Seed the Vote mobilizes volunteers to door knock and phone bank with frontline partners in states where Presidential races are likely to be the closest, and where we need to defend Senate or House seats or have the opportunity to pick up new ones. Because we know that face-to-face conversations are the most effective way to persuade voters, we focus on recruiting volunteers to canvass in-person in the battleground states that will determine the Presidential election. Because the election will be decided by a very small number of votes, a strategically deployed group of volunteers can have an outsized impact. In 2020, we built a grassroots army that helped to defeat Trump. We recruited and trained over 9,000 volunteers to phone bank and door knock in key states, which included deploying 1,200 volunteers to canvass at the height of the pandemic in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Seed the Vote helped frontline organizations meet their ambitious door-knocking goals, utilizing volunteers to reach voters in key swing states where Biden won by a very small margin of votes. In Arizona, for example, our volunteers knocked on 12,000 doors, helping local organizations turn out voters in a state where Biden won by just 10,000 votes. In 2024, Seed the Vote will send over 4,000 volunteers to canvass and phone bank for candidates and issues in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, in partnership with the grassroots organizations that lead the work in those states.

As the new Director of SF Rising, Emily is leading the organization in a new period of growth and innovation. Through year round integrated civic engagement, voter outreach, and education, SF Rising has built a base of voters in San Francisco’s primarily low-income communities of color. SFR’s member organizations include grassroots organizations rooted in San Francisco’s Chinese, Filipino, African-American, and Latinx communities: Causa Justa :: Just Cause (CJJC), Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER), Filipino Community Center (FCC), Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN), and Dolores Street Community Services (the Women’s Collective)SF Rising is the San Francisco anchor of the statewide alliance California Calls, an anchor to Bay Rising, a founding member of Bay Resistance, and a member of the newly formed statewide youth civic engagement network Power California.

Starting in 2014, community organizations and labor unions joined together to form a coalition which supports candidates and issues that benefit working families in San Francisco. Our agenda prioritizes affordable housing for low and middle-income families, tenant protections, better working conditions for all workers, and ensuring corporations pay their fair share. Since our inception, SF Tenants & Families has waged campaigns for the following: 2014: David Campos for State Assembly, $15 Minimum Wage Increase (Prop J), and an Anti-speculation Tax (Prop G)2015: Aaron Peskin for District 3 Supervisor, Regulate Airbnb (Prop F), and Moratorium on Luxury Housing (Prop I)2018: Jane Kim and Mark Leno for Mayor

Hired as a Youth Organizer, Emily began her time at CPA by working on several campaigns related to healthcare which empowered and developed the leadership of Chinese high school youth from immigrant families. Emily has had extensive experience working on youth leadership development, political education, facilitation, and organizing youth campaigns for healthcare, education, environmental justice, and immigration. In 2013, with youth leaders, Emily helped create CPA's first program for queer and questioning youth, with a focus on gender justice and developing the leadership and support that LGBTQQI youth need. In 2015, Emily served as the co-chair for the World March of Women U.S. Committee, a project of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance focused on grassroots feminism and international solidarity with womens' movements across the world. Emily also has experience with campaign communications and working with English and Chinese media outlets. She played a key role in the passage of the groundbreaking SF Health Care Services Master Plan to ensure equitable distribution of healthcare services for new and expanding healthcare developments. Emily became CPA's Political Director in 2015, where she led CPA's political and electoral work, including the multi-racial citywide alliance San Francisco Rising, and built labor-community partnerships through important campaigns to preserve City College of San Francisco and the fight to save St. Luke's Hospital.

Program Associate of the Community Strategies and Sustainability Program of the Pacific Institute, building the capacity and advocacy work of environmental justice communities in West Oakland and Richmond, California.