Erin Loos Cutraro is the founder and CEO of She Should Run, the national nonpartisan nonprofit that's encouraged nearly 30,000 women to consider running for office since 2011. Her path started in a sixth-grade classroom teaching history, then wound through the Missouri Secretary of State's office and a stint as political director of the Women's Campaign Fund before she built She Should Run into its own standalone 501(c)(3). In this episode, Erin talks with Rachel and Felicia about what's changed for women considering a run: the recruitment gap is still real (men are still more likely to get tapped on the shoulder), a new layer of online abuse and harassment has raised the stakes in ways it wasn't a decade ago, and the persistent myth that women raise less campaign money than men, which simply isn't true.

The conversation digs into She Should Run's Local Leader Lab, a 12-week cohort program built on a "go small, go deep" philosophy, betting that investing deeply in a smaller group of underutilized women leaders creates more ripple effect than trying to reach everyone at once. Erin explains how they're scaling it by training past participants as facilitators, and why the community that builds around each cohort often matters more than the curriculum itself. They also get into the gap between campaigning and governing, using Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner as a jumping-off point for how candidates get "cast".

There's some good news by the end. Stay for it, because we all need to hear it!

Sign up for the Local Leader Lab now!

Chapter List

0:08 — Welcome, Erin Loos Cutraro’s Path to She Should Run & Her Civic Origin Story

6:13 — What’s Changed for Women Running: Recruitment Gaps, Online Abuse & the Fundraising Myth

12:46 — Inside the Local Leader Lab: Go Small, Go Deep & Building Real Community

21:20 — No Tool Replaces Human Connection (Choosing Quality Over Quantity)

24:00 — Scaling by Training Facilitators: How 10x the Applications Changed the Model

26:33 — Graham Platner and Getting “Cast”

42:05 — The State of Women Running: Record Numbers This Cycle & the Local-to-Higher-Office Pipeline

53:26 — Erin’s Advice: No Linear Path, Start With Your Why & How to Join the Fall Cohort

Visit us at publicspeakpodcast.com to learn more about us and how to support our work!

Jenny Graham is a mom, the vice chair of the Medford School Committee, and currently chairs the committee building Medford's brand-new high school. By day, she runs Zelus Consulting Group, a 22-year-old firm focused on process optimization and change management for healthcare and government clients. She and Felicia go back to 2019, when both were on the campaign trail. In this episode, Jenny shares  what pulled her into local politics, what Our Revolution Medford is (versus how outsiders assume it works), and how misinformation spreads in local politics.

Jenny also breaks down something most people get wrong: under Massachusetts law, a school committee isn't an advisory board, it has the power to hire and evaluate the superintendent and set the entire school budget, independent of the mayor or city council. She talks about what it's like to conduct a superintendent's performance review entirely in public, why Medford's budgeting process shifted from "what can we get" to "what do we need," and how Chapter 70 state aid works. Seven years into the job, Jenny reflects on real wins, including a 2024 override that added $7 million to the school budget, and why progress in local government is slow, resource-constrained, and almost always a team effort.

0:08 — Introducing Jenny Graham!

2:01 — Why Jenny Ran for School Committee

6:11 — How Jenny and Felicia Met on the Campaign Trail

8:58 — Our Revolution Medford: Shared Values, Accountability & Disagreeing Without Falling Apart

13:46 — The Biggest Surprise of Elected Office & the "Nefarious Purposes" Myth

16:19 — Why Local Government Resists Simple Answers

22:02 — Easthampton's Budget Override & Who School Committee Actually Serves

25:40 — School Committee 101: Its Own Government Under Massachusetts Law

34:21 — Performance Reviews Done in Public & What a Healthy Superintendent Relationship Looks Like

41:04 — "The Hardest Job in Politics": Superintendent Pay, Burnout & Building the Budget

45:09 — From "What Can We Get" to "What Do We Need": Property Taxes & Chapter 70

49:37 — Seven Years In: Wins, the 2024 Override & Wrap-Up

Visit us at publicspeakpodcast.com to learn more about us and how to support our work!

Beth Santos runs Wanderful, a global women's travel community she's been building for 12 years. She and her husband Marvin own Ula Cafe in Jamaica Plain, an "activist cafe" in the Sam Adams Brewery building. For the past couple of years, she's been deep in the weeds of Boston civic life in ways she never expected.

