea Webb, former Binghampton, New York, City Council; Faith Winter, Colorado State Representative; Sharon Yang, Facebook Global Politics and Government Outreach; Elizabeth Zalanga, IGNITE Inaugural Minneapolis Fellow; and JoCasta Zamarripa, State Representative, Wisconsin.

Cohhort partner organizations attending and participating are: Black Women Lead, Higher Heights for America, Indigenous Leaders, Rural and American Indigenous Leadership, Latina Leaders, LatinaRepresent, New American Women, Women Organizing Women Network & Hmong American Farmers Association, Run Out & Proud, Rural Women, Women Food and Agriculture Network, Young Women (under 25) with IGNITE National.

The VoteRunLead #RunAsYouAre National Training is sponsored by Coca-Cola, Target, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Wells Fargo Advisors, Dobkin Family Foundation, Minneapolis Foundation, Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, Facebook, Barbara Lee and Eileen Fisher.

VoteRunLead’s team have trained more than 26,000 women to run for office and knows how to support women of all backgrounds. The speakers and trainers understand that the values and life experiences of women, just as they are, make them exceptional candidates.

The VoteRunLead #RunAsYouAre National Training will be held Friday, Saturday & Sunday, November 17-19, 2017. To learn more, visit voterunlead.org/nationaltraining2017.

VoteRunLead.org is a non-partisan non-profit training powerhouse for women to run for state and local office, from rural areas to urban centers. VoteRunLead was founded by Erin Vilardi, formerly of The White House Project, to leverage technology and training programs to accelerate the number of women in civic and political leadership. Since the November 2016 election, VoteRunLead has seen an unprecedented number of women signing up to be trained to run for office. To learn more, visit voterunlead.org or follow on Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram @VoteRunLead.