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By Stair Calhoun, Ambassador of Buzz and Swag, Network NOVA
Ten years ago, a handful of women sat in a church basement in Northern Virginia and asked a simple question: what are we going to do?
They did not wait for an answer from Washington. They did not wait for a national organization to show up and tell them what to do next. They just started doing it — organizing, connecting, building relationships, and showing up for each other and for Virginia.
That is how the Women’s Summit was born.
In 2017 the first annual Women’s Summit for Political Engagement drew 34 delegate candidates to a borrowed conference center in Leesburg. Virginia had not flipped blue. The grassroots had not yet proved what it could do. But something was in the air — a sense of possibility, of urgency, of ordinary people deciding that waiting was no longer an option.
By November 2017 Virginia had flipped 15 delegate seats. The grassroots had done something the political establishment said could not be done.
And that was just the beginning.
What Ten Years Looks Like
In 2018 three Virginia women went to Congress — Abigail Spanberger, Elaine Luria, Jennifer Wexton — and a room full of grassroots activists who had spent the previous year organizing watched it happen from the stage of the Women’s Summit at the Hilton McLean.
In 2019 Virginia flipped completely blue — the House of Delegates, the State Senate, county boards, school boards in Loudoun and Prince William — because a network of ordinary people had spent years going granular, fighting for every seat at every level, refusing to write off any district or any race.
In 2020 a global pandemic could not stop the Summit. It went virtual for ten days. It reached more people than ever before. And in November Virginia’s 13 electoral votes went to Joe Biden.
Year after year, the Women’s Summit has been the place where Virginia’s grassroots comes to refuel, reconnect, and recommit. Where strategies get sharpened. Where relationships get built. Where the people doing the work get honored and energized to keep going.
And now we are here. Year ten. The BIG TEN.
Why This Year Is Different
Every Women’s Summit has mattered. This one matters more.
We are 82 days from an election that could determine whether American democracy survives the next decade. The stakes have never been higher. The need for organized, activated, connected grassroots communities has never been greater.
And the 10th Annual BIG TEN Women’s Summit — August 21-23 at the Hilton McLean in Tysons Corner — is the most ambitious, most comprehensive, most extraordinary Summit we have ever produced.
40+ national, state, and grassroots leaders. Three days of organizing, strategy, community, and joy. And a program unlike anything we have offered before.
What Is Waiting for You
The Master Class Series — brand new this year. Three Saturday afternoon sessions with Robert Hubbell on turning crisis into power, Michele Hornish on harnessing momentum into action, and Rachel Bitecofer on turning the unexpected into our greatest advantage. This is not sit-and-listen programming. It is transformative, participatory, and designed to change how you think about this moment.
The BADASS Think Tanks — Sunday morning, five simultaneous 75-minute working sessions on Immigration, Data Centers and Climate, Virginia’s Three Constitutional Amendments, Grassroots Tactics, and Media. Led by subject matter experts. Facilitated for real conversation. Notes shared with all attendees. Follow-up Zoom three weeks later.
The Candidate and Campaign Training Hub — a full day Saturday for candidates at every level, featuring Lt. Governor Ghazala Hashmi, Rachel Bitecofer, Slay Strategies LLC, NGP VAN, TargetSmart, Rural GroundGame, and Run for Something.
Friday Power Lunch LIVE on the main stage — the podcast that has been amplifying Virginia’s grassroots voices for six years, live in the room.
Saturday Night Summit Salon with Andrea Chalupa — journalist, filmmaker, historian, and Gaslit Nation co-host — joining us in your PJs for a rousing revolutionary conversation about authoritarianism, resistance, and unreasonable women who refuse to give up.
The Craftivism and Gratitude Garden — Where Whimsy Does the Work. Rock painting. Sashiko stitching. Friendship bracelets. Zinnia seeds. Bead work. Hand massage. A drumming circle. Wake Up and Wiggle with yoga. Because resistance needs joy and activism needs beauty.
The SHOP, LIVE, VOTE Your Values Expo — 40+ vendors, makers, authors, advocates, and values-aligned businesses filling the atrium Friday and Saturday.
And the legendary BADASS Brunch on Sunday morning — where ten years of victories get celebrated, where the people who built this movement get honored, and where everyone leaves fueled for the fight ahead.
Why Blue Virginia Readers Need to Be There
If you read Blue Virginia you are already paying attention. You already know what is at stake. You already care about the outcome of this election.
But caring is not enough. Knowing is not enough. Reading is not enough.
The Women’s Summit is where caring turns into organizing. Where knowing turns into strategy. Where reading turns into action.
It is where you meet the people who are already doing the work — the organizers, the candidates, the advocates, the volunteers, the postcards writers, the phone bankers, the door knockers — and you realize you are not alone. That this community is real and large and powerful and absolutely determined to win.
Virginia has proven it can flip blue. Virginia has proven it can hold blue. And Virginia is about to prove it again — in the congressional races, in the legislative races, in the school board races, in every corner of the Commonwealth.
But it requires people showing up. And the Women’s Summit is where showing up begins.
One More Thing
When you buy a ticket you are not just attending a conference. You are investing in the infrastructure of Virginia’s grassroots democracy.
Ten years ago a handful of women sat in a church basement and asked what they were going to do.
They built something that helped flip Virginia blue.
Come see what we do next.
Register: networknova.org/ws2026
Promo code BIGTEN for 10% off
Show Up. Power Up. Fight Back.
