Beyonce isn’t the only one who thinks women should run the world.
She Should Run, an organization created in 2011 with the goal of recruiting and training women to run for public office, launched a new campaign Tuesday called “250kBy2030.” The organization’s goal is to encourage 250,000 women to run for US office by 2030. As of 2017, less than 25% of those offices are held by women.
“We have been overjoyed with the surge of women who have stepped up to say they want to run for office since Election Day,” She Should Run founder and CEO Erin Loos Cutraro told CNN. “This campaign was an opportunity to take a step back and look at the landscape, and look at what our ultimate goal is: To get half the elected offices in this country to be represented by women. We know much of dialogue happening in country right now is about what this surge of women raising their hands will mean for 2018. But the conversation is so much bigger than that, and this is change that isn’t going to happen overnight.”
Since the election, more than 15,000 people have joined the She Should Run community, Cutraro said.
“It’s been quite remarkable growth,” she added. “It’s important to celebrate the increasing number of women who have raised their hand to run for office. But there also needs to be ecosystem to support them all the way to ballot. That doesn’t currently exist for women.”
She Should Run wants veterans of the campaign trail to join a mentorship program that will allow aspiring candidates to gain first-hand knowledge from someone with experience. The organization also wants to get the community involved by asking people to refer leaders in their community who may be interested in running for office. Lastly, She Should Run is creating a technology platform to connect women within the community by better targeting the content to their specific needs based on location, office and community.
Axios first reported the news of the campaign.
She Should Run’s efforts come amid global efforts to prioritize gender equality. In March, the UN launched its latest Women in Politics map, which showed that women’s political parity is slow to grow.
Since losing the election in November, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has also been encouraging women to run for public office.
“Let us hope there is a wave of young women running for office in America,” Clinton said in March, while at a New York luncheon for the nonprofit organization Girls Inc. “And let’s be sure we support them in every way we can. Let’s help them shatter stereotypes and lift each other up.”
Other lawmakers have also been vocal about getting more representation for women in office.
“Women are about 51% of the U.S. population, but make up just under 20% of the United States Congress. We must change that,” Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, tweeted in May.
“I think too often we’re leaving half the talent pool this country has to offer outside of the room,” Cutraro said. “It is important to note that we feel like women do add value to the conversation. It’s why we do the work we do. If you add women to a decision making room they are not already in, better decisions are made.”