Using their superpowers to save American democracy
“In order for all of us to create a more decent, equal, and inclusive America, we have no choice but to do everything we can to not have another 2016.”
This comment from Parker Sheedy (HBS ‘18) was typical of the six volunteers at a Young Leaders for Biden meeting last week. The group is organizing graduate students and young alumni at UVA, Michigan, Harvard, Penn, Stanford, NYU, Duke, American University, and Emory University to raise money, host events, and get out the vote for the Biden campaign. So far, the group has raised more than $16,000 from 140 donors.
“Each one of us has a superpower, and if we choose to use that in a way that helps others, and in this case, supports the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we can create a better country,” said the group’s founder, Ben Leiner (UVA Darden ‘19) .
Leiner helped run a startup political nonprofit before business school and ran a fundraising and get out the vote campaign from scratch. He thought that he could share his lessons from that experience to help leaders from other schools do the same.
Among all the issues he could fight on, Leiner said, “If [Biden doesn’t] win this election, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to get the progress we need to make on everything else we so desperately need, like criminal justice reform, affordable healthcare, and racial justice.”
Willie Reaves (Emory ‘12) agreed. “I was involved in a number of Black Lives Matter protests and was tear-gassed at a rally in early May. This reignited a fire, passion, and anger in me, and I realized in addition to fighting for BLM, we needed to get Trump out of the White House.”
Although the initiative began predominantly to raise funds, the group found that students wanted more ways to get involved. They are working with the Biden campaign itself to plan events, phone bank, and spread the word throughout the graduate student community about how they can participate in the political process. Every one of the alumni volunteers also has full-time jobs ranging from technology companies, to government, to nonprofits.
As an incoming MBA student, Lakshmi Davey (Wharton, ‘22) searched for ways to support the Biden-Harris campaign and engage with her classmates. “Being involved in Young Leaders for Biden is a great way to build relationships with others while supporting something important,” Davey said.
In her short time with the movement, Davey has received strong interest from her classmates across a variety of areas. “It’s been a great way to build relationships with people who share the same values as you,” Davey said.
Especially in professional schools, some volunteers have heard their classmates regretting not getting more involved in the 2016 campaign and taking Donald Trump more seriously.“I was active in terms of sharing articles of how I felt and telling my friends why I thought they should vote for my candidate,” Drew Hackman (NYU Stern ‘21) recalled, “but I recognize now that was not enough.”
“I was tracking 538 and the New York Times, and I remember the gut-wrenching feeling of what happened that night,” Whitney Martin (Michigan Ross ‘16) said. “The stakes are too high for us to sit idle,” she said.
Even though there are less than nine weeks before Election Day, Leiner says the group’s work is just beginning.
“We’re recruiting new captains at new schools every week,” Leiner said. “And we’re always looking for ideas for new events, fundraising campaigns, and ways to get out the vote.”
Check out Young Leaders for Biden here. All contributions go directly to the Biden campaign.