invest in texas leaders
Texas Local Leadership Fund invests in the local leaders, campaigns, and infrastructure building stronger communities and a stronger future for Texas.
Texas local leadership fund
Texas local leadership fund
Building stronger local leadership across Texas.
The decisions that shape Texans’ daily lives are often made close to home.
City councils, mayors, school boards, and other local leaders make consequential decisions about housing, infrastructure, transportation, public safety, schools, economic development, and how communities respond to rapid growth.
The Texas Local Leadership Fund is focused on strengthening the pipeline of local leaders and the infrastructure around local public service.
meet our executive board
Jim Penniman-Morin | Cedar Park Mayor
Na’Cole Thompson | Leander Mayor
Brandt Rydell | Former Taylor Mayor
Steve Adler | Former Austin Mayor
Rudy Metayer | Pflugerville City Councilmember
Dr. Gloria Gonzales-Dholakia | Leander ISD School Board Member
Jocelyn Tau
Katie Naranjo
Why Invest
Texas is changing quickly.
Some of the state’s fastest-growing communities are suburban and exurban cities where population growth has outpaced political and civic infrastructure. At the same time, municipal and school board elections often receive substantially less attention, investment, and professional campaign support than state and federal races.
TLLF focuses on that gap.
Our model starts locally: identifying promising leaders, strengthening the organizations and campaign infrastructure around them, and helping build a deeper bench of Texans prepared to run, serve, and govern.
The model
TLLF is beginning with a focused 2026 pilot supporting a limited number of strategically selected candidates and communities.
The initial program is designed to test where targeted investments can be most useful, identify recurring gaps facing local candidates, and develop shared resources that can serve future leaders.
From there, the goal is to build a durable, multi-cycle model: expand support in future municipal cycles, develop a deeper leadership bench, strengthen regional networks, and create infrastructure that can endure across election years.