Sarah Jakle, MSW, MPP
Executive Director & Founder
Sarah Jakle is the Founder and Executive Director of DemocraShe. Previously she served as the Get Out The Vote Director for the California National Organization for Women and National Outreach Director for Field Team 6, leading the innovative effort to register voters using effective issue-based voter registration techniques. Empowering women to hold political office has been a focus since Sarah first interned at the Women’s Council of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in college.
Sarah earned a Bachelor’s (Phi Beta Kappa) from Yale, a Master’s in Social Work from USC and a Master’s in Public Policy from UCLA. Sarah has dedicated her life’s work to lifting up communities - spending the first decade of her career working on behalf of people coping with mental illness and homelessness and bringing compassion-based resiliency skills into her current work with women. She was a Fellow with Obama‘s Organizing For Action and currently serves on the Board of Directors for Urban Partners Los Angeles.
Dom Jones
Chief Creative Officer & Co-Founder
Dom joyously supports young female-identifying women in developing the skills to run for elected office as Co-Founder & CCO (Chief Creative Officer) of DemocraShe. Furthermore, Dom serves with Planned Parenthood on the Electoral and Advocacy Committee and seeks to continually create more provisions nationally for women's reproductive rights and opportunities for women to run for elected office.
Dom also supports her community through charitable giving and aims to uplift the wellbeing and health of Huntington Beach residents through her involvement in programs with Huntington Beach Youth Shelter (Waymakers OC). Dom mentors young women in developing lifeskills and educates thousands of youth in middle and high schools across America as Co-Founder and Program Director of The You Matter Global Movement (YMGM) on the importance of overcoming adversity, self-love, resiliency, and authenticity.
With experience as an educator with special needs youth, Dom understands the needs of all members of society, especially those in disenfranchised circumstances. Being a product of the foster care system, and being an unhoused youth herself as a child, Dom seeks to create a holistic environment of compassion and care within the communities she serves.
To build community harmony and unity, Dom Jones has sought appointment to the Huntington Beach City Council Seat and built support that galvanized the city to appoint the first African-American person to represent Huntington Beach, CA on the dais. Dom is the CEO and owner in Huntington Beach, CA of a Premier Indoor Cycling Studio, Propel Cycle Inc.
Dom has masterful experience in helping others through: life coaching, personal development, and interpersonal counseling.
Jessica Stamen
Program Director & Co-Founder
Jessica Stamen is the Co-Founder and Program Director of DemocraShe. She also co-founded Momtivist, a grassroots organization dedicated to family-friendly activism, and is a founding member of Feminists in Action. She previously served as the Southern CA Education Lead for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
Jessica earned a Bachelor’s (Phi Beta Kappa) from Vassar College, and a Master’s in Education from University of Southern California. As a film executive, most recently Vice-President of Echo Lake Productions, she developed and produced numerous acclaimed feature films. As a Webby-winning independent producer and writer, she has created advocacy videos for outlets such as Netflix, Fellow Americans, Swing Left, ACRONYM, Red Wine and Blue, and the ACLU, that have garnered a total of over 45 million views. She is the proud (and very exhausted) mother of three children, aged 12, 8, and 6.
Kolieka Seigle
Co-Founder
As an intersectional feminist committed to political action, advocacy, and civic engagement, Kolieka has spent the bulk of her career seeking to promote democratic participation in underrepresented minorities and improve conditions in communities of color. She currently serves as the President of the California National Organization for Women (NOW) (the first African American), Executive Director of the California NOW Foundation, and the Chair of the California NOW Political Action Committee. Additionally Kolieka co-chairs the NOW Global Feminist Committee and serves on the NOW Racial Justice task force.
She brings to the DemocraShe Board over a decade of experience and leadership in Sacramento/ Bay Area in legislative advocacy, social activism, community organizing and political consulting at the local, city and state level.
Locally, she is the former president of Black Women United (BWU) a non-profit community-based organization dedicated to the education, protection, and advancement of ALL Black womxn.
Kolieka recently returned from Cuba as she was accepted to the Advancing Women’s Health and Human Rights Women’s Delegation expanding her global feminist advocacy. The Mission of the US Women and Cuba Collaboration is to build a strong US women’s movement dedicated to ending the US govt. blockade of Cuba. Their work is rooted in the concept of universal human rights, racial and economic justice and women’s human rights.
Kolieka is a former Commissioner for the City of Berkeley - Commission on the Status of Women; Berkeley National Organization for Women, Vice President, and other Non Profit Boards and Anti -Domestic Violence Coalitions.
