Run on Power is a 501c(4) non-profit organization, based in DC and operating nationally. We equip candidates for state and local office with the policy, platform, and messaging tools to expose and challenge unchecked corporate power in their communities — before ballots are cast and regardless of election outcome.

Our mission isn’t to elect certain individuals or guarantee legislative wins. It’s to steadily shift the window of political possibility — and with it, the realm of potential economic and democratic futures — one campaign and election cycle at a time.

Legislation, rulemaking, regulatory and administrative action, and informal and formal government practices that directly alter or diversify — either with carrots or sticks or both — corporate incentives, or that increase the power workers have over employers or creates public competition for private sectors. Challenging unchecked corporate power is as much about increasing the capacity of other powers — government, consumer, worker, civic — as it is about decreasing power available to corporations.

Corporate power is the central issue of our time. We cannot transcend other challenges — be it climate change, democratic erosion, or crises of affordability, housing, and healthcare — without first countering the power corporations exert over markets, politics, governance, and culture.

This is the fight we wage so that we can effectively wage all others. We’re focused on corporate power today, so we can focus on everything else tomorrow.

What’s possible begins with what’s talked about. At their most brave and honest, campaigns are conversations with the public. If you’re running for office, it’s your chance — win or lose — to spark a discourse that reckons with and resists power in fundamental and material ways.

Yes, government is where laws are made… but campaigns are where movements begin. Today’s task is to make every race about what we lose when we lose to corporate power — and what we’ll gain when we finally say stop.

Local is what people see and feel. It’s the water they drink, the internet they use, the curriculum their kid learns, and the unions they’re empowered to join. It’s the daily stuff — the stuff that rarely makes the media frenzy but does make up a life. It’s also the stuff most captured — often invisibly — by corporate power.

The good news? Even with Washington a mess, our neighborhoods, wards, towns, counties, cities, and states hold tremendous democratic power over corporate power… if we know how to wield it. (That’s where Run on Power comes in!)

We’re building a cohort of local and state leaders — again, win or lose — who are committed to confronting corporate power. If you’re running, you can expect joint policy trainings, pilot program integration, and connection to corporate law, corporate accountability, environmental justice, anti-corruption, consumer protection, and human and labor rights experts to modify, strengthen, and legitimize your platform.

*Interested in joining (as a candidate, candidate-to-be, or expert/practitioner)? Email reynolds@runonpower.org with subject line “Pipeline.” You can also fill out the “Get in Touch” form on the home page of this site.