Political Tech

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Landscape Report
 Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03 →

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04 →

STATE OF THE LANDSCAPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 →

Political Tech Industry Landscape Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 →

CATEGORY ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06 →

Media & Messaging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06 →

Data Analytics & Modeling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 →

Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 →

Volunteer & Activist Mobilization + Voter Engagement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 →

Fundraising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 →

Movement-Wide & Organizational Infrastructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 →

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 →

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Introduction
& Background
Voters showed up and showed out in the 2022 Two other notable trends impacting the use of squeeze. While innovation in campaign tech has had
midterms. Despite gloomy predictions from pundits, technology include a major spike in ad pricing this a significant impact over the past three cycles, there
Democrats were bolstered by a better-than-predicted cycle (just as streaming TV starts to outpace regular is more to do to recruit, train, and retain the diverse,
performance. This is an affirmation of the Biden TV viewership) and an increasing decentralization talented people who power our movements with
administration’s focus as well as a rejection of of digital social networks. These forced operatives enhanced compensation, management, and career
far right extremism. Midterm turnout affirms the to adapt new engagement strategies and spend growth opportunities.
importance of long-term organizing in constituent advertising dollars more efficiently - both aided by Today we are focusing our efforts on the 2024 cycle.
communities and powerful mobilizing to counter better technology. With a polarized electorate, extreme candidates on
ongoing conservative extremism. Finally, as the political technology ecosystem both sides, an uncertain economic environment, and
Campaigns and organizations continued to adapt matures, we see increasing needs for infrastructure new technological frontiers like AI — there is a lot of
to a hybrid of virtual and in-person techniques that improvement in two vital areas: data infrastructure work to do. We hope this report offers a succinct view
produced historic contact records. Voter suppression and talent management. As game-changing new of the progressive technology landscape that can
and 2020 election deniers presented onerous initiatives such as the Democratic Data Exchange be used as we prepare for the work ahead. Thanks,
challenges in 2022, with active efforts to attack vote- (DDx) and innovative new data warehousing as always, to the incredible team of researchers
by-mail, close polling places, harass nonpartisan structures like the DNC’s Phoenix continue to expand and writers who crafted this report and the many
election administrators, and spread misinformation their footprint, opportunities to better leverage data contributors who shared their experience. We are
in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, and beyond. Technology that improves the end-to-end voter experience are building something important together. Let’s use this
is playing an increasingly important role in finally here. Improvements surrounding integrations, to push forward.
supporting coordinated responses to attacks on data portability across tools, and optionality of voter
democracy, from refining message development to data sources are increasingly important. Changing
enhancing on-the-ground organizing to informing data infrastructure across an entire industry is not Betsy Hoover
and protecting voters. for the faint of heart, but the juice here is worth the Co-Founder, Managing Partner: Higher Ground Labs

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Executive Summary
Campaigns flock to streaming services as Campaigns are starting to purchase
more begin to accept political ads their tech earlier

Policy changes on popular platforms shake up the HGL’s 2022 Buyers’ Survey reveals that campaigns
advertising landscape, leading to price spikes and are beginning to engage with tech vendors earlier in
a 15x increase in campaign spend on TV, including the cycle compared to 2020, with 37% now doing so
connected TV, just as streaming services are one year ahead of Election Day.
projected to surpass traditional TV viewership rates.

Tech improves at the downballot level but

Influencer marketing achieves
campaigns still lack an affordable and
institutional adoption
effective stack
From the DNC to national advocacy organizations,
Downballot campaigns experience unprecedented
major players across the space deploy both paid
electoral success, but despite improvements in tech
and unpaid influencers to deliver compelling
offerings, many still cannot access basic tools.
messages to voters online.

Political text messages reach Large M&A activity of key infrastructure

a tipping point raises questions among practitioners

Declining contact rates, complex 10DLC carrier NGP VAN’s acquisition by Apax Funds
policies, oversaturation, and scams push and consolidation into Bonterra creates
practitioners to rethink the role of text messages. uncertainty regarding the future of core voter
data infrastructure.

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 Political Technology Industry Landscape, 2022
Messaging & Media Movement-
Creative Asset Development Message Development Wide
Information
Integrity

Paid Media Content Testing & Optimization Owned Media / Digital Content
TV Targeting Digital Ad Targeting Social Media Website & Blog Email & Direct
Messaging

TV Buying
Influencer Marketing

Electoral Admin
& Voter Resources

Data Analytics Voter Volunteer & Fundraising

& Modeling Engagement Activist Mobilization
Donor CRM Donation
Voter & Volunteer CRM Portals
Data Sources

Data Aggregation & Mapping

Internal Comms &
d Voter Modeling Volunteer Analytics Fundraising Analytics Productivity
& Targeting

Research Voter Contact Volunteer Deployment Fundraising

Process
Polling Voter Education Activism Volunteer
Navigators Management

IT Infrastructure
Social Listening & Sentiment Research Donor Experience & Security
Organizing Tools
Mobile Canvassing Grassroots Action Dialer Tools Peer-to-Peer Texting

Opposition Research & Media Monitoring

Payment Processing

Mapping / Events Broadcast Messaging Relational Organizing Campaign Strategy

Turf Cutting & Management
Policy Research & Legislative Tracking
Regulatory Compliance & Reporting

Note: Our annual landscape map is a collective, co-created documentation of this evolving space.
Please use this form to contribute updates and suggestions. Thank you!

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MEDIA & MESSAGING

Media & Messaging

Messaging & Media
Creative Asset Development Message Development

Paid Media Content Testing & Optimization Owned Media / Digital Content
TV Targeting Digital Ad Targeting Social Media Website & Blog Email & Direct
Messaging

TV Buying
Influencer Marketing

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS AND ENTRANTS

INTRVL, a media SpeechifAI, an AI- Unified, a social media Wayside Press

✓ optimization and ✓ powered social media ✓ network for organizers and ✓ launches Political
audience research engagement tool, activists, launches to provide Arena - the first
company, launches to launches to help a centralized platform for comprehensive video
help campaigns produce organizations ramp political organizing. game universe set in
more effective, cost- up their organic social U.S. politics.
efficient ad buys. sharing efforts.

