'The time is right'—a startup wants to get 100 progressive women elected to Congress
After election results this November, we're starting to see what happens when people outraged by their politicians' sexism and transphobia run for office.
A new platform, built by a Google Politics alum and founding members of the Obama White House U.S. Digital Service, wants to make sure we don't lose that momentum. Project 100 is a tool to help progressive women get elected—and to help voters find the right progressive women to support and vote for.
"We developed an organization purpose-built to support the new wave of exciting women running around the country so women can actually win," co-founder Danielle Gram said.
Gram founded the organization alongside writer Isabel Kaplan and former U.S. Digital Service creative director Eduardo Ortiz. Google alum Eric Hysen is a senior advisor.
SEE ALSO:This app will help you speak up—or shut up—during meetingsProject 100 is built to bridge the gap between women deciding to run and making sure they win.
Project 100 is built to bridge the big gap between women deciding to run—as so many women did after the 2016 presidential election—and making sure they have the funds, institutional support, and volunteer base to win.
The platform uses an algorithm that incorporates more factors than just fundraising—the usual benchmark of political success—to help candidates reach more voters. The trending algorithm that shows website visitors candidates in their area also considers social media followings, endorsements, and media traction. The site directs its users to donate and tells them about candidates' backgrounds, like if they're entering politics from education, business, or the sciences.
Trending candidates on Project 100 in New York.Credit: screenshot/project 100While there are other platforms out there that support women running for office—the most well-known of which is EMILY's List—Project 100's founders believe their approach is different. It's designed for the next generation of voters and activists who are frustrated with women's stagnated representation and with campaign tools that haven't fully caught up to the digital era.
The group of founding staffers come from political backgrounds. Gram, who used to lead the Tony Blair Foundation, had two great-great aunts who were radical suffragists and went on hunger strike to get the right to vote for women. Kaplan's mother was the first woman to run a presidential campaign, for 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. Hysen's parents volunteered for Democratic campaigns in the 1970s. And Ortiz served in the Marines before working on technology at the White House to help immigrants navigate the immigration system.
SEE ALSO:SheEO has a plan to build a $1 billion fund for female foundersHysen, who now works for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, brought his experience building political technology products. One of those was making sure polling places appeared in Google Search.
"A lot of startups tried to make the one shiny app that everyone will get on their phones and suddenly will make the entire world politically engaged. That's an idealistic view of how politics works that doesn't line up with the real world. I don't think there will ever be the Uber or Google of politics that takes off in the same way you see in Silicon Valley," Hysen said. "Every part of this design is designed around how people actually engage in politics, not how we hope they would."
"I don't think there will ever be the Uber or Google of politics that takes off in the same way you see in Silicon Valley."
That means that the platform is built to facilitate bursts of political engagement, not to suck people in to spend all their time on the site.
To appear on Project 100, candidates have to meet three bars of progressiveness: supporting equal treatment under the law, economic opportunity, and healthy people and communities. That means supporting LGBTQ rights, criminal justice reform, voting rights, and immigration reform; living wages and equal pay; and healthcare access, gun control, reproductive rights, and sexual assault prevention and response.
The categories are designed to be broad to apply to candidates from all kinds of districts. And Project 100 is designed as a sort of middle ground between voters and candidates.
SEE ALSO:11 influential feminists share the best lessons they've learned from other womenThe platform's short-term goal is to get 100 progressive women in Congress by 2020, or the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. That would bring representation of women in Congress from 20 percent to 23 percent.
Beyond its informational and fundraising site, Project 100 plans to add other features ahead of primary races in March, like incorporating existing get out the vote technology and introducing a toolkit for parties to raise money along with individual candidates.
"The time is right for this," Gram said. "2.5 million men and women marched in the Women's March. Between the #MeToo movement and activism for equal pay and reproductive rights, everyone is talking about these issues, but they haven't yet found a home for action. We want to be where they can go."
Featured Video For You
Forget elevators, you can cycle up skyscrapers with this new design
-
NYT Strands hints, answers for August 29EV owners can get free ultraApple knows AirTags can be abused and is trying to get ahead of it我市两家工业园区被确定为省级循环化改造示范试点园区The Weird, Wonderful World of Water TowersHow to shut down Spot the robot 'dog,' should you ever need toTrump mulls inviting Kim JongTerra returns with Luna 2.0 after crashing the crypto market. It's already tanking again.The Wonderful World of Christmas TreesWhatsApp might add the ability to edit messages
下一篇:Garmin Fenix 8 vs. Apple Watch Ultra: The Fenix wins big on battery life
- ·Korea's economy to stop growing without drastic labor change: FKI
- ·Former NBA star Rodman to fly to Singapore for Trump
- ·Seth Green's Bored Ape was stolen. Now he can't make his NFT show.
- ·鸽子花,“飞出”雅安绽放全球(下)
- ·9 Festive Holiday Treats and Where to Find Them
- ·Get the Future fitness app and a real
- ·White House threatened to veto massive spending bill over Ukraine aid requirement.
- ·Apple WWDC 2022: Apple introduces MacOS Ventura
- ·29 Dive Bars, Saloons, and Taverns Where the Vibe Is Unbeatable
- ·Here are Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren ripping each other apart
- ·Koreas begin military talks to discuss easing tensions
- ·市医保局切实提高脑瘫儿童门诊康复治疗医保待遇水平
- ·10 Big Misconceptions About Computer Hardware
- ·Cadillac's first electric SUV will arrive early for just under $60,000
- ·便民新举措 爱心暖人心
- ·The best video games of 2022 that we've played so far
- ·Number of COVID
- ·世界第三极 雅安零公里
- ·比学赶超 再创佳绩
- ·Magnetically stirred electrolyte puts high
- ·评论丨农事运动会:一场农民的盛会、新农人风采展现的盛会、城乡双向奔赴的盛会
- ·EV owners can get free ultra
- ·废弃枝条变生产原料 循环发展铺增收之路
- ·Pompeo to visit South Korea after Trump
- ·Webb scientists haven't found a rocky world with air. But now they have a plan.
- ·看雅安医保可喜变化 听雅安百姓幸福心声
- ·Value Judgment
- ·Apple Store goes down: Purple iPhone 12 and AirTag are coming
- ·3 reasons to pamper your pet with ultra
- ·携手优势互补 共同拓展市场
- ·A global problem is preventing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza from coming to an end.
- ·Court decision is pushed back. What can Seoul do to resolve forced labor issue with Tokyo?
- ·Sisyphus puns are on a roll on Twitter
- ·加快建设文教新城 不断繁荣城市经济
- ·The Best AMD Ryzen Gaming Laptops (So Far)
- ·Signal says Cellebrite phone