“The joy of focusing on local work is that we win a lot” (w/ Amanda Litman of Run For Something)
So you’re thinking about how to connect young people interested in running for office with the resources and community they need to win. What’s your first step?
For Amanda Litman, a veteran of the Obama campaign, the first step was to put up a website looking for people interested in running for local office. What the response was greater than she could have ever imagined, she and a friend recruited volunteers and got to work helping thousands of young candidates navigate how to file, how to run a campaign, and how to win.
Episode Links:
- Find out which offices are available in your area at Run for What: Website
- Run for Something: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
- Amanda Litman: Twitter
- Follow Lila on Twitter
- Follow Kelly on Twitter
- Follow the podcast on Twitter at @WhatCanIDoPod
- To contact us with questions or guest suggestions, email us at: hello@WhatCanIDoPodcast.com.
- Please rate and review and tell your friends!
Credits:
To the best of our knowledge, all audio used by What Can I Do is in the public domain or is used with permission. Our theme song is Good Deeds by Serj Anto, and we hold a license for use of the song through PremiumBeat.
Original artwork is by Matthew Weflen and used with express permission.
Amanda Litman
Amanda Litman is the co-founder and co-executive director of Run for Something, which recruits and supports young, diverse progressives running for down-ballot office. Since launching in 2017, RFS has identified more than 120,000 young people who want to run, endorsed 2,000 and elected more than 1000 leaders across nearly all 50 states, mostly women and people of color.
Shortly after launching Run for Something, Amanda wrote a book, Run for Something: A Real-Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself, published by Atria in 2017. Barack Obama called it "wonderful" and Hillary Clinton said "I wish I'd had it years ago."
Politico named Run for Something (and Amanda!) one of the 50 ideas driving politics in 2018. Bloomberg called her one of the people to watch in 2019. Fortune named her to their annual 40 under 40 list in 2020.
In 2022, Amanda was one of the Time NEXT 100, a list of 100 rising stars from around the world. She was also a 2022 Dial Fellow at the Emerson Collective.
Amanda previously hosted the Run for Something podcast, which spotlighted young leaders across the country, and did a stint hosting “Battleground” on the Recount. She appears on other podcasts regularly - you may have heard her on the Ezra Klein Show.
Over the years, Amanda has written for Elle, Buzzfeed, The Nation, Vanity Fair, Fast Company, Women's Health, Teen Vogue, O Magazine, MTV, CNN.com, Crooked Media, Cosmopolitan, and other outlets.
Amanda regularly appears on TV across all kinds of shows, including the Chris … Read More
Listen On