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MEDIA & MESSAGING

EMERGING TRENDS
Campaigns flock to streaming services as all made the decision to allow political ads, while majorities of their budgets on TV ads, however TV ad
more begin to accept political ads Netflix and Disney+ have yet to take the leap. placement (including streaming) skyrocketed this
Ad spending on streaming services increased It seems like practitioners got the memo – as we cycle, reaching nearly $3 billion.
15x in 2022, due to popular platforms’ internal approached election day, the price of streaming
Increased adoption, enhanced strategies for youth
policy changes and a growing realization amongst ads spiked as campaigns competed to spend their
engagement through influencer marketing
practitioners that connected TV allows for improved warchests within an auction-based pricing system.
micro-targeting and reach, specifically with younger Campaigns are accustomed to spending large Formal influencer programs received significant
demographics. Hulu, Paramount+, and Peacock have attention and investment in 2022 as Democrats
leveraged new messengers to activate younger
audiences. Influencer marketing was widespread —
from the Biden White House, to the DNC, the
DCCC, candidate campaigns, and advocacy
organizations — and consisted of both paid
and volunteer engagements.
NextGen America and Community Change Action
together reached 13 million people on TikTok and
Instagram in the final two months of midterm
campaigns, and Social Currant worked with almost
300 creators to produce over 500 pieces of content.
The DNC built a hub leveraging content distribution
platform Greenfly to equip influencers with official
talking points and messaging, generating over 83
million impressions between February-August alone.
Vocal Media, a company that connects campaigns
with influencers, ran campaigns on creator-driven
social media platforms, focusing on Instagram
and TikTok. They secured 22 million engagements
and 113 million views on election-related Vocal
creator content last year. Vocal founder Malia
Fisher estimates $10 million was spent on electoral
influencer marketing this cycle and projects up to
$50 million will be spent in ‘24 races within the $16.4
billion overall influencer marketing industry. Vocal
From left, TikTok influencers Christian Maldonado, Tega Orhorhoro, and Ryze
Hendricks. Compiled by Insider, courtesy of Social Currant

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MEDIA & MESSAGING

remains bullish on the long term prominence of Facebook remains a default platform for digital and digital strategists reveal that Facebook today
influencers for electoral outreach, as currently 40% political advertising, but campaigns are hungry offers just a fraction of its previous return due to its
of Gen Z voters use TikTok and Instagram as search for more effective alternatives stagnant user base, increasingly shrinking quantity
engines over Google. With high turnout rates among For digital political advertisers, Facebook remains of young users, and policy changes around targeting
young people ages 18-29, the influencer campaigns the default platform, largely due to limited options and transparency requirements. For example,
of 2022 represent a model for youth mobilization and reluctance to promote paid political content on Meta removed advertisers’ ability to target based
in 2024. the part of other notable platforms. TikTok, Twitter, on political keywords such as “minimum wage” or
and Twitch do not allow political ads, YouTube “fossil fuels.” At the same time, digital consumption
Newer social platforms gain traction imposes strict limits on targeting, and Snapchat remains high, with the share of time on digital vs.
with candidates and voters alike traditional media continuing to increase. As such,
and Reddit have always been a lesser focus for
Quickly rising in the ranks as two of Gen Z’s preferred advertisers. Despite its prominence as the digital campaigns are eager to reach voters on the digital
social media platforms, politicians have attempted political advertising platform, ad agency executives channels where they continue to spend their time.
to meet young voters where they are… on TikTok
and BeReal.
While TikTok – Americans’ go-to short-form video
hub – has come to represent a significant source of
news consumption for Americans under 30 (26%), its
efficacy for turning young scrollers into Democratic
voters remains to be seen. With 83 million monthly
active users in the U.S., advocates say that political
content on TikTok’s platform can help increase
engagement and bolster educational efforts. John
Fetterman, Val Demings, Raphael Warnock, and
Josh Shapiro, among many others, gave it a whirl
this cycle.
BeReal experienced a surge in popularity with
young Americans in 2022, reaching 53 million installs.
Users post two pictures (front and back of their
camera) at a random time throughout the day and
share them on a social feed. President Biden and
Jon Tester tweeted screenshots of their BeReal to
engage younger voters (Biden used the platform to
encourage vaccines while Tester showed off
his tractor).

Pew Research Center: 2022 Global Attitudes Survey. Q28 & Q31a-f. “Social Media Seen as
Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, but U.S. is a Major Outlier.”

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MEDIA & MESSAGING

Conservatives, disaffected by leadership of Only time will tell, but if Democrats and Republicans Americans remain concerned about social media’s
and perceived censorship on traditional social become so polarized that they can’t even converse political impact
platforms, buy and build their own on the same platform, it’s hard to see how we – as a Social media is recognized as an effective tool for
Former President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and nation – can manage to operate under the same set accomplishing political goals and for its value in
Kanye (“Ye”) West all either bought or built their of facts. helping to inform, raise awareness, and empower
own social media platforms over the course of Beyond conservative platforms, efforts to develop users. However, in comparison to other countries,
the past 18 months. A decade’s worth of ever- and scale Twitter replacements were sparked by the Americans are more likely to say that social media
increasing polarization, platform-level censorship conservative Musk takeover, with Mastodon gaining has had a negative impact on democracy. A poll of 19
and account suspension policies, and heightened the most popularity thus far. With only 1.4 million advanced economies revealed that the United States
anti-establishment perspectives on the right have active users, it’s too early to tell if the platform will is an outlier across a number of measures, with larger
led many MAGA-aligned Americans to ditch Twitter achieve critical mass as a robust social network or shares of Americans seeing social media as divisive.
in favor of new, conservative-friendly digital venues. hold at its niche user base. The newest attempt at 64% of U.S. adults say social media has been a bad
Musk bought Twitter, Trump founded Truth Social, a social network for progressive civic engagement thing for democracy, 79% say that social media
and Ye bought Parler; all have made moves to loosen is Texas-based Unified, which is doubling down on has made people more divided on their political
regulations over speech. What will this mean for close activist leadership for engagement long term. opinions, and 69% say it has made people less civil in
America’s information ecosystem moving forward? the way they discuss politics.

AREAS OF NEED, OPPORTUNITY, AND INNOVATION

Filling the inevitable TikTok void to do so by President Biden and Congress. Despite reference fraud. After years of lamenting increased
TikTok’s national security implications have the hypotheticals here, Musk’s Twitter takeover has misinformation on social platforms, and some policy
become the elephant in the room. In December, FBI demonstrated the dangers of over-reliance on social and functionality changes within them to address it,
Director Wray noted that the platform – owned and media platforms. Content creators should look to what more can platforms, regulators, legislators, and
operated by the Chinese conglomerate ByteDance cross-post on Instagram Reels and other relevant concerned citizens do to restore information integrity
– permits the Chinese government to control its channels to prepare for a potential shake-up of the across our news pipelines? This remains an open
recommendation algorithm and manipulate content. landscape and cultivate their followings elsewhere. question, and one that is critical in our collective
To make matters more complicated, Wray also pursuit to uphold the core tenets of our democracy.
Combating fraudulent election claims on
warned that China could theoretically collect data on
social media Meeting ballooning content demands with in-
TikTok users. With the FBI, DoJ, FCC, and Congress
In the summer of 2022, the Washington Post reported house content creation
actively looking into TikTok and evaluating potential
action, it’s not impossible to imagine a world in that two years after the 2020 Election, social In 2022, meeting high demand for digital content
which the platform gets banned within the United media platforms were still bombarded with false required unprecedented investment in staff and
States’ borders. If that happens, Americans will claims about the validity of the results. According tools, according to DNC Chief Mobilization Officer
be left with a significant short-form video content to research obtained by the Post, more than 1/8th Patrick Stevenson. Pressure on campaigns to publish
void. There is also an increasing likelihood that of the posts on Twitter and about 1/12th of the and distribute media in-house in order to reach
ByteDance is forced to sell TikTok in the face of calls posts on Facebook pages about elections in the US voters online turned politicians into content creators,

