Ignite works to recruit and train women to run for elected office. 
As a part of Cheddar News' celebration of Women's History Month, CEO Sara Guillermo joins Cheddar Politics to discuss her organization's work ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Cheddar Politics

'Ignite' Training Women to Run for Public Office

Welcome back to Cheddar politics. This women's history month. Cheddar news is celebrating the strides of women across industries and politics is of course no exception over the past few election cycles, we've seen record numbers of women running for office, but potential male candidates are still more likely than their female counterparts to say they've considered running for office period. So joining us now is Sarah Guillermo Ceo of Ignite, which works to encourage and train women to get involved in politics and their communities. Sarah, it's so great to have you. I love women's History month. I love having this conversation. So just really break down what you do at Ignite and how you kind of go about encouraging women across the political spectrum to run for office. Hi, um, I'm so excited to be here this afternoon. Um, Ignites a movement of young women who are ready and eager to become the next generation of political leaders. Were the largest and most diverse organization that provides yearlong programming to young women in their home communities. And I'm really excited to talk about the candidates that we have in our alumni network that are particularly running in the midterms this year and I feel like our young women are stepping up in the middle of what feels like the craziest time of all of our lives. Um, and they're really stepping up to serve their communities. I love to hear that I do want to kind of get your take on why it is that women are so less likely to say that they've even considered running right. Women are of course running households a lot of times they're running businesses and offices, they do a lot of running of things, but they never think about running for office. Why is it that men are so much more likely to consider that path for themselves than women are? Yeah, I mean, I think we've seen a lot of research, um, and I know jennifer lawless just put out some research to um, that is really telling the ambition gap between men and women. And I think, you know, primarily what we're talking about for young women and that's why Ignite focuses on young women is that we want to get to them before. They have had um, you know, five degrees before that they have gone all through college before, that they've gone through whatever, you know, monumental piece there is to their life if they are going to get married or they're going to be the head of whatever household that they're going to be the head of. And so I think a lot of it is to think about how do we get to them younger, how do we build ambitions super early so that they can define their call to service and connect the dots at a much younger level than um, than, you know, where I am in my age group currently. Well, and some of it too, is also showing them that they can both, that they can have lots of things right? Not all the things right, Nothing's perfect but that they can be, you know public servants and parents if that's their path or partners. I think that that's been a huge challenge for women, hasn't it is sort of the how can I have it all? Yeah, I mean that's a very large conversation that all of us are having right right now because how do you have it all when you're thinking about mothers, I've a toddler, three years old that is not vaccinated. And I think about all the parents that are on my team and I think about all of my parents, friends and my family members that have kiddos that can't even be vaccinated yet. And so when you're thinking about parents and parenting at this level, in the middle of the pandemic, when you do not know what kind of child care you're going to have, how do you have, I mean we are going to hope that my three year old is not running into the middle of this interview right now and that is real, that is like a total real thing. So I think a lot of those different questions are happening for women and I think that we are making strides, but I think women at the forefront of what we are trying to accomplish in this country right now and what we need to accomplish in this country to bridge all of the different divides that currently exist. I think young women are at the forefront and we need to continue to invest in them and to flood the pipeline full of them first. Let me reassure you that my kids have crashed many a live shot including one where my son was completely naked. So you know what, we're in it together. But but I want to talk about young women in particular because you talked about reaching young women earlier, how how is sort of reaching out to younger women to younger millennial gen z women changing the conversation about who can run for office because there really has been this idea that you need to have this big career or this big education to be able to serve people. Yeah, I mean, I can tell you a gazillion different stories of our young women. Um I am really excited about young women who I've been with ignites since 2010 since we started. And one of the first questions we asked them in the classroom is like, what do you want to change in your community? And we have been able to connect the dots of for example, none of the young women in my program the first year liked the school lunch. They were like, I don't like it, I don't eat it. So they did a survey in a poll of literally looking at lunch like who's eating their lunch, how much of it that are they eating and then they saw nobody was eating lunch and then they're like, can we go to the dean and find out if people are like not doing well in their classes after lunch. And they're discovered that they were not doing well in 6th and 7th period. And so they actually advocated so that they can have a different lunch provider and had students actually participate in the policy making process of like who are the vendors? How do we actually get lunch and understand it from that standpoint? Um and I think that is a really big thing for girls to learn at a very early age imagining what that would look like if that was sustained through a lifetime. I love that story. That's a great story because you're sometimes you're you're doing this type of advocacy, you don't even notice. Okay, I have about a minute left, Sarah one last question. What is the outlook for the midterms? How is your candidate pool shaping up? Oh, I am so excited about the midterms. Um I just had a panel of young women at South by Southwest this morning and I'm excited. We are focused on first time voters, but I'm excited about the candidacies. We have two young women in particular that are actually running reelection campaigns. Carla is running a re election campaign continuing to be the youngest. Latina to be serving in the Dallas school board charleston is running a re election campaign for city council where she served as a mayor, all of 2021 we have two young women who are running for city council um in Maryland state delegate chiquita Jackson and mary Black. And I am just excited that these young women are stepping up, like I said, in the middle of what feels like the craziest time and it's not just about running for office. I'm also excited about the ambition that we're building for young women to serve as candidates, elected leaders, policymakers, campaign operatives, commissioners and community organizers to truly flood the pipeline all across the board. But your enthusiasm is contagious. Sarah! Thank you so much for joining us. Sarah Guillermo is ceo of ignite, encouraging women to run for office.