Sara Guillermo, CEO of Ignite, joins ChedHER To discuss how the organization has trained nearly 20,000 young women to discover and flex their political power, and what young women should keep in mind during this midterm election year.

Opening Bell

What Young Women Should Know About Midterm Elections

Welcome back to check her brought to you by Jpmorgan Chase Politics is typically seen as a male dominated industry, but the tides are changing. Our next guest is building a pipeline of the next generation of political leaders giving young women the tools they need to run and win. Joining us now is Sarah Gmo ceo of Ignite, the nation's largest and most diverse young women's political leadership. Sarah, glad to have you back on. Can you just tell us more about Ignite and your mission? Hi Alicia, thanks so much for having me again. It's been almost a year now. Um we are so incredibly proud to represent the largest and most diverse national organization that's training tens of thousands of young women and girls to become political leaders to advocate for the issues they care about and to really organize within their communities. We're helping them identify the change that they want to see and help them own their power to make it happen. Since 2010. When we started, we've trained nearly 20,000 and counting gen Z and millennial young women to discover and flex their political power. And I just want to make it clear that when I say young women, I'm talking about anyone who identifies as a woman or a girl as well as folks that identify as non binary youth and we're providing thousands of trainings across the country so that young people can have the tools that they need and the networks and the mentors to become candidates, campaign staffers, commissioners, community organizers and policymakers. We're looking forward just a few months down the road and you think about midterm elections. What should young women know about the 2022 midterm elections? Yeah, well, primaries are happening every day now. Um we had a big one this week. Um you know, I think the key thing is I want them to know that this is the moment for them to show their power their really poised to be the most politically engaged generation. They're the fastest generation By 2028. Gen Z and millennials will be the largest and most diverse voting block And the United States, which is huge. Um, and frankly, knowing what we saw in 2020, I really want young women to have a plan. Um we don't know what's going to happen in the fall with the pandemic. We don't know where universities and schools and frankly what the voting laws will look like in each of the states and you know, where our ballots are gonna be. So I want to make sure every young woman knows how to access their ballot and where to cast their votes. And it always feels like that's something that you figure out, you know, when election season comes, but that comes faster than you realize and life tends to happen. So kind of mapping that out earlier is really an important part of kind of doing your civic duty and kind of responsibility. Um, May is is asian american and pacific islander heritage month? What are some of the biggest challenges that you think young women in this community in particular are facing? Yeah, there's so much that we can aspire to that needs something that we see modeled, you know, representation truly, truly matters. And um, this next generation is really in need of that. Um, a PI folks only make up 2.4% of municipal offices across the country, which is over 6% of the national population. I mean I think about my own journey as a young immigrant within this country. Um, and on the second day I think of kindergarten, my mom got a letter that said Sarah's, you know, like really acclimating to the community, but she keeps telling people what to do and I was really outspoken and that was critical. My mom had a choice of what to do and I think it's you know, communities come together and are making decisions about how to support their youth and this is one of the key factors and really thinking about that. And here at ignite, we're really working to integrate political leadership and civic engagement into their lives. Um, and more than 75% of art organization identify as women of colour. Um, so we're really working to address the different cultural barriers that are really creating um them from having the path to political leadership in terms of your plans for growing and ignited continuing to kind of empower even more young women to be this next generation of, of political kind of leaders. Just talk a little bit of what you guys are doing there. Yeah. You know, when I was here last year, I was talking about our as us as a recipient of equality, Can't wait challenge That was funded by pivotal Mackenzie scott and the Schusterman Family Foundation and that's really helping us to catapult our expansion across the country. Currently, there's 35 million gen z years out there and the youngest of them are eight years old And I want to reach at least 1% of those young women so that we can get to them really, really infect them with their political ambition and think about what they can do and we're seeing exciting growth right now across the country for young women to Ellen their political power and to be able to accompany these young women across their political journey Um is the huge need for us to scale and to keep growing as an organization and our goals are to get into every single state across the country to train 350,000 young women to step into positions of leadership within their communities and I believe no young women should ever be told to wait their turn their today's leaders, Sarah, we have to have you back on, not a year from now because midterms are coming up around the corner and you deal with the critical kind of base here. So we'll get your insight. Hopefully, the next couple of months. Sarah Guillermo, a ceo of Ignite Jpmorgan Chase is committed to supporting women owned and women run businesses at all stages of that business journey. To learn more, visit Jpmorgan Chase dot com slash w o t m.