In this episode, Beth talks about how she became one of the loudest public advocates for the White Stadium Project (a public-private partnership that would turn a crumbling, 70-year-old stadium in Franklin Park into a state-of-the-art facility owned by Boston public schools and home to the city's new National Women's Soccer League team), what it was like to show up at a nine-hour City Hall hearing to give public comment in the middle of a Wednesday, and why the narrative around the project got so twisted she had to write a letter to the Jamaica Plain News just to set the record straight.

She also gets into what it was like when Marvin ran for Boston City Council last year. She shared what it costs to run, who ends up in those rooms, and why the line between "good at running" and "good at leading" is so wide.

Beth is funny, sharp, and genuinely passionate, and she makes the case that none of us are actually outside of politics, whether we like it or not.

0:08 — Welcome & Introducing Beth Santos

1:18 — Wanderful, Ula Cafe & Building Community

5:43 — You Don't Need a Title to Be Civically Engaged

9:46 — Growing Up With an Activist Mom and a Gas Mask

13:32 — White Stadium: Franklin Park, a 70-Year-Old Ruin & the Deal That Changed Everything

20:48 — The Misinformation Problem and the Letter That the Boston Globe Picked Up

23:54 — Joining the Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Council (and Keeping Gentrification in the Room)

26:23 — When People Question Your Motives

28:35 — Giving Public Comment at a Nine-Hour Hearing

30:43 — Who Gets to Participate? The Privilege Required to Show Up on a Wednesday

37:33 — Marvin's Run for Boston City Council: What It Takes, What It Costs, What It's Like

47:56 — How to Stay Civically Engaged When You're Already Overwhelmed

52:37 — Phone Banking at Ula Cafe and the Power of Just Showing Up

54:34 — Wrap-Up & Part Two Teaser

Visit us at publicspeakpodcast.com to learn more about us and how to support our work!

What does a city councilor actually do? What's the difference between a town and a city? And why does a TV show about a small-town mayor have a board of selectmen? In this debut episode of Public Speak, Felicia, an Easthampton, MA City Councilor and your new favorite civics explainer, takes the lead.

Felicia shares how she went from "local elections aren't really on my radar" to being elected to city council, detours into the surprisingly fascinating history of Easthampton, and then lays out everything we were never taught in school. She talks about the difference between towns and cities, what select boards vs. city councils actually do, how precincts and wards work, what ends up on a councilor's plate, and how much they get paid.

Rachel pops in throughout with questions you’d probably want to ask yourself. Together they make local government feel less like a board meeting and more like a conversation you actually want to participate in.

Chapter List

0:08 Welcome to Public Speak! 

2:08 Felicia's Origin Story: From "I Don't Vote Locally" to City Councilor

3:59 Easthampton, MA: Little City, Big Heart (and a Lot of History)

25:28 Pop Quiz! Spotting a Civics Error in Widow's Bay (Rachel fails spectacularly lol)

29:35 Select Boards vs. City Councils

35:51 What City Councilors Actually Do

57:36 Let's Talk Money: How Much Do City Councilors Get Paid?

68:44 How Felicia Got Appointed (and Then Elected) to Council

83:55 Point of Order: Why Is This Podcast Called "Public Speak"?

Visit us at publicspeakpodcast.com to learn more about us and how to support our work!

Felicia and Rachel are back, but this time they're stepping off the She+ Geeks Out mic and into something a little closer to home, literally! In this teaser episode, we pull back the curtain on our unexpected journeys into local public service, with Felicia serving as City Councilor in Easthampton, MA, and Rachel freshly elected to her North Park Neighborhood Planning Committee in San Diego.

What prompted this new pod? A shared conviction that local government is wildly misunderstood, frustratingly slow for good reasons, and way more accessible than most people think. From demystifying city council meetings to explaining why your park might take five years to materialize, Public Speak aims to make civic life feel a little less like a foreign language, and a lot more like something you could actually be part of.

Guests from around the country are coming. Robert's Rules will be explained. Stay tuned!

Visit us at publicspeakpodcast.com to learn more about us and how to support our work!