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MEDIA & MESSAGING

striving for authenticity over polish. With ever- Changing messaging operations with AI tools, Greater efficiency in ad spend
shifting voter media tastes and policies around social ChatGPT
In response to the sharp increase in ad buys this
media platforms, campaigns increasingly looked AI tools will likely become more widely adopted by cycle, with further growth expected in 2024, we
to Gen Z-aged staffers to manage accounts, create political consultants and content creators in 2024. expect demand to rise for media and messaging
short-form content, and convey candidate messages With new software available to generate text in testing and analytics tools. Campaigns and
formerly presented through formal ads. response to prompts, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, organizations realized the benefit of these tools,
some are already testing how the tools might including Swayable, INTRVL, Avalanche, Grow
Using micro-influencers for hyperlocal accelerate content creation for campaigns, including Progress, and Change Research to improve efficient
communication
drafting press releases, fundraising emails, and social ad spend and maximize every dollar spent.
Political campaigns deployed micro-influencers media posts. Thus far, practitioners have found both
to communicate their message in battleground opportunities for efficiency and limitations in terms
states throughout the 2022 cycle. While TikTok of output quality.
bans political ads, employing social media
micro-influencers (~20,000 - 100,000 followers)
in battleground states has allowed campaigns to
circumvent these rules and target voters when done
correctly. Partnering with micro-influencers allows
campaigns to directly communicate with desired
demographics and target their messages to highly-
specific audiences.
As an example, American Bridge 21st Century (AB21)
expanded their influencer program to key races in
Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania to target
female voters. As part of that overall strategy, they
also invested six figures in Kansans for Constitutional
Freedom, a bipartisan pro-reproductive rights group
that utilized influencers as part of their successful
campaign to reject the 2022 Kansas abortion
referendum, the Value Them Both Amendment.
As major players across our space continue to adopt
and refine influencer marketing programs, they
should consider the most optimal ways in which they
can do so locally in order to improve their ability to
tailor and target messages.
@FatGirlFlow. Instagram. Image courtesy of American Bridge.

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DATA ANALYTICS & MODELING

Data Analytics
& Modeling
Data Analytics
& Modeling
Data Sources

Data Aggregation & Mapping

d Voter Modeling Volunteer Analytics Fundraising Analytics
& Targeting

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS AND ENTRANTS

AdvantageAI, a digital co-op by Daisychain, a user-friendly API interface, OpenField powered by TargetSmart, a
MissionWired that helps identify mission- launches a Zapier-like offering to help co-branded CRM partnership between
aligned donors with machine learning administrators build data pipelines the two companies, will enable OpenField
algorithms, launches. between Mobilize, ActBlue, and others. users to power their instances with
TargetSmart data.

Deck, a widely-used analytics dashboard for Community Tech Alliance launches with
down-ballot campaign managers, changes a mission of making world-class data
ownership while serving as an increasingly infrastructure and tooling available, affordable,
key part of campaign infrastructure. and easy-to-use for the progressive space.

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DATA
D A T AANALYTICS
A N A L Y T I C&SMODELING
& MODELING

EMERGING TRENDS
New voter data information leads to enhanced third-party, private entities across the industry. As Sterling Data Company employs a no-code machine
canvassing efforts a result of the DNC’s creation of the Geographic learning product, Akkio.io, to assist in the creation
The DNC scaled a number of major data operations Address Dataset, millions of physical addresses were of relevant predictive models. MissionWired, a
enhancements this cycle, including broad adoption added to its voter database. “This work has given full-service agency founded by veteran Democratic
of the Phoenix digital warehouse of volunteer and the party a 10% increase in canvassable voters on operative Anne Lewis, unveiled AdvantageAI under its
voter file data. Users reported positive improvements tribal lands and an increase in canvassable voters in parent company, The Digital Co-Op, a lead generation
in searchability, efficient integrations opening up rural America.” tool that analyzes billions of data points to generate
engineering staff capacity, and improved frequency predictions on where to find donors and how to best
Deck outperforms polling in mitigating anti- communicate with them.
of data refreshes. The DNC also unveiled the
Democratic bias in forecasts
Geographic Address Dataset in the lead-up to the As use cases for AI expand across the political space,
election, a constantly evolving directory of 260 Deck’s analytics platform uses a wide collection of questions remain surrounding privacy protection,
million physical addresses in the U.S. The party data inputs to model potential outcomes in races data ownership, and opt-in/opt-in provisions. The
accomplished this by pulling voter information from up and down the ballot. The models ingest precinct- Biden Administration released the “Blueprint for an
a myriad of sources, such as the Postal Service and level historical turnout data, media coverage, AI Bill of Rights” that outlined a framework for the
campaign finance data, and candidate issue data government and private sector. But architects of
from partners like BallotReady and VoteSmart to AI policy and political practitioners must prioritize
create forecasts of election results that evolve as upholding fundamental American rights as they
the race continues forward. Deck’s 2022 forecasts consider new applications of this technology.
also underestimated Democratic vote share, but by
a significantly lower margin of error than traditional Major firms partner to share phone data for
polls. The average error in Deck forecasts was voter outreach
2.49pp, underpredicting Dem vote share by 0.94pp. Building off their data collection and sharing efforts
Meanwhile, polls had a median absolute error of during the heat of the pandemic to help campaigns
3.6pp, underpredicting Dem vote share by 3pp. pivot to full-scale digital organizing, Catalist and
TargetSmart ramped up their partnership to share
AI technology produces prediction models that
a historic amount of cell phone data this cycle.
help campaigns identify small-dollar donors
Their collective trove of valuable voter contact data
In previous cycles, campaigns used AI tools to included more than 85 million new or updated phone
improve voter outreach strategy and enhance numbers, 24 million of which are associated with
message testing. Recently, they’ve started to use communities of color. In collaboration with America
the technology to identify people who might be Votes, The Movement Cooperative, and others, this
inclined to donate. Consultants have embraced this initiative helped ensure that advocacy organizations
application and hope it will give Democrats an edge around the country were well-positioned to conduct
in acquiring small-dollar donors. extensive GOTV efforts ahead of the election. This

