2020 will be a big year politically. Are you ready to take action in your community?

We all know that there is a lot at stake on the national level with the 2020 Presidential elections, but how about in our own backyards? Here in the Washington region, we have several critical elections of our own approaching. GGWash needs your help to ensure that we elect leaders who will make the hard choices necessary to build a sustainable and inclusive Washington region.

Each year, the GGWash staff recruits a team of volunteers who facilitate our endorsement processes. They chose an election they’d like to cover and work together with their teammates and our staff to create a questionnaire for candidates, solicit responses, and make endorsements based on those responses. These endorsements are highly valued by our readers and are particularly important for local elections that do not often receive media coverage.

Local leaders are often the folks who determine the spending and policy priorities for their communities. Without leaders who understand the connections between exclusionary zoning, suburban sprawl, car dependancy, and the climate crisis, we will continue to end up with leaders who fight bike lanes tooth and nail and believe that widening highways is a solution to congestion.

In 2020 there will be competitive elections for the DC Council seats in Ward 2, Ward 4, Ward 7, and Ward 8, as well as for at least one at-large slot. There is also an Arlington County Board seat that could have a competitive primary. In addition, we will making endorsements in DC’s 299 ANC races. We are excited, but covering this all is going to be a big lift and we won’t be able to do it without your help.

If you’d like to be involved with the critical work of determining the future leadership of your ANC, ward, or city, please consider applying for our Elections Committee today!

If you are more interested in engaging with broader questions about policy or advocacy, or identifying opportunities for community members to take action, we hope you will consider applying for an advocacy oriented volunteer positions instead. There are currently two main ways to engage with GGWash’s advocacy work as a volunteer.

1. You can help to determine which coalitions GGWash joins and which policy positions we support by applying to join the Advocacy Committee.
2. You can help our team identify potential opportunities to take action by becoming an Action Allocator.

You can apply for either of these positions here, and a more detailed description of both of these roles can be found below.

Action Allocators will help us engage readers by looking at upcoming posts and identifying ones appropriate for putting the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” buttons we’ve been using (even more in 2018 with a drop-off in 2019, which is why we’re looking for volunteers to get involved in this and rejuventate it for 2020). These volunteers will sign up for one night a week to look at some posts and identify if the post could lead to a potentially actionable item.

Our Advocacy Committee is the governing board for this area. It determines whether we take positions on issues, send out email alerts, join coalitions, or sign on to letters, and sets policies around these. Members join a conference call about twice a month, attend quarterly in-person gatherings, and participate over email in between.

As always, we welcome folks who are interested in volunteering outside of these roles. A complete list of available volunteer opportunities is available here, and if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly at kjentoftherr@ggwash.org.