First Mile is a program that is housed and facilitated by Washington Progress Alliance (WPA), a 501(c)4 nonprofit donor table and grantmaking organization working at the intersection of racial justice and politics — learn more about us here. While WPA organizes the donors who make direct contributions to campaigns, it is our Community Partners who decide which campaigns will receive funding each cycle.

First Mile is not a PAC and there are no pooled funds — you will not get a donation from any organization or program called “First Mile.” Funding comes directly from individual donors (Circle members) whom WPA organizes to make pledges and contribute directly to campaigns. We make recommendations for campaign donations to First Mile Circle members, and members give online directly to candidates in a coordinated "moneybomb" that concentrates the Circle's contributions on the same day for maximum impact. Each year we organize approximately 100 individual members who pledge an annual budget, then we divide their budget between the primary and general election moneybomb giving days and amongst individual campaigns. Each donor may give to between approximately 5-25 candidates during a moneybomb, depending on the size of their budget. While most donors follow our recommended donation guidelines, we cannot guarantee that every donor will give as recommended.

One important thing to note is that while First Mile supported candidates are represented statewide, the majority of First Mile donors reside in King County. If selected for support, you must agree to receive contributions from First Mile donors, which may primarily come from those located in King County.

Our candidate slate is developed by our Community Partners Table. Our Partners have policy expertise in a variety of issue areas and deep roots in organizing Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), immigrant and refugee, and geographically diverse communities across the state. These community-led organizations research candidate campaigns across Washington, review surveys, conduct select interviews, confer with other partner organizations and community leaders in diverse geographies, and decide which campaigns to prioritize for support with available resources. To best understand a candidate’s priorities and values, we require a completed survey from the endorsement process of one of our Community Partner organizations.

Please note that meeting eligibility criteria for First Mile, completing process requirements (survey), and/or receiving endorsement from one of our Community Partner organizations DOES NOT guarantee financial support from First Mile. Our Community Partners must weigh the priorities and stakes of the landscape of competitive races, and the impact we can make with our resources in a given year.

This varies widely and is based on a number of factors including the competitiveness of your race, projected cost of your race, fundraising totals for you and your opponents campaigns, the number of campaigns we’d like to support, the amount of resources we have in a given year, and much more. First Mile Circle contributions have totaled anywhere between $1,000 to $30,000 for a specific campaign in prior election cycles. While we always aim to make a difference for each candidate we support, we prioritize campaigns with higher political stakes (i.e. possibility to flip a seat to be more progressive) and lower investment from the political ecosystem (i.e. first-time candidates, candidates whose opponents are fundraising significantly more, etc.).

We coordinate two “moneybomb” giving days — once before the primary election and once before the general election. The primary election moneybomb is typically in late June/early July, and the general election moneybomb is typically in mid/late September. You do not need to have a primary in order to receive early investment, this is just how we think about the timing of our giving days.

Our Community Partners develop the candidate slate for support for both the primary and general election moneybomb giving days. Some candidates may receive support twice and some candidates only receive support for one of these. Our partners are continuing to weigh the competitiveness and prioritization of races across the entire state, with the remaining fundraising commitments we have to allocate.

We recommend ActBlue as we are able to create tandem fundraising pages for candidates with this platform that create a more seamless donation experience for donors, leading to more accurate fulfillment of donation recommendations by donors. However, we will accept any donation platform that collects the required PDC reporting info (donor name, address, donation amount, employer, and city of employer). In the past, we have made exceptions to this rule and allowed smaller campaigns with less infrastructure to use PayPal, however, many donors had concerns about using this platform or did not have the required PayPal accounts to make their recommended donations, which led to a drop off in expected donations for many of those campaigns. For similar reasons, we do not accept Venmo or CashApp as donation systems.

Because our First Mile Circle donors have provided us with their total electoral budgets for the year and entrusted us to make thoughtful recommendations on how to allocate their funds, we respectfully ask that candidates do not make additional fundraising asks of these donors in the same year in which you receive First Mile support. If you are unsure which donors came from First Mile, we can confirm the names for you after the moneybomb giving days. The next time you run for office in future years, you are welcome to make asks of these donors as you would any donors who gave to you previously.

We ask that candidates don't include First Mile on campaign materials/websites or otherwise acknowledge us publicly at this time. We don't disclose on our own website which candidates we supported until after the general election so as to not have our opposition use our support as a way to detract from what's really important - your values-led campaign! In prior years, conservative media outlets have questioned some First Mile candidate’s commitment to their community because they received donations from outside their geographic area. If this happens to you, we’re happy to provide messaging resources about how to respond to these kinds of baseless accusations and focus on the true intention of the First Mile program and the integrity of our process.

Washington Progress Alliance (WPA) is a 501(c)4 nonprofit donor table and grantmaking organization that facilitates the First Mile program. All WPA staff time and organizational resources spent directly supporting candidates running for office (i.e. hosting an event to introduce candidates to donors, making donation recommendations to donors, etc.) are considered coordinated activities because the candidates are aware of our intended support and have the opportunity to opt-out of First Mile support if desired, many are invited to speak to donors at First Mile events, and we request information about how First Mile donations helped campaigns to report back to our donors on the program’s impact. These activities fall under this RCW definition of coordination: “A person who has received the candidate's encouragement or approval to make the expenditure, if the expenditure pays in whole or in part for political advertising supporting that candidate or promoting the defeat of any other candidate or candidates for that office.” Since we do not put restrictions on how candidates can spend the funds and we receive candidates’ approval to organize/facilitate donations to their campaign, these activities are reported as in-kind donations directly to the campaign from WPA. In-kinds for this program are generally just a few hundred dollars to each campaign.

During your campaign: We expect you to be responsive to First Mile and our Community Partner organizations. The time period between finalizing the candidate slate for support and the moneybomb giving days is very short, so if we are missing critical information from your campaign (i.e. website, donation page, bio, photo, or consent for FM donations), we need a fast reply! If we don’t receive the needed info in time, we may have to drop you from the slate. Our partners may also support campaigns in other ways, such as hosting candidate peer learning groups, providing technical assistance with accessing voter files and pulling lists, consulting on a number of campaign strategy topics, and more — we highly encourage you to take them up on these offerings and reach out with asks for support! We also love to give updates to our Circle members on the impact their donations had so we always appreciate a quote from your campaign on how First Mile has impacted you.

After you’re elected: The reason our Community Partner organizations select which candidates receive support is because they have policy expertise in a variety of issue areas and deep roots in organizing Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), immigrant and refugee, and geographically diverse communities across the state. We believe that candidates and elected officials should be responsive to the communities they represent, so our hope is always to see greater accountability, collaboration, and co-governance with communities from our elected officials. Our Community Partners — and the broader ecosystem of progressive community-led organizations in Washington — are incredible resources and fountains of knowledge on what issues communities are facing and what solutions can lead to a more equitable and prosperous state for all.