Gloria Totten

Gloria Totten is the president of Public Leadership Institute , an American political organization that works to elect progressive political candidates at the state and local levels. Prior to that, Totten served as president of Progressive Majority and political director of NARAL, where she oversaw the organization's electoral and grassroots work and managed its 27 state affiliates. She has also authored several news articles and chapters in books advocating for the Progressive movement.^[1][2] She serves on the Boards of Directors for Advocates for Youth, Gadflyer.com and TrueMajorityACTION PAC. She is the chair of the board of directors of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center and an Advisory Committee Member for the Women's Information Network, the Drum Major Institute Scholars Program and Wellstone Action. Totten was named a "Rising Star of Politics" in 2002 by Campaigns & Elections magazine.^[3]

Early life

Totten became involved with progressive politics at an early age. She attended her first precinct caucus in her home state of Minnesota at age nine, conducted her first precinct caucus training at age 19, and led her first candidate training at age 21.^[4] Totten also worked as the education director for Pro-Choice Resources, as president and lobbyist for the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and as a grassroots organizer on campaigns from the presidential to mayoral levels.^[5]

NARAL Pro-Choice America

Totten first worked with NARAL as the executive director of Maryland NARAL from 1993-1996. During her tenure, she served as the organization's chief lobbyist and strategist, chairperson for the state pro-choice coalition, director of the political action committee, and was responsible for raising the annual operating and program budgets.^[5] She served as the affiliate representative to the national NARAL Pro-Choice America Board of Directors, and her affiliate received numerous awards during her tenure there, including the 1993 Campus Organizing Award, 1994 Diversity Organizing Award and 1995 Outstanding Affiliate Award.^[3]

In 1996, Totten took a position with NARAL's national office as its political director. While there, she worked to develop the organization's first nationwide pro-choice voter file, which consisted of 2.9 million pro-choice identified voters in 2000. She also devised all of NARAL's advocacy campaigns, including numerous ballot initiative campaigns, legislative battles, and the Stop Ashcroft! campaign in 2001. During the 2000 elections, she created and implemented a US$12 million electoral program, with campaigns in 16 states for the Presidential contest, eight Senate races, and 24 House races.

Progressive Majority

In 2001, Totten was recruited to head the newly created group Progressive Majority, which was designed to help elect progressive candidates at all levels of the US government. Since its inception, Progressive Majority has elected 272 candidates and has built up a "farm team" of almost 500 potential candidates. Under her leadership, the organization has expanded to eight states, and has developed into the most comprehensive national progressive candidate recruitment program in the country. Totten also worked to establish Progressive Majority's Racial Justice Campaign, which works to elect candidates of color and increase the diversity of local and state governments. Her stated aim is to "take back the state legislatures, and then take those states off the table in national elections.^[6]" Progressive Majority's ultimate goal, though, was to take over state legislatures by 2010 in order to put Democrats in control of redistricting.

Public Leadership Institute

In 2015, Gloria moved on to found the Public Leadership Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy and leadership center focused on raising awareness on issues of equity and justice.

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