Jane Sanders Starts Group to Help Progressive Leaders

Bernie Sanders’ wife Jane O’Meara Sanders has launched “The Sanders Institute,” a nonprofit organization that convenes progressive leaders across the country to engage in solutions to political issues.

“I wanted to start an organization that would bring people together to learn from each other and discuss how to make our country and our democracy better,” Sanders wrote in a fundraising email for the organization. “A true democracy requires an informed electorate and we have so much to learn from each other.”

Her husband will not be involved in the organization, Sanders told the Washington Post. She will, however, draw on the work and ideas of several prominent supporters of her husband’s campaign, including Rep. Tulsi Gubbard, Professor Robert Reich, Cornel West, and and former NAACP CEO Ben Jealous, who is running for Governor of Maryland.

“We’re hopefully getting them to write for the website, talk about their opinions, make documentaries, hold events that people can watch on Facebook — things like that,” Sanders told the Post, noting that she wanted to increase the number of progressive voices in the media ecosphere.

The idea, Sanders wrote in her email introducing the organization, stemmed from her travel on the campaign trail during her husband’s candidacy. “I learned so much from meeting people who were involved in making their communities better and I came away with a determination to ensure those voices would be heard,” she wrote.

 

Write to Alana Abramson at Alana.Abramson@time.com.