Kristina Wilfore is one of the country’s leading experts on state
policy and politics – having spent 10 years working in approximately 35
state capitals and on dozens of ballot initiatives across the country.
As Executive Director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC),
Kristina works with state and national progressive organizations to
reinvigorate the initiative process by providing guidance on strategy
and message to key initiative campaigns, coordinating ballot language
research and drafting efforts, polling, training activists and placing
them on targeted initiatives nationwide, and directing funders to
critical campaigns.
 

Under Kristina’s leadership, BISC has flourished into the central
convener within the progressive community around the strategic use of
ballot initiatives. Combining substantive policy expertise with a
wealth of experience in issue-based campaigns and strategic
communications, Kristina and BISC have been instrumental in helping
pass laws to increase the minimum wage in four states since 1998, guard
clean election and civil rights laws, reduce class-sizes and fund
quality public education, fight against medical malpractice caps, and
protect environmental regulations, among other victories.

Prior to BISC, Kristina was Communications Director of the Center for
Policy Alternatives where she helped pass progressive economic and
social justice policies in dozens of states and led leadership and
message training workshops for over 1000 state legislators and
activists a year.  Over the years Kristina has designed legislative and
media strategies for direct service nonprofits, domestic violence and
family planning agencies and for programs such as AmeriCorp and Vista.

Kristina has appeared as a guest on Fox News and CNN, and has served as
a source for major news stories in USA Today, The New York Times, Los
Angles Times, The Washington Post and The Nation, among others.  She is
committed to training as a fundamental mechanism to gain back power and
serves as an advisory member of New York University’s Political
Campaign Management program and Democratic GAIN, and is a member of the
Women’s Information Network (WIN) and the American Association of
Political Consultants. She is an occasional speaker at Campaigns and
Elections seminars and is a recipient of WIN’s 2004 Young Women of
Achievement award and Campaigns and Election’s "Rising Stars of 2004."
She volunteers at local food banks and shelters with D.C. cares and
works with the D.C. Creative Writing Workshop (a nonprofit literary
arts project at Charles Hart Middle School that provides creative
writing programs for at-risk youth).

Prior to moving to the national political scene, Kristina worked in
Washington state with a wide variety of issue and training based
organizations.  She helped launch the Economic Opportunity Institute
where she oversaw the research and earned media strategy for passage of
the statewide minimum wage.  She also assisted in the design of a model
welfare-to-work program and established the nation’s first-ever
childcare wage and career ladder (while helping unionize childcare
workers with SEIU).  Kristina also served as Communications Director of
the University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs and
Marketing and Fundraising Associate for an executive level leadership
and management facility for elected officials and administrators at the
Cascade Center for Public Service.

Kristina is a native of Kalispell, Montana. She holds a Master of
Public Administration from the University of Washington Evans School of
Public Affairs and Bachelor degrees in Political Science and Broadcast
Communication from Washington State University.