When we launched the WomenCount donation platform 10 years ago, we had two goals: Make political giving more personal and strategic and involve more women in the process—as both candidates and donors.
But the whole history of our organization actually goes back much further.
WomenCount was first launched as a women’s voter turnout effort during Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign. Our slogan? “They used to say women couldn’t vote. Now they say we won’t.” The original founders were San Francisco entrepreneur Susie Tompkins Buell and then-Alameda County District Attorney Kamala Harris. Both have remained close friends of WomenCount and supporters of our work over the years.
As digital campaigning took off in 2008, we re-activated as an online organizing effort with our “Not So Fast” ad campaign, which called for an end to the pressure being placed on Hillary Clinton to bow out of the presidential primary campaign.
A vintage WomenCount poster, signed by Kamala Harris, an original founder.
That brings us to 2015, when we relaunched as a crowdfunding donation platform based on two trends from the worlds of finance and politics: Women candidates’ disproportionate reliance, compared to men, on smaller, individual donations; and crowdfunding’s emergence as a multi-billion dollar industry.
A decade later, politics has changed dramatically and our country is facing a crisis in government. And yet, we’ve notched some important wins for women: Two Black women serving in the Senate for the first time ever, the first transgender woman to ever serve in Congress, and this week—with Rep. Haley Stevens’ entrance into Michigan’s US Senate race—the continuation of a welcome trend we’ve rarely seen before, with multiple viable women competing with each other as the frontrunners in competitive races.
But our mission hasn’t changed. Because while we’ve made incredible progress getting more women involved in politics, we still have so much more to do.
When we launched in 1996, women made up 11 percent of Congress and 2 percent of governorships. When we re-launched in 2015, women made up 19 percent of Congress and 12 percent of governorships. Now, women make up 28 percent of Congress and 26 percent of governorships—but that’s still far from parity.
WomenCount is the tool we need for this moment: No matter what else, we must change the people in power (and keep the ones we like). Expanding communities of women donors is a pathway to electing more women, and we have work to do right now.