Melanie Folwell directs Idahoans United strategy while its 2026 committee spends heavily on campaign vendors

The Western Futures→Idahoans United branch now has an identifiable Idaho strategist and a detailed expenditure profile. Western Futures Fund’s FY2024 grant records report a $60,000 general-purpose grant to Idahoans United for Women and Families. In a sworn January 2025 declaration to the Idaho Supreme Court, Melanie Folwell stated that she is Idahoans United’s executive director and member, has held the leadership position since 2024, and in that role organizes volunteers, coordinates strategic priorities, manages staff, fundraises, communicates with media, drafts initiative proposals, coalition-builds and travels Idaho recruiting volunteers and leaders. Idahoans United’s own site also identifies Folwell as executive director. Court records show Folwell submitted the group’s 2026 initiative and that the organization later gathered sufficient signatures for the initiative to qualify for the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot. Current Idaho campaign-finance aggregation reports approximately $1.67M in 2026-cycle contributions and about $867,631 in expenditures for the Idahoans United committee. The largest reported payees are Campaign Associates LLC (~$546,967), Change Media Group ($100,000), ESP Print and Mail (~$48,919), Frame by Frame Productions (~$30,232), Scale to Win (~$17,128), plus Meta/Facebook, Google, USPS and other campaign/organizing vendors. This establishes that the Idaho organization’s strategy is locally directed through Folwell and its organization, while large expenditures are routed to professional campaign, media, print, digital and organizing vendors. It does NOT establish that Western Futures’ $60,000 specifically paid any of those vendors, signature collection, litigation or advertising; the grant was reported as general purpose and Idahoans United had a much larger multi-donor funding base.