Empowering Women Candidates, Causes, and Coworkers

The team at Grassroots Analytics works together toward a common mission: we want to break down the barriers for progressives to win important fights. What helps us excel at that mission? The people behind the work, over half of whom are women. 

In honor of Women’s History Month, Marketing Director Julia Murray sat down this week with four women leaders at Grassroots Analytics for a conversation about how GA data is uniquely set up to help women running for office and nonprofits supporting women’s issues. 

Using Data Every Day 

Sadie Newcombe, Vice President of Data Science: I definitely use data all day, every day. Basically, my whole job is taking raw data and making actionable insights.

Robin Miller, Vice President of Innovation: And then, we on the product teams take those insights and the variables that Sadie and our wonderful foundation team craft, and figure out how to make that into hyper-targeted lists for clients across different fundraising channels. 

GA is Uniquely Positioned to Help Women

Sadie Newcombe: From the very beginning, Grassroots' mission has always been to level the playing field. I think that a lot of people running for office, traditionally, have been people of wealth or people that are well connected, so the Grassroots mission is to elevate people who might not be friends with millionaires and help them run for office. And I think a lot of women did fall in those buckets.

CeCe Lee, Senior Nonprofit Fundraising Strategist: In that same vein, as far as nonprofits, there used to be a time when nonprofits really relied on the gifts of major donors or corporate sponsorships. Because of everything that's happening with this current administration, a lot of nonprofits – for the first time – are really looking to build a grassroots fundraising network that can actually work and support the work that they would do. That's why they come to GA, because they know that we're able to hyper-target and give them lists of people who will not just donate one time, but will become lifetime donors.

Robin Miller: I think a huge thing is women candidates historically have a much more difficult time fundraising because they don't have access to those same “old boy” donor networks. We're really able to help even out the playing field. And I think one of the great things we're able to do with GA data is we don't just say, ‘it's a woman candidate, let's find you female donors’, but saying, ‘how do we find people who specifically don't have a history of donating to just female candidates? Or female nonprofits or nonprofits specifically in the women's empowerment space?’

Grayson Hernandez, Digital Content Director: I will also say to Sadie's point, too, that on our mission of leveling the playing field, it also applies to making sure that we're uplifting women candidates of color and people from marginalized backgrounds or communities who typically don't have the establishment support or the general reach to voters.

CeCe Lee: I think what makes GA uniquely positioned is that we do a really great job of checking our biases at the door. We make it our mission to make sure that we're not making assumptions about who people will give to and why they will give. We let our data speak for us.

Creative Data Solutions  

CeCe Lee: There was a time when we had a client reach out to us that works in a very niche part of the industry. One of their initial concerns was that we simply didn't have enough actionable data ready to use for the client. But I think that was also a really great time where we had to take a step back and really think about why we thought we didn't have enough data, because it maybe wasn't as obvious as the way that we normally go about creating lists. We were really able to do a good job of taking a step back and being more thoughtful about who we are putting into these lists. 

And we've been able to be extremely successful for this client, and we've really grown with them and grown their fundraising. They've been a client for over a year now, and I think they're one of our biggest clients on the nonprofit side. It's so interesting that they are one of our best partnerships, and we almost weren't able to work with them!

Grayson Hernandez: I'll say on the campaign side, we've really been able to hone in on niche audiences that work well for specific women candidates especially. For example, JoAnna Mendoza running in AZ-06: she’s Latina, a Red-to-Blue candidate, working class, single mom. We have a lot of different data points that we can use to reach specific donors that would give to her. She's also a veteran, too. We've really been able to utilize these things in a creative way. The problem: She was an underdog candidate. Now, because of the use of our data, she's the front-runner.

CeCe Lee: What I really like about GA is how intersectional our solutions can be. Because we were able to kind of create those niche audiences for JoAnna Mendoza, it really opened up the possibility for me to use the same things for fundraising for disaster relief. It turns out a lot of veterans really care about foreign policy and really care about supporting organizations who do amazing things and relief work overseas. So her solutions have really become solutions to my problems as well.

