About Shannon
Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the nation’s largest grassroots group fighting against gun violence. Known as the ‘summoner of women’s audacity,’ she spent more than a decade leading one of the world’s largest field experiments for mobilizing women. She has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 Changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year.
Known as the “summoner of women’s audacity,” Shannon Watts organizes and mobilizes women to create political, electoral and cultural change. Shannon was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 Changemaker, a Glamour Woman of the Year, a WORTH Magazine Worth 100 and a 2025 Parents Next Gen Award winner. Her most recent book, Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark Into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age was an instant New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller.
The day after the Sandy Hook School mass shooting tragedy in 2012, Shannon—inspired by the success of Mothers Against Drunk Driving—started a Facebook group to unite women against the gun industry. Under her leadership, Moms Demand Action became the largest grassroots group in the nation with a chapter in every state and over 11 million supporters. Moms Demand Action is now twice as large as the National Rifle Association. In just a decade, Moms Demand Action volunteers passed over 500 gun safety laws; stopped the gun industry’s agenda in statehouses 90 percent of the time; elected thousands of gun sense candidates to office, including its own volunteers; and passed the first federal gun legislation in a generation.
In 2023, after 11 years as the full-time volunteer leader of Moms Demand Action, Shannon stepped back from the organization to focus on writing, speaking and organizing. After Vice President Kamala Harris became a presumptive presidential nominee in 2024, she organized the largest Zoom gathering in history, mobilizing over 200,000 voters online and raising over $11 million. She also co-hosted Women Wednesdays for Harris with Indivisible, weekly calls that provided thousands of women with practical guidance on how to take action in the run-up to the 2024 election.
Prior to founding Moms Demand Action, Shannon—a mother of five—worked as a communications executive at public relations firms and Fortune 100 companies. She’s an active board member of Emerge America, one of the nation’s leading organizations for recruiting and training women to run for office. She also serves on the board of Persist, a power network for politically engaged women who are building community and taking action to protect democracy.
Her first book, Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World, was released in 2019. Fired Up, released in 2025, led to the creation of Firestarter University, led to the creation of Firestarter University, a program designed to help women explore their dormant desires and transform their lives, and Bonfire communities, in-person gatherings across the country to help women tap into their political, professional and personal power.