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DATA ANALYTICS & MODELING

type of collaboration in the data-sharing space is records throughout the 2022 cycle, including calls,
critical for sustaining the movement and ensuring texts, walks, support IDs, race and ethnicity IDs,
that advocates on the ground have access to the polling, and more. This allowed for more efficient
“DDx data allowed the Arizona
most up-to-date information possible. resource allocation, refined universes, and a better team to cure nearly 3,500 ballots
understanding of voter behavior. This cycle, DDx statewide without hurting down
Democratic Data Exchange scales to process 1 found that of the almost 10 million calls and texts ballot races - this was 12.5 times
billion records that resulted in identifying a wrong number, 3 million the win margin of the Attorney
The Democratic Data Exchange (DDx), founded were already identified by other organizations as a General’s race in AZ who won by
in April 2019, expands access to data within wrong number. Moving forward, the expansion of
just 250 votes.”
the Democratic and progressive ecosystem by anonymized data sharing is poised to represent one
facilitating a real time, blind exchange of program of the most significant enhancements for resource EMILY NORMAN, CEO,
data from more than 500 organizations across allocation and the volunteer experience. DEMOCRATIC DATA EXCHANGE
the left. DDx processed more than 1 billion data

AREAS OF NEED, OPPORTUNITY, AND INNOVATION

2022 HGL Buyers’ Survey shows a deep need for comprehensive suites of reports for campaigns the need for ease of integration and API-supported
better analytics tools across verticals (field, digital, fundraising) would be data pathways that enable organizers to quickly
38.6% of respondents to HGL’s 2022 Buyers Survey immensely helpful for their work – demonstrating and easily update, export, track, and report data in
pointed to analytics tools as an area in need of a need across the space to understand end-to-end real time across their tech stacks is ever increasing.
improvement. Some recommendations – such as trends without having to hire a data engineer or Tech vendors and groups, including Daisychain,
finding ways to better integrate data across tools analyst. Without better analytics tools, seamless Community Tech Alliance, and The Movement
– have become common refrains cycle-over-cycle. integration, and more regimented processes, Cooperative’s Parsons team, are working to simplify
Others, such as innovating on ways to capture unique practitioners’ ability to fulfill their duties across a data portability and management in order to support
data (relational touches, online engagement) that variety of functions will continue to be hindered. organizers’ need to focus on their programs instead
don’t fit into traditional contact models, are novel of downloading and uploading spreadsheets. While
Ongoing data integration needs throughout the much progress has been made on this issue in recent
and worth exploring further in the off-cycle year.
tech ecosystem years, there is still a great need for robust data
Further, 41.6% of survey respondents noted that
As our volunteer recruitment and voter contact integration solutions.
a complex integration was among the reasons
tool options expand and diversify in step with
that led them to saying “no” to purchasing a tool.
social media and digital ecosystems as a whole,
Survey comments indicate that developing more

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RESEARCH

Research
Research
NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS
Polling
AND ENTRANTS

FiscalNote, an AI-driven enterprise SaaS

✓ company that focuses on legal and
Social Listening & Sentiment Research regulatory data, goes public in August 2022.
FiscalNote acquired HGL portfolio company
FactSquared in 2021.

Clipbook, a media monitoring startup,

✓ launches to serve political organizations
Opposition Research & Media Monitoring that traditional press clips providers often
overlook.

Avalanche Insights expands to offer

✓ consulting services on top of their
SaaS-based messaging and sentiment
Policy Research & Legislative Tracking research platform.

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RESEARCH

EMERGING TRENDS AREAS OF NEED, OPPORTUNITY,

AND INNOVATION
Advancements in message testing while narratives with sharp critiques of the right
Democrats’ ability to message test got a serious outperformed across demographics. An independent Polling errors continue, leaving room for
analysis by academics from MIT, Berkeley, and Yale improvement in 2024
upgrade over the last cycle. Grow Progress and Blue
Rose Research both made advancements in this field found that patterns in message outperformance Polls certainly performed better in 2022 than in 2020,
with respect to cost and speed. Through piloting are cycle-specific, underlining the ongoing need for but accuracy issues remain salient (See Data for
novel methods for sourcing survey participants and creative pre-testing. Progress’ 2022 Polling Accuracy Report). Throughout
analyzing results, these organizations were able to much of the last cycle, traditional polls seemed to
Catalist, Strategic Victory Fund partner to extend
test statements and associated policies for less than suggest a rather formidable red wave. As we know,
the value of polling
$400 and turn around results in a matter of days. that never materialized, with Democrats maintaining
To offer an alternative to the time-bound nature of control of the Senate and narrowly losing the House.
However, some practitioners across the political tech
single number polling results that cannot capture
ecosystem still worry about the accuracy of message Skewed polling results hurt more than just public
changes during a dynamic campaign timeline,
testing, with concerns ranging from the makeup of perception; they hurt practitioners’ ability to run
Catalist and Strategic Victory Fund partnered to roll
reduced cost web panels (strong partisans, outlier successful, holistic programs. According to a New
out a new ‘scenario-based’ polling analytics model.
participants) and consistency of effect sizes across York Times report that claims inaccurate polls “fed a
This model leverages a large voter file based sample
trials and firms. While there is more work to be done false election narrative,” these results – considered
that can be used early and often to better understand
on that front, cheaper and more effective testing will some of the highest of quality research – encouraged
and integrate ground-up feedback during the
aid Democrats up-and-down the ballot as they look some candidates to spend more money than
campaign cycle.
for a brand and message upgrade ahead of 2024. necessary and diverted resources away from others
who might have otherwise had a chance to win.
Catalist launches DEIA data initiative
Swayable and Way to Win partner on RCT
Of course, not all pollsters drew the same
metastudy Janay Cody, Senior Advisor for Data Equity at Catalist,
conclusions this cycle. Change Research’s work with
has led a notable new initiative to create resources
Last cycle, Swayable’s pre-testing platform anchored the House Majority Project, for example, showed
for organizations relying on vote propensity scores,
efficient spend for a large selection of Senate and promising early signs refuting ‘Red Wave’ worries,
with a focus on how different demographic groups
gubernatorial campaigns. In conjunction with as noted in their 2022 Change Research Accuracy
have different score ranges. Such scores are intended
Way to Win and dozens of partner organizations, Report. As polling continues to significantly impact
to support efficiency in campaigning, but they reflect
they released a powerful metastudy that included public perception and campaign investments, the
historical voting patterns and are generally lower
255 independent RCT survey experiments on over question remains — how can pollsters moving
for groups that face barriers to voting, including
1,000 ads. The results upended many common forward improve their sampling, contact methods,
younger voters and voters of color. By using different
assumptions about effective messaging strategies and weighting processes? This central question must
cutoff points for different demographics groups,
from 2020. Ads targeting the political center or be addressed ahead of the critical 2024 Presidential.
organizations can ensure their programming reaches
particular demographic groups performed no better
representative universes.
than average (even among the target groups),

