Who We Are
We are Women for Election, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organisation whose vision is of an Ireland with balanced participation of women and men in political life. Our mission is to inspire and equip women to succeed in politics. We do this by training women to enter public life, giving them practical skills and tools to help them navigate a career in politics. We believe that for fairness and balance, we need to see #MoreWomen in politics.
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Our Approach Works
We start with the local elections to build a pipeline of qualified and experienced female candidates that can go forward and contest general elections. We ran our first residential EQUIP campaign school in 2013. Of the 20 participants, 16 ran in the 2014 local elections, 12 got elected as local representatives. And 5 of those original 20 EQUIP participants have since successfully been elected as representatives at National or European level (2 TDs, 2 Senators and 1 MEP). Our programmes and our approach are proven and they work.
Of the newly elected female TDs in the Dail at the last general election, 40% have come through Women for Election training programmes and 50% of female local representatives are our alumnae. We want to get #MoreWomen into politics. Donate today to help us to make this happen.
We Need You To Take Action For Change
We need €50,000 to train 300 women ahead of the 2019 local elections in Ireland and potentially for a general election before then. This funding will help us to heavily subsidise the women on our training programmes. With this funding we can offer some full places at full scholarship and all other places subsidised by 40%. We aim to run between 8 and 10 training programmes between now and the 2019 local elections. Each one of these training programmes will give women expert training in communications and campaign strategy. We provide tailored best-in-class training but we do it on a lean budget so not only do our programmes work but they are a fantastic investment in social change.
Want bang for your social buck? We deliver.
What You Get
Besides the satisfaction of changing Irish politics for the better, when you contribute to our crowdfunding campaign you can choose between a host of perks. From the basics like badges, tote bags and posters, to unique experiences like a specially commissioned Women for Election short story by award-winning Irish author Martina Devlin. And you also get the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve helped directly to get #MoreWomen into Irish politics. Help us to change the face of Irish politics and achieve balance in our representation.
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Why We Need to Subsidise Training For Women In Politics
Women are held back from entering politics for many reasons including the 5 C's - Cash, Candidate Selection, Culture, Childcare and Confidence. By training women to enter public life we are giving them the confidence they need to succeed on their political path. We are raising money to heavily subsidise our training programmes in an effort to cut down on the need for cash to get trained. In addition, our expert training covers fundraising and this knowledge helps women to overcome this barrier. We support female candidates to ensure that we have female political role models to encourage women to enter politics in numbers and thus change the culture. We hope this crowdfunding campaign will continue this work and help to raise the profile of women in politics. By encouraging and training female political candidates, we hope to ensure that the candidate selection barrier is also overcome.
Other Ways You Can Help
You don't have to contribute financially to help us achieve our mission.
- Spread the word about our crowdfunding campaign to your community and networks.
- Follow us on Twitter @women4election.
- Like and follow our Women For Election Facebook page.
- Follow us on Instagram @women4electionire.
- Like, retweet and share our social media posts to help us to get #MoreWomen into politics.
- Encourage a woman you admire to run for politics and tell her about our training programmes.
All these actions will help us to achieve our mission of balanced participation of women and men in political life.
