Tech for Campaigns and the Politics of Tomorrow
Obama’s success in the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections were impactful not only as the first Black President in U.S. history, but because of the innovative ways his campaign implemented technology to mobilize supporters. The Republican party learned from their defeat and has since then invested nearly half of their funds into digital tools for campaigning. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for Democrats, with them investing only about 10% of their budget into digital campaigning. This has had repercussions as democrats continued to lose seats in the House and Senate. So, in response to the election of Donald Trump, Tech for Campaigns (TFC) was founded by Jennifer Alter, Peter Kasenjy, and Ian Ferguson.
TFC’s mission is to “provide political campaigns with access to world-class talent and technology” which are necessary to win modern day political campaigns. TFC acts as a conduit between almost 10,000 skilled digital volunteers (hailing from numerous professions in Silicon Valley) and political candidates. TFC’s support is especially needed in political races that aren’t given as much attention as the presidential elections, such as state or other down-ballot races.
Thus far, TFC has served 133 campaigns and 250 digital projects.They take on a number of projects that fall under the categories of the digital basics (website building and social media presence), analytics and data, social media audits and advertising, and engineering and data science. Some of their success stories include Kendra Horn, a first-time candidate with a limited budget, who won a U.S. House of Representatives seat with 51% of the votes; and Stacey Abrams “the first black female majority party gubernatorial nominee” won her race for Governor of Georgia.
Tune into our podcast if you’re interested in hearing more about Tech for Campaigns, the implications of TFC on the politics of tomorrow, and what it takes to keep this sort of non-profit organization working smoothly and sustainably.