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VOLUNTEER & ACTIVIST MOBILIZATION & VOTER ENGAGEMENT

Volunteer & Activist

Mobilization and
Voter Engagement
Voter Volunteer & NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS AND ENTRANTS
Engagement Activist Mobilization

Voter & Volunteer CRM

Rally, a relational organizing platform and network,

✓ launches to help scale paid and unpaid relational efforts.
Voter Contact Volunteer Deployment
Voter Education Activism Volunteer
Navigators Management

eQual launches to help ballot initiative campaigns improve

✓ their signature gathering operations.
Organizing Tools
Mobile Canvassing Grassroots Action Dialer Tools Peer-to-Peer Texting

Movement and Frank launched organizing platforms

Mapping / Events Broadcast Messaging Relational Organizing ✓ designed specifically for labor unions and union member
Turf Cutting
engagement.

16
VOLUNTEER & ACTIVIST MOBILIZATION & VOTER ENGAGEMENT

EMERGING TRENDS
Persuasion programming continues to be a truly sophisticated targeting in their field work. There
powerful strategy is an opportunity and call to better focus, improve, “In 2022, HeadCount moved its
and prioritize field efforts around “deep canvassing.”
New research from Galvanize Action and Grow digital and field voter engagement
Progress demonstrated just how powerful persuasion Deep canvassing offers a person-centered approach
efforts to Impactive - the tool
programming can be. In a study of white women to engagement with voters on complex issues and
is focused on building emotional connections and enabled us to sync our in-person,
across PA, WI, and OH, sustained programming over
resolving cognitive dissonance. For campaigns large text, social media campaigns
six months with ads tailored to core values and
hopeful, solutions-based narratives resulted in an and small, deep canvassing is being discussed as the together, which vastly improved
8.33pp increase in vote choice for the Democratic key to unlocking more effective field programs. our data flow, efficiency and
Senate candidates. The persuasion programming affinity-based Get Out the Vote
Young voters continue to up their engagement
also “decreased the percentage of white women program. More importantly, the
who blamed the Biden Administration or Democrats The Harvard Institute of Politics’ national youth poll, relational outreach built into the
for inflation by 8.6pp, and increased the percentage released in April 2022, indicated that 18-29 year olds
platform organically grew our
who blamed corporations, greed, and the wealthy were on pace to match their record-breaking turnout
numbers from 2018. Post-election, we learned that
reach into young fan communities
by 4.7pp.” These findings signal an opportunity
for future campaign messaging and positioning this increasingly relevant and engaged voting bloc across the country in real time.”
strategies, and the extent to which persuasion voted in droves, with about 27% of youth voters
TAPPAN VICKERY, SENIOR DIRECTOR
programming represents a worthwhile investment. between the ages of 18-29 casting a ballot — the
OF PROGRAMMING & STRATEGY
second-highest youth voter turnout in almost three
AT HEADCOUNT
The promise of deep canvassing decades. Notably, Harvard’s poll found that 55% of
Data-driven field operations have dominated respondents lean-Democratic.
progressive campaign strategies over the past HeadCount, a nonprofit organization that registers
Teen Vogue and Change Research’s Midterm Vibe
several cycles. In the leadup to the 2022 midterms, voters at concerts and other in-person events,
Check provided insights around younger voters
however, the effectiveness of Democrats’ approach registered almost 200,000 new voters in 2022 by
who approve of liberal policies but do not credit the
to canvassing was increasingly called into question. teaming up with Harry Styles, Ariana Grande, Megan
Democratic Party. A holistic voter experience bridging
Specifically, concerns were raised around field Thee Stallion, Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Panic! At
the election of Democratic representatives with
programs taking time- and cost-ineffective The Disco, Paramore, and many more. Through a
follow through to positive results in Washington is
approaches to data collection and losing the deep registration-to-relation product experience built on
needed.
listening and human connection that makes door- Impactive, HeadCount linked a relational element to
to-door canvassing so powerful. Moreover, many the flow to new registrants to triple their reach. The As changing demographics and redistricting continue
campaigns fundamentally lack the volume of strategy was successful in 2022, with another high to disrupt the political landscape, Democratic
volunteers required to effectively conduct broad- turnout ratio expected similar to the 78% turnout campaigns should look to young voters as a group
based field programs, begin canvassing efforts too rate for HeadCount-registered voters in 2020. increasingly receptive to issue-based messaging and
late in the cycle (after Labor Day), and fail to adopt mobilization tactics.

17
VOLUNTEER & ACTIVIST MOBILIZATION & VOTER ENGAGEMENT

Paid relational organizing shines through in

Pennsylvania, Georgia
Relentless – and its new app, Rally – stepped up this
cycle to scale its relational organizing programming,
which includes recruiting low-propensity voters in
harder-to-reach neighborhoods and empowering Democratic campaigns
them (via training and financial compensation) to used a combination of
canvass their friends. Their Georgia runoff program innovative and traditional
hired 1,300 people to mobilize 70,000 of their friends outreach methods
and family within 15 days. Of the voters in this powered by technology
network, 23% had not voted in the 2020 election. to complete more voter
contact attempts this cycle
Speaking of facilitating relational conversations at than in any past midterm.
scale – Impactive continued to deploy its proven Simultaneously, overall
relational tool to congressional and senate races contact rates are declining.
across the country, while the Progressive Turnout
Project spent over $2 million to support relational
organizers in a variety of critical swing states.

Political text messages reach a tipping point?