What Empowering Women Really Means

Grayson Hernandez: I think [empowering women] means supporting each other and building a community. 

Robin Miller: I think freedom of choice is a really big one here. Not only in the reproductive rights sense, but in the freedom for women to be able to choose their own careers, to choose their own paths, to control their own body and lives. I think it's really important when you're on the GA team, and I love that you can be a part of that. When Roe was overturned, we were able to do a ton of free texts, and send for reproductive justice nonprofits and abortion funds, and that was something that was really important to me. 

CeCe Lee: It also means a lot to me to be able to work at a company that has so many women in positions of power. Our CEO is a woman in a position of power. Two of these lovely ladies are VPs, especially at ages and genders where people simply don't see that at their organizations. To be able to be in a space every single day where you see women succeeding without any of the negative stereotypes that come from women in positions of power has really empowered me, and probably a lot of other young women, that are working in the same space [to see] that you don't have to be an old man to be successful in politics.

Sadie Newcombe: I think maybe some people might be surprised to know this, but the data team at GA is 75% women. It's a small team, but mighty, and I know from my experience – I don't have a technical background, and don't really have much background in data outside of GA. I was a political science major and campaigner before this. But the two more senior technical members of our team, who are women, –I'm never afraid to ask a question.

When your boss or your peers are men, I think it can feel like, “I don't want them to think I'm stupid by asking this question.” With Rachel and Nadine, I'm always just like, they know I'm not stupid! I'm gonna ask them like, any question, and they're gonna be so graceful when they answer me, and treat me with respect.

What Gives the Women of GA Hope

Grayson Hernandez: This is specific because it's primary day in North Carolina: Nida Allam. We remember 2022, crypto money, the cost of the race, but now she could really be a big upset. 

CeCe Lee: I think what's giving me hope is the amount of people who have decided to run for office for the first time, at a time when people are trusting politicians the least they ever have in our country. It can be really easy to be negative about politics or about what our politicians can do for you. But the fact that so many people –  who are probably the best people to be politicians – are really starting to make a name for themselves on the local, state, and federal level, I think that's what's giving me hope.

Sadie Newcombe: I had dinner last night with a candidate I worked for. Tedra Cobb, shout out New York 21. Tedra lost the first time in 2018, and I remember election night was very upsetting.  In her speech, she was like, “Women, one, aren't recruited to run for office as much, and women, two, when they lose, they're never encouraged to run again.” 

There are men who have made careers as professional candidates, and their names are floated to run for president and their only qualification is they lost a hHouse seat. I feel like women who, if you're a woman and you're running and you don't win, you just have to try, try again, okay? Keep running.

Robin Miller: So what's giving me hope is the number of women who are running for office who couldn't have made it as far as they have without GA as support and backing them. We’ve made them see there is really a viable path to victory here. And even just showing them it's possible, there are a lot of people out there who are really excited about what you're doing, your mission, about your story as a female candidate, and we're able to connect them with those people.

CeCe Lee: I think that is what it looks like for progress to move the needle. It's often very hard to watch, but I think there are so many candidates that we've started working with this cycle that probably would not have run for office if they hadn't seen the candidates who maybe ran and lost last cycle. But just the fact that they were willing to go against the grain, take a leave of absence from their job, put themselves in front of the public to be scrutinized and vilified, just to maybe have an opportunity to make their areas a better environment for people is what inspires more people to run.

Thank you, CeCe, Robin, Grayson, and Sadie! 

Are you a woman that is running, or wants to run, for office? Is your nonprofit or organization ready to level up its work advancing women’s empowerment? Our team is ready to help. Connect with GA for specific, data-powered solutions → 

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Watch the video version of this conversation as a special edition of the GA Insider Audio podcast: 

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