Bonus: California Women's List

Episode Summary

Title: Bonus California Women's List - The California Women's List is a political action committee that raises money to support women running for state office in California. - Only 33% of California's state legislature is currently female, so the group aims to increase women's representation through fundraising support. - The group uses Bonfire to sell merchandise like t-shirts to fundraise. Bonfire handles logistics so the volunteer-run group can focus on its mission. - The merch features the phrase "Elect More Women" to promote the goal of getting more women in office. - Fundraising is crucial but often harder for female candidates. The group helps provide the support women need to mount viable campaigns. - Members are motivated by a desire to increase women's representation and make positive change through greater diversity in state leadership roles.

Episode Show Notes

The Encyclopedia Womannica team speaks with Elizabeth Tulasi, one of the board members of California Women’s List, about the organization's work. This bonus episode is brought to you by Bonfire. Support California Women's List and Wonder Media Network on Bonfire at bonfire.com or wondermedianetwork.com/bonfire.

Episode Transcript

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Bonfire is the chosen partner of the California Women's List, a political action committee dedicated to funding and supporting female candidates running for state office in California. Here's Elizabeth Tullasi, one of the board members of California Women's List. California Women's List, we raise money for women SPEAKER_02: running for office in California, specifically state level office. So many women are making their way through a pipeline and so we hear about famous people like Kamala Harris, but she got her start at the local level in San Francisco, she went on to the state level and now obviously she's at the federal level. In California, even as progressive as we often think of ourselves, only 33% of our state legislature is female. So we know that we have a long way to go to reach parity. So when we see that there are groups that are underrepresented compared to their portion of the population, I think that shows that that's a symptom of other issues and the only way to fix the symptom is to have more of those voices represented and those perspectives making the rules that govern all of our lives. SPEAKER_11: California Women's List addresses issues of representation by driving at what can be a core issue for many campaigns, fundraising. Fundraising is crucial and it's often not an even playing field for male and female candidates. Here's Liz again. SPEAKER_02: We do see that women who are running for office, they can raise the same amount of money as male candidates, but they often do it by raising smaller amounts for more people. So it's really important that more women think of themselves also as donors because men are out there giving more than women. They're giving in larger chunks. We know that there's a gender pay gap and men are also able to advance in their careers more because maybe they haven't taken time to have families or for a lot of reasons that men have generally been able to fill the executive ranks at a higher rate than women. They have peers who are able to give larger amounts of money to their campaigns. So women have to spend more time cultivating a broader group of donors. And that is obviously even more true for women of color because within the gender pay gap, there's a racial pay gap that is also huge. SPEAKER_11: In order to reach their fundraising goals and to operate on a budget, Bonfire was the right choice for California Women's List. So we decided to use Bonfire for our merchandise campaign SPEAKER_02: so that we could have the flexibility that we need as a small organization with a very low budget. All the money that we raise goes directly to women running for office in California. So we don't have cash to buy a bunch of stock. We're a completely volunteer run organization. We don't have any staff. So we don't have the internal capacity and the time to be running to the post office and mailing orders out as they come. Or we don't have, none of us have space in our garage for a bunch of t-shirts and mugs and masks. So Bonfire is a great platform for us to be able to handle all of those logistics. SPEAKER_11: California Women's List created merchandise featuring the phrase, elect more women. Here's the design chair of California Women's List, Amanda Benson, describing her inspiration for the design. SPEAKER_10: The thought that I was going with when I was designing this graphic is thinking about the people are as diverse as the landscape in California. And my elect more women design celebrates how when we work together, we could make the state more inclusive. SPEAKER_11: At the end of the day, it's a desire to make a difference and seek change that drives the team at California Women's List. California Women's List has given me an outlet SPEAKER_10: in which I feel like I'm part of the solution. SPEAKER_02: We're helping the women who are running for office, and we're also helping the women in California who are wanting to get more involved in politics, who want to make their voice heard. We are an avenue for them to get engaged in politics, often for the first time. SPEAKER_11: They hope you'll be inspired to take action too. SPEAKER_02: If not me, who, and if not now, when. And I think that really resonates with me and with a lot of the members of California Women's List because no one's gonna fix this. I think a lot of times I hear my friends and family saying stuff like, when are they gonna fix this coronavirus thing? When are they gonna make some good gun reform? When are they gonna turn around this whatever? And it's like, who is they? We are they, we are them, this is it. 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