Dear John,

As we close out the year, I want to wish you a warm holiday season and share my reflections, learnings, and hopes for the future with you. 

It’s been a year of ups and downs. I felt gratitude and inspiration for all the ways our community showed up and turned out for Women Winning and our endorsed candidates, especially in difficult and important races. Together, united by our shared belief in reproductive justice, we accomplished these wins for the state of Minnesota:

I want to acknowledge the particularly painful, enraging, and bitter Presidential loss and the re-election of Donald Trump. He and his allies are a direct threat to reproductive freedom everywhere, including to our hard-won protections here in Minnesota. We must be prepared for an intense and grueling battle to defend our reproductive rights against powerful and organized anti-choice extremists. Now is not the time to disengage from political work or let our political actions be driven by fear. 

I am hopeful – and for good reason. I know there’s a path forward, guided by our new strategic plan. Just this month, our Board adopted a future-forward strategy based on over a year of deep listening, thoughtful discovery, and exciting planning. Our new strategic plan extends beyond a single election cycle and builds a deep bench of pro-choice champions and political operatives across the state of Minnesota. Our plan, along with our shared values, uniquely prepares us for the fight to come. We are not backing down. We will continue to elect pro-choice champions across Minnesota, up and down the ballot. 

I also want to share the exciting and impactful news that Women Winning is launching a new 501c(3) organization called Winning Forward. Winning Forward will open doors for Minnesotans to learn about and engage in the reproductive justice movement. We have a vision for a world where safeguarding the bodily autonomy of all people is fully embraced. We will work with people across Minnesota to take actionable steps to understand, defend and elevate reproductive rights. 

Winning Forward will be a new platform for education, engagement, and organizing across Minnesota around reproductive rights, reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, and reproductive justice. We are committed to reaching cities, towns, and rural areas of Minnesota, including tribal communities. We are committed to communities who have experienced the worst maternal health outcomes, violations to bodily autonomy and access to abortion healthcare. We are working to build Winning Forward in partnership with Propel Nonprofits. 

If you would like to become a founding donor to Winning Forward, you can make an end-of-year, tax-deductible donation through Propel Nonprofits. Propel Nonprofits is the 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor for Winning Forward. Donations from individual donors can be made out to Propel Nonprofits via check, ACH bank transfer, or Donor Advised Fund. When making a donation to Propel, please indicate that the donation is made "for the purpose of Winning Forward" in the memo.

Checks can be mailed to: 1 SE Main Street, Suite 600, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Contact Laura Ciotti at [email protected] with questions or for instructions on making an ACH bank transfer.

You will be hearing even more about this new effort in the coming year!

Join us in setting the course for Women Winning by donating to strategically expand and grow. BE FEARLESS, with reproductive freedom for all.

In solidarity and with hope for the new year, 

Nevada Littlewolf

Women Winning Executive Director