Throughout the final stretch of the 2022 cycle, Democratic National Committee, 2022
Americans were bombarded with a record number
of political text messages. While this trend has been platforms and TV advertisers impose strict rules on of 1991), but no similar set of standards or consumer
accelerating (in terms of both quantity and intensity) content, text messages are subject to carrier-imposed rights apply to texts.
since 2016 when Hustle et al. empowered campaigns registration and conduct requirements, known as While it’s unrealistic and unwise to call for an end to
to text voters at scale, it appears that the situation 10DLC, which attempt to limit some spamming political text messages, practitioners and regulators
reached a tipping point. According to the New York behavior. Unfortunately, 10DLC complexities and should engage with increasing popular sentiment
Times, over the last year, Americans filed 9,477 fraud lack of consistent enforcement amongst carriers has around saturation and efficacy of spam-like
reports and submitted 2,000+ complaints related to also had the result of disenfranchising good actors messaging on long-term voter enthusiasm. Further,
political text messaging. Americans received 1.29 attempting to use SMS for ethical outreach. they should take steps to prevent the spread of
billion texts in October 2022 alone (according to
Meanwhile, campaigns, PACs, IEs and other groups, misinformation and promote maximally accessible
estimates from RoboKiller).
particularly on the right, have utilized texts to spread opt-out options for the overwhelmed. They should
Campaigns have every right to reach voters in the messages containing misinformation and harsh take steps to prevent the spread of misinformation
manners they choose, so long as they are within smears that might not make the cut for publication and promote maximally accessible opt-out options
the bounds of the law. Political text messaging on Facebook. Federally, auto-dialers are regulated by for the overwhelmed.
is a largely unregulated field. While social media the FCC (under the Telephone Consumer Protection

18
VOLUNTEER & ACTIVIST MOBILIZATION & VOTER ENGAGEMENT

AREAS OF NEED, OPPORTUNITY, AND INNOVATION

Scaling relational organizing and defining canvassing and other forms of in-person outreach, reasons to come back for an additional shift or
success metrics this shortage will plague operations across the board. bring a friend along. Campaigns must optimize their
Higher Ground Labs has been writing about and Moreover, campaigns are facing a management recruitment and management practices, creating
investing in relational organizing since the lead- challenge – organizers are now tasked with running more cohesive units of volunteers that are ready
up to the 2018 cycle; the collective of immensely hybrid programs and coordinating activities for and eager to support the mission. And field staffers
talented organizers and companies working on this volunteers at the field office and over Zoom. should take lessons from the private sector about the
has outperformed all expectations. As relational To address these challenges, campaigns and best ways to simultaneously engage affiliates and
evolves from a “shiny new tactic” to a central organizations must prioritize providing ample, high- supporters in-person and virtually.
piece of the majority of organizing operations, our quality training opportunities to ensure volunteers
space needs to determine how to best scale these Identify new approaches to improve contact rates
are best-positioned to succeed and less likely to
programs for consistent statewide and nationwide burn out. They also need to rethink engagement Democratic campaigns made more voter contact
efforts, in addition to identifying clear metrics that incentives– to give volunteers more and more attempts this cycle than in any past midterm. In fact,
define success. How do we ensure accountability outreach has tripled since 2014, the last midterm
and improve reporting? How do we ensure that with a sitting Democratic President. This trend is
relational serves as an apt complement to traditional supported by new technology such as texting and
cold outreach tactics? How can paid and unpaid scaled use of dialers and canvassing apps. Despite
relational efforts best coexist across the same entity? this increase in contact attempts, contact rates across
While some of these questions might be solved by traditional outreach channels have been declining
technology, the vast majority of them will require for multiple cycles; this trend was particularly salient
enhanced coordination amongst practitioners. in 2022.

Reinvigorating the Democratic volunteer base and Ahead of the 2024 cycle, campaigns ought to
managing a hybrid organizing model consider ways in which they can improve their
outreach efforts, in terms of both mechanisms and
This cycle, many practitioners lamented a shortage
messengers. How might campaigns be incentivized
of volunteers out in the field - a significant problem
to prioritize long-term organizing and relationship
that has been overlooked in many postmortem
building over burning out voters, volunteers, and
analyses. What explains the shortage? A combination
donors in pursuit of hitting shorter-term fundraising
of lingering effects of the pandemic, a regionally-
goals? How do we make higher quality contacts so
segmented enthusiasm gap, and the proliferation of
people engage rather than tune out politics?
digital advocacy tools that allow people to contribute
to political efforts from their couches. But so long
as Democrats continue to prioritize door-to-door

19
Fundraising
Fundraising NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS
Donor CRM Donation AND ENTRANTS
Portals

EvenScore launches to help donors

maximize the impact of their
campaign and cause contributions.

OpenGrants, a search engine and

marketplace for grant seekers and
Fundraising grant writers, launches to make
Process the grant funding process more
efficient and transparent.

Donor Experience Numero launches a separate

product – Electables – to help
campaigns orchestrate grassroots
fundraising campaigns via NFTs.

Payment Processing

Engage Raise launches to help

make candidate crypto donations
easier for all parties involved.
Regulatory Compliance & Reporting

F U N D R A I S I N G 20
FUNDRAISING

EMERGING TRENDS
ActBlue sees record midterms donations, Web3 toe-dips in political fundraising, candidates and its infamous CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, and
announces new CEO and platforms face structural and societal other unfortunate circumstances), innovation in the
headwinds Web3 space has kept a remarkable pace. Will these
Once again, ActBlue helped funnel billions of
dollars to Democratic campaigns and causes As we wrote about in our Web3 x Politics Report, technologies play a role directly within political
throughout the 2022 cycle. The platform processed Web3 technologies (crypto donations and campaign campaigns in 2024 or 2026? Time will tell.
$3.5 billion to 27,305 campaigns and organizations. NFTs) made their foray into the political space,
thanks to the innovative experiments run by Innovative virtual fundraisers to drive donations
These contributions came from 7.4 million unique
donors who, in tandem, made 86 million individual candidates like Shrina Kurani and new startups In an age where the lines between physical and
contributions; their average donation size was like Electables. virtual are increasingly blurred, campaigns are
$40.05. In comparison to the 2018 midterm cycle, Many campaigns on both sides of the aisle accepted looking to innovative virtual events to reach donors.
the total number of contributions and dollars crypto donations (via BitPay) for the first time despite For example, The Democratic Party of Wisconsin
raised doubled, reflecting both the growth of the the lack of regulatory clarity from the FEC. While only (WisDems) and Hovercast worked together to host
Party’s small dollar donor base and the sense a sliver of total dollars raised were contributed via successful streams and virtual events, including a
of urgency felt across this cycle to take action in cryptocurrencies, technologists and finance directors crossover reunion with the casts of Veep and The
response to unprecedented challenges to our long- were able to develop and utilize compliance-focused West Wing that raised $700K+ from 13K grassroots
held freedoms. infrastructure to accept and process these new kinds donors. Cutting-edge design and execution of such
of assets. Further, a handful of House, Senate, and virtual events is key to fundraising success, from
As the new year kicked off, ActBlue also named a
gubernatorial candidates developed and launched embedded calls to action for donations and social
new CEO, Regina Wallace-Jones, who is the first
campaign NFTs. While they all experienced varying sharing to real-time custom donor shout-out graphics
Black woman to hold the role.
degrees of success in to progress tracking meters and more.
terms of fundraising,
Donation optimizers
they charted the path
for how candidates can There is a growing appetite amongst small-dollar
utilize unique digital donors to ensure their donations make the highest
collectibles to enhance possible impact. Contribution dashboards like
their brand and engage EvenScore make it easier for donors to compare the
donors and volunteers. value of their donations across multiple campaigns
or organizations, while taking advantage of critical
Despite the significant
data from sources like Deck.
market shift in
cryptocurrencies (as
brought on by the
collapse of Terra, rising
inflation, the fall of FTX

