Grassroots Campaigns National Leadership

During his final year at Lehigh University in lovely Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Bill had the opportunity to work with a local faith-based community organizing group. This experience caused him to go out into the world firmly believing that, in order to see any real change in this country, we need to do more than just get new people elected. Following graduation, Bill ended up Worcester, MA, and it was there that he heard about Grassroots Campaigns and began the work of getting your average person on the sidewalk to care about progressive issues and causes as an Assistant Director in the Boston Street office. Since September of 2009, he has been thrilled to have the opportunity to run fundraising campaigns on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, Oxfam America and the ASPCA. This summer, Bill was excited to return to his home state of Connecticut and open a new fundraising office in New Haven. He is returning to his home office, Boston Street, this fall, eager to make sure we can keep these progressive issues and causes moving forward through the 2010 elections and beyond!

Francesca Villa
Canvass Director
New York City

After studying women’s rights at Hamilton College, Francesca graduated with one goal, making a difference for the pro-choice movement. Sitting in class debating maternal leave laws, gender-biased pay scale, and the third wave of feminism, Francesca knew that there was more to the women’s rights movement outside academia so she jumped at the chance to join Grassroots Campaigns as an Assistant Director in New York City. During the summer of 2010, she trained activists who campaigned for women’s reproductive rights with Planned Parenthood Federation of America while the healthcare debate unfolded on Capitol Hill. After hundreds of conversations with pro-choice New Yorkers, she realized the only way to make tangible social change was at the grassroots level. Since working with Planned Parenthood, Francesca has expanded her horizons and campaigned for the environment, animal rights, and humanitarian causes. Now as the Canvass Director of New York's residential outreach team she spends everyday inspiring new activists to campaign on behalf of progressive causes while changing hearts and minds, one door at a time.

Rallie Murray attended UC Santa Cruz, where she studied Cultural Anthropology and Classical Studies. Her last quarter was spent as a volunteer translator and coordinator with a local labor organization. Upon gra

duation, her burning desire to continue organizing led her to a Craigslist ad to work for Grassroots Campaigns with Equality California, and was Lead Field Manager of the Door campaign. She became an Assistant Director in the Santa Cruz office in the fall of 2009, working with Amnesty International on a campaign to fight violence against women.

In 2010 she ran the Cincinnati Repower America office, and was dropped into the jungles of Ohio with a car full of paperwork and a hunger for progressive change. Training a crew of activists-showed her the real importance of the work that Grassroots Campaigns does. Often, she met people with did not know that they could write letters to their Senators demanding action on issues that they care about. Upon her return to Santa Cruz in the summer of 2010, she stepped into the role of CD to run the ACLU, EQCA, and OxFam America campaigns. Currently she is building a community of activists in sunny Santa Cruz, working to build better futures for kids everywhere with Save the Children.

From a young age Molly Ruggles could never leave well enough alone. Spending time on her family's farm in Winfield Kansas and making tater-tot casserole in her spare time was great, but she always felt t

he need to be doing something more, something worthwhile. Things took a turn during the 2008 election, Molly watched as disenfranchised people in her town became excited about politics and she got excited too. The ability to rally a community around a common goal was something she never had witnessed before, and she wanted to do her part. So she signed up to help the Young Democrats at her school with their voter registration drives. This in-between classes activism turned into a Political Science degree with a minor in French from Kansas State University and that's all well and good but what could be done with it?

Molly decided that the world of textbooks and caffeine fueled nights at the library were important, but to make an imprint on the world around her it was time to roll the sleeves up and be proactive about issues that mattered most to her. Molly joined the Seattle PM street team as an Assistant Canvass Director and since then has worked on animals rights, women's rights issues and campaigns to end child poverty. She also has been able to return to her roots by working on GOTV campaigns in Kansas City, MO as well as Denver, CO. Right now she is helping to launch a campaign to protect women's reproductive rights in Chicago.

Meghan Daniels studied political science at the University of Kansas because of her passion for politics. She was very active throughout her college career working as an intern duri

ng the Obama Campaign and also the Kansas Democratic Party. Her love for activism and campaigns to further progressive issues brought her to Grassroots Campaigns.

She started working for Grassroots Campaigns in the summer of 2010 as an Assistant Canvass Director in the Los Angeles office. During that fall and winter, she worked on many
campaigns such as Planned Parenthood Federation of America, American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, EQCA, Save the Children and ASPCA. In Feb of 2011, she moved to Boston to work on our Summer Recruitment Project as an Assistant National Recruiter.

She loves getting young people who are passionate about social change and progressive causes involved in political activism.

Nicholas grew up in the heart of central Pennsylvania, known to most East-Coasters as "Pennsyltucky." Here he learned all he needed to know about conservative politics and the corporatization of rural America. Fleeing to Philadelphia in 2006, he began studying History at Temple, originally to teach in inner-city schools. Quickly becoming fed-up with the way History is presented, he realized that

studying the movements of European royals and American aristocrats wasn't going to teach him anything he wanted to know. He began to delve into the contemporary history of the Global South, and his fascination quickly turned into becoming enamored with the study of food rights and with rural social movements across the "developing nations," which instilled in him a passion for community-level organizing as the most effective model for change. He started working with Grassroots Campaigns as a Field Manager in the summer of 2010, and had the summer of a lifetime building a huge team of dedicated activists who love their job and are good at it. This success quickly led him to take on the Assistant Director role in Philadelphia, specializing in recruitment.

Since working with GCI, Nicholas has gotten to work against poverty on three different campaigns, and has taken on initiatives to fight for equal rights and the environment. In February of 2011 Nicholas packed his bags and moved halfway across the country to become the Canvass Director of GCI's newest office in Kansas City, Missouri and is now working with his team to fight global poverty in the Midwest's newest beacon of progressive politics.

On-the-Ground Staff