You say "politician". I say "registered nurse running in a district where the R would be effective unopposed otherwise, needing straightforwardly to raise $100k before the end of the year to get taken seriously by the DNC".

You can not like that the system works this way (I hope you do like the idea of more RN's and school teachers as reps!), but compared to lobbying the Republican FCC, it has the virtue of being plausibly effective.

I love the idea of more regular people (especially non-lawyers) running for office, I'm just more pessimistic than you about the wisdom of throwing more money into the campaign finance machine.

Any suggestions about how to find this type of person running in this type of district? I agree that supporting this type of person could be disproportionately effective, but how do you find them when still in the early stages?

Maciej Ceglowski of Pinboard has been traveling the country meeting candidates for races that professionals helped identify as underserved by the DNC, and came up with a "Great Slate", which is a good starting point:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/great_slate

But: if you live in a major metro area: you're probably in a D district, where just a few miles from you there's a suburb in an R district. Find that district and see who's running in it.

Here's who's running in the NM-2:

http://fec.gov/data/elections/house/NM/02/2018/

Just fix the URL for whatever race you're interested in.

Strong recommend on donating to the Great Slate.