Victoria “Tory” Gavito is an activist, human rights attorney, political strategist, movement builder and advocate for the civic engagement of Latinos in the United States. As an attorney, Gavito has represented unions, immigrant and migrant workers, and individuals regarding a variety of labor law, wage payment and employment discrimination matters. Gavito is the Co-Founder and first President of Way to Win, the Founding Executive Director of the Texas Future Project, and Founder of the Texas Future Project Research Center. Gavito’s career is inspired by her grandmother and namesake, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico in the 1940s.
Way to Win
In 2018, Gavito co-founded Way to Win, and currently serves as its first President. Way to Win is a resource and strategy hub that seeks a new approach to progressive political spending and elections, advances transformative policy, and builds lasting power. The Way to Win strategy supports candidates who reflect the values and demographics of their communities and the independent political organizations who work to elect and hold them accountable.
Texas Future Project
In 2013, Gavito became the Founding Executive Director of the Texas Future Project in Austin, Texas. The Texas Future Project provides donors an opportunity to coordinate and collaborate on investment strategies to build and expand progressive infrastructure in the state of Texas. TFP promotes investments in organizations that are considered highly accountable, effective, and committed to the long-term goal of achieving a progressive majority in Texas. Under her leadership, the Texas Future Project moved from an idea to an institution, and raised and aligned over $20 million. Gavito is also the Founder of the Texas Future Project Research Center, a collection of qualitative and quantitative data on the Texas electorate.
Other appointments
Gavito is currently an advisory board member of the Center for Migrant Rights and the Workers Defense Project. Gavito is also on the board of the State Innovation Exchange-Action.
Previous activism & roles
From 2011 to 2013, Gavito served as an Associate Attorney for Glenda Pittman & Associates, P.C., in Austin, Texas. There she advocated for the rights of private and public sector unions in Central Texas, and argued cases before the National Labor Relations Board, the United States Department of Labor, as well as other federal and state courts. Before joining Glenda Pittman & Associates, Gavito served for four years as Legal Director of the Center for Migrant Rights, a transnational law center with three offices in Mexico, where she litigated and advocated for the rights of Mexico’s foreign workforce. From 2004 to 2006, Gavito received the New Voice Fellowship and the Yale Initiative for Public Interest Law Grant to work as a Staff Attorney at the Central Texas Immigrant Workers’ Rights Center, a wage claim project affiliated with the Austin, Texas Equal Justice Center. There she supervised law students in the Transnational Workers’ Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, and led a wage-claim litigation project for low-wage immigrant workers in contract and labor disputes. The project resulted in the creation of the Austin, Texas Workers’ Defense Project, a membership organization for low-wage workers. Gavito also served as a Research Assistant at the Immigration Human Rights Clinic at the Center for Legal and Social Justice at St. Mary’s Law School, and as an AmeriCorps Volunteer with the American Friends Service Committee in Denver, Colorado.
Education
Gavito graduated from St. Mary's University School of Law in 2004, and received the Pro Bono Award for the 2004 graduating class recognizing her commitment to serving the poor. She received a BA in Political Science and Spanish from St. Olaf College in 2000.
