by Christine Hernandez Dear Potential Candidate, I think you should run for office. Your passion is palpable. That little voice in your head telling you to lead is electric and you know that you are qualified. You have the experience and want to make a difference. You inspire others, so what’s holding you back? Of course, there are many barriers that women may consider when running for office. One of the ones we don’t talk about enough is the risk of losing. An election requires a high amount of energy, resources, and vulnerability. You can be the best candidate and ..read more

  Lucy Simpson is the Executive Director of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC), an enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation, and a transplanted community member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. A lawyer by trade, she helped to found NIWRC in 2010 and has served as its executive director ever since. We were thrilled to have the chance to sit down with Lucy and learn more about her community involvement advocating for Indian nations, particularly in fighting for tribal sovereignty and the protection of Native women and their families.  Responses have been edited for le ..read more

It’s 2024, and it seems like everywhere you look, there’s bad news. No wonder Gen Z is experiencing a crushing mental health crisis and more Americans than ever are living with depression. Worries about the future weigh on all of us, but there are steps you can take to build resilience so that you’re well equipped to handle whatever the world throws at you. Resilience is a great skill to have in every area of your life, helping you bounce back from difficulties and disappointments. We know that the work to build an equitable future is hard and slow going ..read more

On Tuesday, January 9, Anika Bowie, Saura Jost, Hwa Jeong Kim, and Cheniqua Johnson, made history when they joined Mitra Jalali, Nelsie Yang, and Rebecca Noecker on the St. Paul, Minnesota City Council, creating an entirely female city council. This is historic not only as the first time St. Paul has had an all-woman city council in its 170-year history, but also the youngest and most racially diverse council in the city’s history.  While it’s great to celebrate successes like these, we also have to recognize the past: from 1916 to 1955, the St. Paul council remained an all-men legislativ ..read more

By Ellen Mimi Schlecht Everyone has a reason, what’s yours? **inspired by Daniel Jones’ “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love”   During my time at She Should Run, I have had the incredible opportunity to learn about the myriad of reasons women decide to run for office. While combing through stories upon stories, I have found that there is no reason too big or too small. For some, it is an issue close to their heart (shoutout to our issues webinar series), while for others it is simply because they were asked by a friend or family member a ..read more

Our Acting Locally on the Issues webinar series is officially wrapped for 2023–but the lessons continue to shine! Popular research around women’s leadership often examines what prevents women from running for office, but we took a different approach: we examined what motivates women to run, the issues that matter most to them. We found that climate change, gun violence, reproductive health, the economy, and addressing racism were some of the top issues pushing women to get involved in their communities. We spent a lot of time this year with leading experts on each of these issues, and we’ve ga ..read more

What motivates women to get involved in their communities? That was the big question our team asked ourselves at the beginning of 2023. When we think about women’s leadership, empowerment, civic engagement, and political involvement, it’s easy to rattle off all of the barriers, systemic or otherwise, keeping women down. We wanted to change things up, shifting the perspective from barriers to motivators. In doing so, we uncovered the top five issues disproportionately affecting women across demographics and ideologies through our own data and research from YWCA USA and UN Women–the economy, cli ..read more

Today, we announced the release of our new report, The State of Women: 2023 Multiplier Report and Roadmap, a comprehensive report drawing on insights from extensive data gathered from a wide-ranging network of women nationwide. Utilizing data collected from She Should Run participants and research conducted between 2020 and 2023, we found that most women—across demographics and ideologies—need multiple points and types of encouragement over several years in order to consider running for office. “The women running today did not wake up yesterday or even last year and decide they were going to r ..read more

  We spend our days (and nights) thinking up new ways to motivate and encourage more women to consider elected office. At She Should Run, this is the type of job we’re always looking to fill, and we think it might be a good fit for you, too. You may have never considered becoming a Community Manager; you may have even seen other women serve as Community Managers and thought, “I don’t know if I have what it takes.” All we ask is that, as you go through this opportunity, you keep an open mind! The ideal contender for this ..read more

There’s no getting around it: running for office can be daunting! Alongside all the resources we offer to help you consider stepping into public leadership, we know it’s important to hear from women who have actually done it. We reached out to dozens of women in elected positions around the country and pulled together some of their best advice to share with you. We’re so grateful to everyone who shared their experiences with us! We’ll keep updating this with more tips and insights as we get them, but for now, we hope this resource inspires you to take the next ..read more