Gloria Totten

Gloria Totten is a nonprofit executive who, for more than 20 years, has directed organizations and grassroots organizing campaigns on the federal, state and local levels.

She is currently the founder and president of Public Leadership Institute, an American nonpartisan nonprofit policy and leadership center that focuses on issues of equity and justice at the state and local levels of government. Prior to that, Totten led Progressive Majority from 2001-2015, served as political director of NARAL from 1996-2001, and as Executive Director for Maryland Maryland NARAL from 1993-1996. In her home state of Minnesota, she worked as the Education Director for Pro-Choice Resources, President and Lobbyist for the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Media Chair for It’s Time Minnesota!

Totten serves as chair of the board of directors for Brave New Films and as a board member for the New American Leaders Initiative. She is an Advisory Committee Member for the Drum Major Institute Scholars Program, Political Parity, Progress Now, Wellstone Action and the Women’s Information Network. Totten was named a "Rising Star of Politics" in 2002 by Campaigns & Elections magazine.

Totten first worked with NARAL as the executive director of Maryland NARAL from 1993-1996. During her tenure, she served as the organization's chief lobbyist and strategist, chairperson for the state pro-choice coalition, director of the political action committee, and was responsible for raising the annual operating and program budgets. She served as the affiliate representative to the national NARAL Pro-Choice America Board of Directors, and her affiliate received numerous awards during her tenure there, including the 1993 Campus Organizing Award, 1994 Diversity Organizing Award and 1995 Outstanding Affiliate Award.

In 1996, Totten took a position with NARAL's national office as its political director, where she oversaw the organization's electoral and grassroots work and managed its 27 state affiliates. While there, she worked to develop the organization's first nationwide pro-choice voter file, which consisted of 2.9 million pro-choice identified voters in 2000. She also devised all of NARAL's advocacy campaigns, including numerous ballot initiative campaigns, legislative battles, and the Stop Ashcroft! campaign in 2001. During the 2000 elections, she created and implemented a $12 million electoral program, with campaigns in sixteen states for the Presidential contest, eight Senate races, and twenty-four House races.

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