GAIN Power is infrastructure, not a program. Every organization in this space is doing important work. We are the connective tissue between all of them — and the platform that fills the gaps none of them address.
We're not trying to be THE training organization. We connect all of them and fill the gaps.
This applies to every function: jobs, training, unions, media, events, directories. GAIN Power is the hub.
"Imagine if Hollywood asked each actor to fundraise for their movie salary. Or if tech startups dissolved their whole staff every few months. Or if a professional sports team disbanded its roster at the end of every season and expected players to fend for themselves without agents, union protections, or training facilities."
— Amy Pritchard, 'Organizing Organizers,' Substack · July 2025
Politics isn't just a passion — it's a profession. And yet the people who power our democracy operate without the systems every other profession takes for granted.
We have 8+ bargaining units representing democracy workers — SEIU, Teamsters, NewsGuild, IATSE, CWG, IBEW, Congressional Workers Union, Democracy Workers Collective — all doing vital work, all disconnected from each other. Each new bargaining effort launches as if from scratch. There is no shared home, no unified standard, no powerful worker alliance that spans the political industry.
We have training organizations — NDTC, RE:Power, Arena, and others — each serving a slice of the ecosystem. Campaign workers. BIPOC leaders. Digital organizers. But no coordination between them, no shared curriculum standards, no pathway from one to the next.
We have job boards, media outlets, directories, and networking events — all serving different corners of the same movement, none of them connected.
This landscape also crosses political lines in ways worth naming plainly. Some organizations are openly partisan or Democratic-aligned (Arena, NDTC, re:power). At least one — AAPC — is genuinely bipartisan. Others, like Idealist and Campaigns & Elections, are nonpartisan by design. Scope varies just as much: most of what exists is national, but some (Tom Manatos Jobs) is really regional — built for Capitol Hill, not the country. And nationally is only half the picture — a much larger, harder-to-map layer of local and state organizations does this work city by city and state by state. GAIN Power is built to work across all of these lines, not just within one of them.
Every other organization serves a slice. GAIN Power connects the whole. This is not a competitive claim — it's a structural one.
* GAIN Power partners with and promotes all of these organizations. We are collaborators, not competitors.
| ORG | FOCUS | WHO THEY SERVE | POLITICAL ORIENTATION | SCOPE | Job Board & Placement | Training & Leadership Dev | Events & Convenings | Professional Community | Consultant & Services Marketplace | Content & Thought Leadership | Cross-Sector Reach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GAIN POWER | Ecosystem-Wide Infrastructure & Hub | ALL SECTORS — Campaigns + Nonprofits + Unions + PACs + Consultants + Advocacy + All 50 States | Progressive movement — spans C3 / LLC / PAC | National — all 50 states | ◐ Building | ✓ THE ONLY ONE | |||||
| Directories & Marketplace: a basic consultant/org directory is live today. The full vetted marketplace — ratings, RFP tools, ethical standards — is the proposed Consultant Class & Political TRUST Initiative, not yet built. Shown as "Building" to reflect that honestly. | |||||||||||
| ARENA | Job Board + Campaign Training | Electoral campaigns primarily | Progressive / Democratic-aligned | National | — | — | — | ||||
| IDEALIST | Nonprofit Career Services | Nonprofits & social sector only | Nonpartisan | National / international | — | — | — | ||||
| CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS | Trade Media + Consultant Class | Political consultants & vendors | Nonpartisan trade media | National | — | — | |||||
| NDTC | Campaign Training & Coaching | Campaign staff, primarily electoral | Democratic Party-affiliated | National | — | — | — | — | |||
| RE:POWERformerly Wellstone Action | BIPOC Leadership Training | BIPOC leaders exclusively | Progressive (explicitly partisan) | National | — | — | — | — | |||
| CAMPAIGN WORKERS GUILD | Labor Rights & Unionization | Campaign workers only | Represents campaign staff — mostly Dem/progressive campaigns to date | National (campaign-by-campaign) | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Important partner — CWG protects workers' rights. GAIN Power develops and connects them. Complementary, not competitive. See the full union landscape below — CWG is one of several bargaining efforts, none of which coordinate with each other today. | |||||||||||
| TOM MANATOS JOBS | DC & Capitol Hill Job List | Congressional/Hill & DC policy jobs only | Bipartisan (Dem + GOP) | Regional — DC / Capitol Hill, not national | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| Corrected from earlier drafts: now a bipartisan list (originally Democratic-only) and DC/Hill-focused rather than national in scope. | |||||||||||
| General Professional Network | All industries — no movement context | Apolitical / general network | Global | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| The 800lb gorilla — widely used but serves no progressive-specific function or sector awareness | |||||||||||
| AAPC | Bipartisan Professional Association for Political Consultants | Consultants, pollsters, media firms, campaign managers, corporate PA, lobbyists, Hill staff | Bipartisan (Democratic + Republican) | National | — | — | — | ||||
| The only true professional association in this space today — and it's bipartisan, not consultant-only as sometimes assumed. Membership spans consultants, pollsters, media firms, campaign managers, corporate public affairs, lobbyists, and congressional staff. GAIN Power was previously organized as a 501(c)(6) trade association; whether to revive that model is an open strategic question, not a decision. | |||||||||||
Sources: organizational websites and public documentation (Arena, NDTC, re:power, AAPC, Campaigns & Elections, Tom Manatos Jobs, Idealist), reviewed August 2026. Table reflects primary focus areas — most organizations do more than listed. GAIN Power partners with and promotes all organizations listed. This is a working sample, not an exhaustive market map — a much larger population of local and state-level organizations does related work and isn't captured here. Last updated August 2026.
GAIN Power was previously organized in part as a 501(c)(6) trade association — the closest historical parallel to AAPC's bipartisan, standards-setting model. Whether a modern GAIN-led association should be revived, and in what form, is a live strategic question we're weighing, not a decision we've made. We're not necessarily trying to become that association — but we are positioned to help build and support whoever does.
Democracy workers have been organizing. But each unit launches in isolation, without shared standards, shared resources, or a connective home. GAIN Power is built to be that coordination hub.
We are not a union and don't intend to be. We are the coordination hub these unions need — a shared professional home where standards are set, resources are shared, and democracy workers find community across bargaining units and between cycles.
GAIN Power is building those systems — for everyone who defends democracy, across every sector, through every cycle.
This page is a working draft. To suggest edits, contact jennifer@gainpower.org · Last updated July 2026