21
FUNDRAISING

AREAS OF NEED, OPPORTUNITY, AND INNOVATION

Protecting seniors from unsavory and aren’t illegal, Democratic operatives have a moral mentioned above, often feels like spam or suffers
unethical solicitation tactics imperative to build a coalition based on trust and from declining efficacy rates. In an effort to broaden
Older Americans are some of the most active political mutual respect. Our tactics must match our values. their universe of total donors and avoid spamming
donors. But rather than respectfully courting them, their target audience, could campaigns empower
Empowering volunteer fundraisers engaged volunteers to serve as decentralized
according to a New York Times report, digital and
finance staffers in both parties are utilizing deceptive As our space has come to realize that in many cases, “volunteer donor advisors” or “small-scale bundlers”
tactics and manipulative, age-targeted messaging a nudge from a trusted peer is a more effective for their networks? Donor Organizer Hub has
to secure contributions. Everything from insincere persuasion and mobilization tool than a nudge from started hosting private trainings to support those
offers to match donations, to subject lines reading a stranger, that same logic could (and probably interested in taking initiative, but there may very
“Social Security,” to pre-checked boxes that indicate should) apply to fundraising. To raise money from well be interesting ways to iterate on existing or
consent to recurring donations have been employed small-dollar donors, campaigns typically rely on build new technology platforms to empower this
to coerce older Americans. Though these practices social media ads or cold text outreach that, as underdeveloped concept.

Could campaigns
empower engaged
volunteers to serve as
decentralized “small-
scale bundlers” for their
networks?

F U N D R A I S I N G 22
MOVEMENT-WIDE & ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Movement-Wide Movement-
Wide

& Organizational
Information
Integrity

Infrastructure Electoral Admin

& Voter Resources

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS AND ENTRANTS Internal Comms &

Productivity

The Good Catch Bug Bounty Program leveraged political

technologists and ethical hacker/researcher communities
to secure key campaign tech infrastructure.

Democratic Data Exchange expanded to provide additional

derived products and offerings that enable strategic
IT Infrastructure
decisions and resource allocation shifts. & Security

stac labs piloted a new tool this cycle – Ecclesia – that

helps state parties distribute the voter file to down-ballot
campaigns.

Campaign Strategy
& Management

M O V E M E N T - W I D E & O R G A N I Z A T I O N A L I N F R A S T R U C T U R E 23
MOVEMENT-WIDE & ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

EMERGING TRENDS
Trend toward earlier tech purchases and resource allocation shifts within cycles. In
According to our 2022 buyers’ survey, campaigns 2022, a large national soft-side organization used a
custom DDx derivative report to visualize saturation “Democratic Data Exchange (DDx) data
have begun engaging with tech vendors earlier in the
across the ecosystem during the last month of the allowed the Arizona team to cure nearly
cycle, as compared to our 2020 Election Tech Survey
election and the GA runoff. The team used this 3,500 ballots statewide without hurting
findings. 37% of survey respondents engaged over
information to deprioritize geographies covered down ballot races - this was 12.5 times
one year before Election Day, as compared to 29% of
by other programs and focus on filling the gaps. the win margin of the Attorney General’s
respondents in our 2020 survey. Moreover, just 7%
Understanding of cross-ecosystem saturation led to race in AZ who won by just 250 votes.”
of respondents said they engaged at the last minute
in 2022 (1-3 months before Election Day), down from a 50-80% reduction in redundant attempts. The DDx
EMILY NORMAN, CEO,
17% in 2020. This represents a promising trend for bolstered products that support this type of large-
DEMOCRATIC DATA EXCHANGE
campaigns to take full advantage of political tech’s scale shift in prioritization in 2022, and they intend
power and to limit the opportunity cost of to continue doing so moving forward.
late adoption.

Tech adoption based on previous experience

prevails, presenting challenges for emerging tools
59% of respondents to our 2022 Buyers’ Survey
shared that they heard about their tech tools from
previous campaigns. While 56% of respondents
noted that they learned about technology through
research, only 22% pointed to cold outreach by
vendors. Moreover, the top reasons they rejected
buying a tool included that it was too expensive,
required complex integration, and/or was not good
enough for their needs. This indicates a challenge
facing new and emerging political tech tools, as
limited resources hinder campaigns’ willingness or
ability to experiment with new platforms.

Data Exchange reductions of contact redundancy

improve voter experience
During the 2022 cycle, DDx expanded to provide
additional derived products and offerings that enable
clients to make broad strokes, strategic decisions

24
MO VEMENT-WIDE & ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Improving voter file accessibility for down-ballot State House in Pennsylvania; and made significant To address this, organizations like stac labs have
candidates inroads in the Arizona State Senate. Was this due to started working with state parties to fill marketplace
Stac Labs piloted a new tool this cycle – Ecclesia – unexpected political headwinds for conservatives, gaps in finding and adopting accessible tech and
that helps state parties distribute the voter file to unprecedented funding and coordination, or newly providing training alongside Arena, DigiDems, and
down-ballot campaigns. While still in its MVP stage, accessible tech? Probably a combination of all three, others. Candidate recruitment initiatives such
the tool offers a simple interface for candidates to and there is much more to be done. as Pipeline Initiative, EMILY’s List, and Run for
request access, sign contracts, and make payments, Companies like Goodstock (merchandise designer Something also play a pivotal role in both utilizing
while providing state party staffers with a better and provider) and SpeakEasy Political (digital and and sharing tech resources available to these
handle on the administrative tasks required on their mail creative development) made it easier for down- powerful local campaigns.
end. For down-ballot candidates with small teams, ballot campaigns to access critical and cost-effective
Second major bug bounty programs
simplified access and ease-of-use surrounding the services typically reserved for campaigns with larger
expand tech resilience
most critical package of campaign information is a budgets. Campaign Academy by Universe piloted a
step in the right direction. step-by-step guide to help down-ballot candidates The Good Catch, a joint initiative of Trestle
prepare and take the requisite steps for establishing Collaborative, Zinc, and Higher Ground Labs,
Down-ballot tech improves but needs are still their campaign operation. helped Democratic and progressive organizations
generally unmet like Impactive, Switchboard, and Empower Project
However, down-ballot candidates still lament the fact
It’s safe to say that Democrats overperformed become more secure by reporting a collective 118
that they cannot find, afford, or make use of other
down-ballot in 2022, as the Party secured significant reports, resolving 55 reports, with 77 awards totaling
critical services, ranging from website development
victories across the board. Democrats secured $17,700. This marks the second election cycle with a
to digital content management to district data and
trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota for the first progressive bug bounty program designed to secure
demographic analysis tools.
time in 40 and 10 years, respectively; flipped the key infrastructure.

