March For Our Lives is slashing its employees and appointing a new leader.
The gun-control group announced it would cut ties with 13 of its 16 full-time staffers last week. It also named a new executive director. Jaclyn Corin, a 24-year-old Parkland survivor and group co-founder, will take the reins as the organization attempts to navigate bumpy terrain in the wake of the 2024 election.
“We are facing financial challenges as an organization, not unlike many nonprofit advocacy organizations in this time,” Corin told The 19th. “I am sure things would look differently with a different outcome of the election, but these are the systems and circumstances in which we have to make adjustments based on the financial situation we find ourselves in. It is incredibly unfortunate that these cuts have to happen.”
The firings are a significant setback for one of America’s most prominent gun-control groups. It likely limits any impact the group might have between now and next year’s midterm elections. It’s also the culmination of the group’s long decline after a meteoric rise.
March For Our Lives was created in the wake of the shooting at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 people and wounded 18 more. The group was formed in part with money from a viral fundraiser, though it also relied heavily on high-dollar donors. From the beginning, Parkland survivors were the face of the organization.
It was able to turn out a massive crowd at its initial DC march back in 2018.
That activism helped lead, in part, to Florida adopting new gun restrictions–including age limits and a “red flag” law–despite Republican control of the state. However, though Donald Trump briefly signaled support for new federal gun restrictions, Congress did not pass new gun laws.
Since then, March For Our Lives has been among the country’s most aggressive gun-control advocacy groups. In 2019, it proposed a sweeping new policy platform that would buyback upwards of 100 million guns.
“In order to operationalize new laws like an assault weapons ban and a higher standard of gun ownership, we need to implement a federal gun buy-back program that facilitates compliance with new laws and provides economic incentives for gun owners to responsibly reduce their gun inventory,” the plan said. “All government-purchased gun inventory would be destroyed. The intended goal: a reduction of our domestic firearm stock by at least 30%. To be clear: the implementation of an assault weapons ban should be a full mandatory buy-back of assault weapons, but we would also create programs to encourage voluntary civilian reduction of handguns and other firearms.”
March For Our Lives has also taken a collaborative approach with other groups on the left and often advocated for many other issues beyond gun control in recent years. It has had some limited success in holding marches in the years since the 2018 rally, but has never been able to recapture the scale and energy of that first event.
At the same time, public records show fundraising at its two non-profit entities has declined dramatically in recent years. Its non-political foundation went from revenues of $2.2 million in 2022 to $1.4 million in 2023, putting it more than $300,000 in the red. Its political advocacy arm went from $7 million in 2022 to under $3.5 million the following year. It ran a deficit both years, and neither was anywhere close to the $18.6 million it first raised in 2018.
While public records are not yet available for 2024, Corin’s comments suggest the numbers have only gotten worse.
“While these efforts were important, we ultimately took on more than our resources could sustain over the long term — and we take responsibility for that,” she told The 19th.
Still, she said the group isn’t going away. She said March For Our Lives would continue to advocate for stricter gun laws.
“Now, we are making an intentional effort to double down where we are most effective: mobilizing young people to hold their leaders accountable for failing to address the number one killer of kids,” Corin told the publication.
However, she said the group planned to focus primarily on reaching and mobilizing young voters–particularly young women.
“We hope to remind people of the insanity of the existence of this issue in this country and then give them the tools for how to actually make a change in their communities,” she said.
