Friend,

On April 2, 1974, Kathy Kozachenko made history as the first openly gay candidate to win public office. She won a city council seat in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and paved the way for future LGBTQ+ leaders. Now every year, LGBTQ Victory Institute honors Kathy's legacy by celebrating National Out to Win Day.

This is a day that helps shine a light on the fact that LGBTQ+ Americans represent at least 4.5 percent of the U.S. population but hold only 0.17 percent of all elected offices nationwide. That means this November, we would have to elect 22,529 more LGBTQ+ people to achieve equitable representation.

No time like the present to get started! To help fight for equal representation in more ways than one, The Collective Team is partnering with the LGBTQ Victory Institute to celebrate National Out to Win Day and encourage more LGBTQ Americans to run for office. Are you LGBTQ+ and want to lead? Take the pledge to run for office.

ANYONE can run for office, and LGBTQ+ people desperately need to this year. The LGBTQ+ community is underrepresented across all levels of government. 99.83 percent of the elected officials in the U.S. are straight and cisgender – not mention most of them are white, too.

That’s why we’re asking you to run for office and help close the gap. If you are part of the LGBTQ+ community, take the National #OutToWin Day pledge at https://victoryinstitute.org/outtowin/.

Thank you,

The Collective Team