This was originally posted on my personal substack which you can read here.
While the media, Democrats, and progressives debate messaging strategies and the billions we poured into elections, we’re missing the forest for the trees. A serious people crisis undermines every campaign, organization, and message we try to deliver, and few are doing anything about it.
This is an introduction to an ongoing series exposing the infrastructure gaps that cost us elections and offering a roadmap for building sustainable progressive power. Based on GAIN Power‘s unique view of the entire progressive ecosystem—from party committees to consulting firms to grassroots organizations—we’re documenting what’s broken and what we can build instead.
The Crisis: We’re hemorrhaging experienced professionals. At the same time, Republicans invest four times more in pipeline work (see Arena’s research on this). With 522 days until the midterms and nearly 200,000 public servants and democracy workers displaced by DOGE cuts, the talent pipeline should be under construction.
The Problems: Consultants getting rehired based on relationships rather than results, experienced professionals pushed aside for “fresh faces,” and strategic coordination gaps that waste billions while conservatives build sophisticated networks.
The Human Cost: We hire based on connections rather than competence, underinvest in basic HR support, and treat staff as expendable. When people finally get jobs in our movement, poor management and lack of recognition drive them away. Few feel valued when employers treat them as replaceable. This is why recognition and appreciation programs aren’t just nice-to-haves—they’re essential for keeping the people who believe enough to show up. I know from my many information interviews and informal coaching sessions that our people are traumatized right now.
Our most popular sessions at RootsCamp weren’t about why we lost—they were about the bad work culture for so many organizers. Shout out to Chanelle Powe for leading the most engaged session, All Tea, All Shade: Untold stories from the field-what you wish people knew! Organizers need a safe space to share their stories, and it was sad to see how many had this in common. Our democracy work culture is terrible.
The Solutions: We have some recommendations, and I will write more about them. Build permanent Democracy Centers where progressive professionals can collaborate year-round. Create a Talent Table that connects the right people with the right opportunities across electoral cycles. Establish political standards that reward consultants based on results, not relationships, and have more transparency in contracting and hiring practices. Develop comprehensive Movement Mapping to prevent duplication and maximize strategic coordination. Institute more recognition and community organizing professional development, cultural, and work health programs that sustain the relationships, making all other work possible, not just better talking points.
I’m glad some thoughtful others are talking about and doing somethings about this (now and in the past), including Micah Sifrey on the Connector, David Donnelly, and Doran Schrantz, We Choose Us, Maurice Mitchell from Working Families Party via The Convergence, Colin Delaney’s E-Politics, Lauren Baer from the Arena here in Newsweek and the Courier, Billy Wimsett at the Movement Voter Project. The fantastic team at the Center for Popular Democracy at The Forge, Chuck Rocha from Solidarity Strategies – who always talks this talk and walks the walk from his media coverage, see here and his TÃo Bernie book. My friends, Paul Tewes, Tasha Cole, Heather Booth, Will Robinson, Emily Parcell, and Teresa Vilmain have also profoundly influenced and added to my thoughts. And I always appreciate the work of our friends at the Arena, Zinc Collective, Re:Power, the National Democratic Training Committee, and groups in the states like Lead Ohio, Great Lakes Lead in MI, tackling some of these issues locally.
My colleague at GAIN Power including Natasha Smith , Stephanie Noguera, and my partner at Seth Tanner at Amplify Power helped me write and edit some of these pieces. Many others writing about why the Democrats lost and what we need to do now have further contributed to my resolve, especially the recent Catalist report about what happened in 2024.
The diagnosis is clear. The solutions exist. The question is whether we’ll invest in democracy infrastructure before it’s too late.
GAIN Power Needs Your Help Today to Build The Solutions Needed to Power the Democratic Party and Progressive Movement.
If you’re getting this far, I hope you’ll join this conversation and share your comments. If you’re so moved, please donate to our work. We need significantly more investment in these programs.
We’re organizing the Powerful IDEA (Impacting Democracy, Elections, and Advocacy) Awards and Democracy Expo, where we’ll discuss this and more on June 24 and 25 in Washington, DC.
This series builds the case for transformational investment in progressive coordination infrastructure—a fraction of what we spend on elections, but potentially game-changing for everything we do.