Secretary of State hopeful Tina Podlodowski to emcee NPI’s 2016 Spring Fundraising Gala

Tonight, with NPI’s 2016 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala just four weeks away, we are thrilled to announce that we have a won­der­ful Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies lined up to run this year’s speak­ing pro­gram: Tina Pod­lodows­ki, for­mer Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber and cur­rent can­di­date for Sec­re­tary of State.

Tina has a long his­to­ry of pub­lic ser­vice in Seat­tle and the greater Puget Sound region. After work­ing for Microsoft in the late 1980s and ear­ly 1990s, she joined the Seat­tle City Coun­cil, where she chaired the Pub­lic Safe­ty, Health, and Tech­nol­o­gy Com­mit­tee and the Neigh­bor­hoods and Neigh­bor­hood Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. She was involved in pass­ing sev­er­al ordi­nances to guar­an­tee LGBT and work­er rights.

In the ear­ly 2000s, after leav­ing the Coun­cil, she ran the Life­long AIDS Alliance and then the Big Broth­ers & Big Sis­ters of Puget Sound. She was a senior vice pres­i­dent for Porter Nov­el­li dur­ing much of Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma’s first term, and became a senior advis­er to Ed Mur­ray fol­low­ing his elec­tion as May­or in 2013.

Tina is now run­ning to become Wash­ing­ton’s next Sec­re­tary of State, in what will be one of the nation’s most con­test­ed SOS racees. Incum­bent Kim Wyman is the lat­est in a long line of Repub­li­cans to have held the office since the 1950s. She is also the last statewide elect­ed Repub­li­can offi­cial on the Left Coast.

Since Wyman was elect­ed in 2012, Wash­ing­ton has had three straight con­sec­u­tive elec­tions with poor turnout. Last year, we set a record for the worst turnout in state his­to­ry, at least since we start­ed reg­is­ter­ing vot­ers in the 1930s. Pod­lodows­ki believes we need new lead­er­ship to address this cri­sis. She says she believes the state needs a “chief vot­ing offi­cer”, not mere­ly a chief elec­tions administrator.

At NPI, we believe par­tic­i­pa­tion is vital to the health of a democ­ra­cy. While we don’t endorse can­di­dates for office, we believe con­test­ed elec­tions are a good thing. Vot­ers have more rea­son to par­tic­i­pate when they have cred­i­ble can­di­dates to choose from. By step­ping up to run — which is no small sac­ri­fice — Tina is open­ing up a new chap­ter in her his­to­ry of dis­tin­guished pub­lic service.

Tina is a fab­u­lous speak­er, and we’re so glad to have her as the host of our most impor­tant event of the year. We hope you’ll con­sid­er join­ing us and Tina for our eighth Spring Fundrais­ing Gala. If you haven’t yet bought your tick­et yet, we urge you to do so now using one of the but­tons below.

A house­hold tick­et admits all the mem­bers of an imme­di­ate fam­i­ly and is a good val­ue if you plan to attend with your spouse or chil­dren. (The gala is a fam­i­ly-friend­ly event, and young peo­ple of all ages are welcome!).

These are our tick­et rates:

• Indi­vid­ual ($75, admits one person)
• House­hold ($120, admits an entire family)
• Liv­ing Light­ly ($25, for stu­dents and activists on lim­it­ed incomes)

Buy a ticket to the gala

Click above to buy a tick­et using a cred­it card.

Here’s what else you can expect at our 2016 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala:

• A full din­ner buf­fet with veg­e­tar­i­an and veg­an choices
• Beer and wine selec­tions from our cash bar
• Oppor­tu­ni­ties to min­gle with fel­low activists and elect­ed leaders
• A chance to win a scrump­tious dessert for your table at our sec­ond annu­al Dessert Dash, orga­nized by our Host Committee
• A fam­i­ly-friend­ly atmosphere

If you’d like to RSVP for the gala on Face­book, you can do so here.

Stu­dents who want to vol­un­teer to help put on the event can get in the door free. If you’re inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing, please get in touch with us.

In the weeks to come, we’ll be shar­ing more details about our 2016  gala, includ­ing the names of our oth­er speak­ers. We hope you’ll help us make our biggest event of the year a suc­cess by buy­ing your tick­et and com­mit­ting to attend.

See you on April 1st!