Keonté Lee Workshop Facilitator
Keonté Lee developed her passion for civic engagement and advocacy at a young age because of her mother and grandmother. Through their actions, they showed her the power of using her voice and building community through organizing. She then strengthened those skills and developed new skills through her professional experiences. Keonté currently serves as the Community Engagement Manager at EMILY’s list where she assists in creating culturally relevant programs that encourages diverse groups of women to run for office and seek opportunities in electoral politics. Prior to joining EMILY’s List, she served as a staff assistant in the personal office of House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn where she supported the legislative staff through various efforts. Keonté has a strong passion for advocating for the reproductive rights and justice for black women and girls and overall advocating for marginalized groups of people. Keonté is originally from Cross, South Carolina and is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. She is a graduate of Spelman College where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. Keonté loves music, enjoys a tasty DC Brunch, and indoor cycling.
Chelsey Goodan Mentorship Director
Chelsey Goodan is an author, educator, and keynote speaker whose upcoming book, UNDERESTIMATED: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, will be published March of 2024 with Simon & Schuster.
For sixteen years, Chelsey worked as an academic tutor and mentor, specializing in the empowerment of teenage girls. She now conducts workshops and speaks regularly to audiences about gender justice. As a keynote speaker, Chelsey teaches leaders how to inspire and connect to their team, illustrating how the tools she gained connecting with teenage girls can be used with everyone.
Additionally, Chelsey invests her time in ending gender-based violence by being a Board Member for the nonprofit A Call to Men. From 2016-2020, she founded The Activist Cartel where she guided an influential, nationwide subscriber base to take political and social action for gender and racial justice. As an activist, she advises public figures, galvanizes volunteers, and organizes large-scale events for national nonprofits. Chelsey’s passion to explore humanity’s potential for authenticity, liberation, and empowerment permeates all of her work.
Leadership Team
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Cassandra Chou
Cassie is a public-health aspiring second year student at UCLA from the Bay Area. She's super excited to take what she's learned from her experiences as a part of Bruin Democrats, the Santa Clara County Democratic Party, and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo's Student Advisory Board to empower and support young female activists as both a mentor and a friend.
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Angel Gilbert
Angel is a freshman at Columbia University interested in becoming a lawyer due to her firsthand experience with the corruption present in the foster care system. Her passion for advocating for marginalized communities has cultivated in various intersectional political internships, mentorships, and volunteer experiences. She enjoys writing, sharing her story, spending time with her family, running, and weightlifting.
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Lizette Gonzalez
Lizette currently attends The Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles and will graduate as class of 2023. She takes part of multiple diversity initiatives at her school, helps leads the Latinx affinity club, is a reporter for the school’s newspaper and overall is a strong advocate of various social justice issues in and out of school.
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Riya Jain
Riya Jain is a junior at Francis W. Parker school in Chicago, IL. She is passionate about social justice, starting her own company: The Land of Can. Riya actively participates in numerous initiatives including Student Government, SASA (South Asian Student Alliance), DEI, and The Weekly newspaper. She also enjoys playing varsity tennis, basketball, and softball!
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Sevi Silvia
Sevi lives in Arizona and currently attends community college as a communication studies major. She is interested in diplomacy, intercultural communication, and improving access to quality education in her home state, as well as across the country. She has taken on leadership positions in projects to address diversity in children’s books, food insecurity in her college and community, and mental health awareness for young adults.
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Janvi Subramanyan
Janvi is originally from the Bay Area and is currently a Neuroscience major at UCLA. She’s involved with the UCLA Bruin Democrats, local tutoring, and volunteers with Women in Data Science to get more young women into STEM.
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Abigail Tuufuli
Abby is a high school senior in Arizona with a love for learning and her community! As a member of Key Club International, she loves to volunteer and help those in her area. She also enjoys spending time with her friends, binge watching k-dramas with her mom, and, you guessed it, fighting for equal rights!
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Amanda Valenzuela
Amanda Valenzuela is a senior at the Latin School of Chicago. She is passionate about social justice and diversity work, running the Latinx affinity at her school and starting a micro-lending club to reach different people in the world interest-free.
Leadership Team Alumnae
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Catalina Carbajal
Catalina is a 19-year-old political organizer from Edoméx, México and Chicago, IL, and a student at Universidad de San Diego. Most of her work has consisted of community organizing at the intersections of environmental justice, menstrual equity, gender justice, immigrant/campesino rights, and collective liberation.
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Zoe Klein
Zoe is a High School Junior in Austin Texas where she’s a lead editor for her school’s newspaper. She is Lieutenant Governor of Texas Youth and Government. She is passionate about graphic design, leftist politics, mock trial, writing, and spending time with people she loves (safely).
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Imani Murdock
Imani is a Brooklyn native and recent graduate of the illustrious Clark Atlanta University where she received her Bachelors of Arts in History. She plans on using her passion for racial justice and intersectional politics to cultivate safe spaces for young women of color.
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Ella Thompson
Ella is a born and bred Texan who currently attends UT Austin. She is a linguistics major and is obsessed with too many things to name, from urban planning to Anglo-Saxon runes to deep cuts from Taylor Swift’s discography.