Amanda LitmanVerified account

A thread today on a thing that’s kept me awake nearly every night for the last six months: How we’re going to keep @runforsomething going in 2019-2020 and why it matters that we do...

First, why I’m anxious: Running a political org is hard! We’ve built a balanced fundraising base - of the $2.5m we raised in our first 2 years, a little more than half came from more than 12k ppl giving whatever they can. The other half came from big donors & orgs. That rules.

But that was also when we were the ~hot new thing~, and when grassroots resistance groups were the ~hot new thing.~ In 2019, that’s no longer the case. It’s both an “off year” and a year in which dozens of Democrats will be running for president.

Normally, Democratic political organizations contract in the off year. That’s part of the problem — it means when shit hits the fan, we aren’t ready, & when the “on year” begins, folks have to start building all over again. Our democracy can’t afford for us to do that anymore.

Plus! We know it takes 18+ months to recruit and support amazing candidates. If we want to win state legislatures and city councils and school boards, especially in purple or red communities, we have to start today. (Or honestly, yesterday.)

We can’t scale down. If anything, we have to scale up! (More on our extensive @runforsomething 2019-2020 plans to come in a few weeks, but TLDR, we want to grow grow grow. Our mission doesn’t change. We just do more of it all.)

Democratic donors and activists historically have prioritized the flashy thing — usually, the presidency — and underfunded progressive infrastructure and local elections to the point of negligence. That’s one of the many causes of our current reality.