Our flagship electoral program works to get Democrats elected to strategic state legislative seats by supporting campaigns with grassroots action. We “sister” volunteers from deep blue districts with carefully targeted races in swing districts, where flipping control of the state legislature will advance progressive policy. Our volunteers canvass, phonebank, write postcards, textbank, and fundraise for candidates. We welcome volunteers and candidates of all genders.
Since launching in the wake of the 2016 elections, Sister District has grown to nearly 70,000 volunteers across the country. We have endorsed candidates in 167 races across 18 states, 107 of whom won and have gone on to fight for progressive issues in their state legislatures. We have raised more than $5.3 million in small-dollar donations directly for our candidates and State bridges organizations. Our organizing efforts have reached out to more than 4.1 million voters through phones, texts, postcards, and door knocks. We also partner deeply with our campaigns to provide professional training, advice, and guidance to help candidates and staff build winning campaigns.
For a more detailed look at our work, check out our 2022 Impact Report.
We’re also proud to be an organization founded and led by women, including women of color. Four out of five of us quit our jobs to be with Sister District full time.
Sister District activates the passion, creativity, and resources of volunteers to win elections and build progressive power in state legislatures.
Sister District envisions a country where every person is welcomed and served by its government at all levels, and state legislatures are at the vanguard of progressive policy. In this world, Sister District directs engaged volunteers to help state legislators win and serve in governing majorities that reflect the diversity and viewpoints of the people they represent. This world is free of partisan and racial gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other policies and practices that diminish democratic participation.
Sister District’s mission to build progressive power in state legislatures is inextricably linked to our vision for racial equity and justice in America. Racism and discrimination are embedded in our government infrastructure as well as the laws passed by our legislative bodies. In order to dismantle structural racism, we must organize at the grassroots level to elect progressive representatives who will enact policies that are unapologetically anti-racist. We must also ensure that we are electing officials who represent all the voices in our communities.
The bedrock American principle of “equality and justice for all” has never applied to everyone in this country, nor does it today. In one breath, the same founding fathers who declared “all men are created equal” also decided that slaves counted as only 3/5ths of a person. State governments have always played an outsized role in denying equal rights to people of color.
When slavery was abolished, southern states quickly enacted laws such as the poll tax, the grandfather clause, and literacy tests to prevent Black people from voting. As far back as 1850, anti-immigrant sentiment drove states to subject Asian-Americans to unequal taxes, bar them from public schools and hospitals, and prohibit them from serving on juries or testifying in court. When the Voting Rights Act went into effect, states restricted the Hispanic vote by making voting accessible only in English, and suppressed the Native American vote by, for example, requiring that voters have a mailing address. Today, states continue the legacy of structural racism through a myriad of facially race-neutral policies that have a disproportionately adverse effect on communities of color, such as voter ID laws, lengthy incarceration for non-violent offenses, gerrymandering, attacks on reproductive rights, and dismantling the social safety net.
To root out structural racism and address the centuries of oppression inflicted on communities of color, Sister District will conduct its programs and operations to make concrete and tangible gains toward racial equity:
We will hold ourselves accountable to this statement as we move forward, and we commit to constantly assessing how we can improve our efforts to serve the communities we aim to support.
The Sister District Education Initiative engages in charitable and educational programming to support the strengthening of our democracy on the state level. Programming, carried out directly by Sister District staff, includes non-partisan research and narrative change in storytelling about the power and promise of states.
The Initiative is supported by the Sister District Education Fund, a single entity fund at Tides Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity. The fund engages exclusively in grantmaking in support of the Initiative; all contributions to the fund are subject to Tides’ discretion and control.
Sister District Action Network is Sister District’s affiliated 501(c)c4, which runs programs in the areas of research, civic engagement, narrative change, and state legislator support.
Executive Director
Co-Founder
Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives
(SDAN)
Co-Founder
Senior Vice President of Digital
Co-Founder
Director of Development
Director of Operations
Organizing and Political Director
Director of Digital and Creative
Head of Organizing
Head of Campaigns
Head of Civic Engagement
Senior Field Manager
Program Manager
Social Media & Digital Manager
Senior Operations Manager
Organizing Manager
Operations Manager
Organizing Manager
Development Manager
Head of Research
Founder & Special Advisor
Checks can be sent to:
Sister District Project
440 North Barranca Avenue, #8737
Covina, California 91723