Cynthia Richie Terrell is the founder and executive director of RepresentWomen and an outspoken advocate for institutional reforms to advance women’s representation and leadership in the United States. Terrell and her husband Rob Richie helped to found FairVote – a nonpartisan champion of electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice, and a more representative democracy. Terrell has worked on projects related to women’s representation, democracy, and voting system reform in the United States and has worked to help parliamentarians around the globe meet UN goals for women’s representation and leadership.
Terrell has worked on political campaigns, as campaign manager and field director for candidates for the U.S. presidency, U.S. House and U.S. Senate, for governor and for state and city-wide initiative efforts, including a state equal rights amendment.
In 2024 Terrell was named one of Washington, DC’s top policy expert and received a Generational Impact Award for her work on voting system reform. Terrell is a member of the Citizen University’s Civic Collaboratory and was named a Brewer Fellow along with a cohort of leaders in the democracy reform movement. Terrell has a chapter on women and the presidency in the 2020 volume The Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times.
Terrell writes a weekly column on women’s representation for Ms Magazine and has been published in numerous print journals including: the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Hill, Refinery29, The Nation, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The American Prospect, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, and The Christian Science Monitor. She has appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal; and has participated in numerous radio shows, podcasts & panel discussions on the topics of electoral reform and systems strategies to advance women’s representation and leadership.
Terrell is an avid knitter & gardener, has three children, and is active in local politics and in the Quaker community. She graduated with a B.A. in political science from Swarthmore College in 1986.
Connect with Cynthia and David on LinkedIn.
As one of the initial driving forces behind the Bridge Alliance and as chairman of the board, David Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process.
As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action.
He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded any one organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.”
Nevins is also co-publisher of The Fulcrum, a daily new publication committed to protecting democracy by educating the public on issues that matter. The Fulcrum is a key piece of a larger strategy to build a pro-democracy constituency of millions of Americans by making it easier to find and act on civic engagement opportunities. The Bridge Alliance, The Fulcrum, and Citizen Connect are all interconnected in their support of the ecosystem of our community of pro-democracy organizations and concerned and engaged citizens.
He established and continues to work with The Nevins Fellow program at The Mccourtney Institute of Democracy at Penn State University. The Nevins Fellows program allows students to complete internships at organizations that bring people together to solve common problems. In this program students begin by taking a Democratic Leadership class that introduces them to a different side of democracy—one that focuses not on campaigns and elections, but on bringing people together to work on common problems. Students learn about organizations doing this kind of work, and develop the skills necessary to facilitate conversations about community issues.
He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership.
Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. He continues as President of Nevins Real Estate Management. Nevins is married to Catherine Moyal Nevins. They currently reside in Palm Beach Gardens Florida and Cape May New Jersey.