"Many of the 520,000 elected offices go uncontested each

cycle. Technology products developed for a $1m client are
fundamentally different from what a $1k client can manage, but
providing price- & capacity-accessible tech to local campaigns
and the organizations who work to support those campaigns
can have profound benefits for voter experience and civic
engagement."

AUDRA GRASSIA, PIPELINE INITIATIVE

SpeakEasy Political

25
MOVEMENT-WIDE & ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

AREAS OF NEED, OPPORTUNITY, AND INNOVATION

A political tech marketplace of the political tech ecosystem, which have remained talent, institutional knowledge and innovation to
As an increasing number of useful, unique tools relatively stable for over a decade. other industries each cycle. Advocates are discussing
enter the fast-growing political tech marketplace, the role of improved compensation, benefits
Local hiring practices retention, unionization, professional advancement,
campaign managers and organizations need a more
thorough and user-friendly resource for reviewing Campaign staff – from organizers to communications management skills, and career sustainability of
feature sets, understanding use cases, gauging past professionals – are, among other things, tasked with the people who power this work. As the political
customer reviews, and comparing prices. Higher keeping their finger on the pulse of the electorate technology community continues to further diversify
Ground Labs helps in this area by offering free their candidate wishes to court, building local and better match our country’s electorate, expanded
consultations and producing comprehensive guides; (district or statewide) networks, and conducting efforts to hire, support, and retain staff who are
stac labs plans to build on and expand Ecclesia to targeted outreach to communities. However, in BIPOC, women, LBGTQIA, disabled, and/or new to
offer access to a slate of other tools (SMS, dialers), many cases, a significant portion of campaign staff the space require essential investment.
as well. But a new, independent solution might be are not from nor have ever lived in the city, town, or Conversations about the trials and tribulations of
needed to complement. district in which they work. They’re often selected living our values as progressives are not new, but
from a pool of recent college graduates from out they are evolving. As we all strive to show up and
The wake of NGP VAN’s consolidation of state. This presents challenges surrounding grow in the best ways for these conversations, we
into Bonterra perceived authenticity and localized subject-matter would like to gratefully amplify the vision shared by
NGP VAN was recently acquired by Apax Funds and familiarity. Campaigns benefit when they are able Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working
merged with Bonterra, a larger company that focuses to hire qualified staff who will ultimately work on Families Party in his 2022 article, Building
heavily on tools for 501c3 nonprofit organizations. races in areas in which they have lived experiences. Resilient Organizations.
Some individuals in the field have expressed This might have to start on college campuses, but
concerns about the future of this fundamental regardless, this is a problem worth consideration
“We must learn how to synthesize lessons from the
progressive tech infrastructure following the across our space.
past and observations in the present. That means
acquisition, especially given the departure of sitting in an awkward both/and place. We must call
Improvements to talent recruitment and retention out fallacies that weaken us, even when it’s hard
key NGP VAN leaders and Bonterra's recent 10%
reduction in workforce. These developments have We must strive to improve broadly on recruiting and and we face criticism for it. And we must meet our
problems with grounded solutions that are drawn
caused uncertainty and anxiety about the overall training – burnout, staff shortages, and exhaustion
from a sober assessment of the larger time, place,
stability of the political tech ecosystem. Others have are reported across the board in debriefs of the
and conditions we find ourselves in. None of this,
viewed this as an opportunity for more innovation 2022 cycle. The pandemic, enduring toxicity of of course, will be easy. In fact, much of it will cause
and have called for the creation of more community- emboldened conservative extremists, and recession- great discomfort. However, on the other side of the
owned, nonprofit infrastructure to ensure the triggered layoffs have challenged workers nationally. uncomfortable journey is an abundant, playful, and
security of critical systems. In response to this In addition, campaign workers also grapple with low powerful home for our freedom dreams. Will we
choose it?”
news, multiple competitors have recently launched compensation, long hours, unreliable professional
providing the movement with more options. We environments, and instability of income and MAURICE MITCHELL, NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF THE
anticipate seeing a surge in innovation in these areas healthcare coverage. As a result, we lose tremendous WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

26
 CREDITS

REPORT LEAD CONTRIBUTORS ARI TRUJILLO-JOHN, OPENFIELD GRETA CARNES, NORA GROSSMAN,
DAVIS LEONARD, RALLY
DAVIS MANOUSHAGIAN, STAC LABS EMILY NORMAN, TARAH MARSHALL,
Russell Mindich
AMY REGER, DEMOCRATIC DATA TOVAH PAGLARO, AVALANCHE
Hillary Lehr PAM GIDWANI, DCCC
EXCHANGE
MIKALA PAULA COHEN, SWAYABLE
MICHAEL FRIAS, CATALIST
KATIE MILLER, KAT ATWATER,
NASEEM MAKIYA, IMPACTIVE
EMMA FRIEND, DNC COMMUNITY TECH ALLIANCE
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS MAX WOOD, DECK
ASHLEY ROBINSON, IAN BAUM, GEORGIA DEMOCRATIC
Maya Berkman PROGRESS GEORGIA PARTY ABE RAKOV, ROSS MORALES
ROCKETTO, RUN FOR SOMETHING
Eden Powell KIERSTEN ARNONI, ACTBLUE CRISTINA SINCLAIRE, CLARITY
CAMPAIGNS DAN MCSWAIN, HELM
MEG SCHWENZFEIER, DSCC
EMILY GITTLEMAN, UPLIFT CAMPAIGNS MATT HODGES, ZINC LABS
CARLISSIA GRAHAM,
GRAPHIC DESIGN NEW MEDIA VENTURES ADAM KIRSCH, CHANGE RESEARCH MICHAEL BRODSKY, FORMER
CANDIDATE FOR MICHIGAN STATE
Herland Studio JOSE NUNEZ, DNC AUDRA GRASSIA, GOODSTOCK
HOUSE DISTRICT 103
LOU LEVINE, NGP VAN DAVID SLIFKA, BLUEM VENTURES

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