Meet Our Volunteers: 10 Questions with Jim Washburn

Jim Washburn is a veteran volunteer for Tech for Campaigns with over six months’ experience. In fact, he’s working on his fifth campaign. Right now, he’s working with a team that’s making it possible to automate the generation of fundraising lists and to understand much more about the people on them.

We recently checked in with Jim to learn about his latest projects, including work for David Reid, a candidate for delegate in Virginia’s 32nd District. It’s a pivotal campaign. Democrats have won all national elections in the 32nd District since 2010. Yet during all these years, the 32nd District has been represented by a Republican. If Democrats turn out to vote, this district is one of the few in Virginia that can turn from long-time red to blue.

1. What is your day job?

I’m a software engineer.

2. Why did you get involved with TFC?

I was looking for a way to leverage some knowledge and skills that I have to help make it possible for individuals to successfully run for office, starting at a grass-roots level.

3. Have you been politically active in the past? How?

Only recently. In 2017, I attended a rally related to immigration policy, and I was also at the San Francisco airport to demonstrate against the travel ban.

4. How is the political work different from your regular day job? How is it the same?

Since we work with a different set of people from those on our day jobs, we can actually learn quite a bit from them about technologies that we may not yet be familiar with.

5. Did you have any personal connections to the campaigns you participated in?

I lived in the Virginia and Washington D.C. area for two years during the 1980s.

6. How many campaigns have you been with, and what role did you play as a volunteer?

We started with the David Reid campaign in Virginia (VA-32 House of delegates). Then, because of our contacts with the Virginia Democratic Caucus, we expanded to several other Virginia House campaigns. My role has been to help put together databases useful for campaign fundraising.

7. Was there a moment in your first project where you really felt the impact of your work?

We met the candidate and campaign manager for the David Reid campaign online through a video conference early on. That was great in and of itself. Later, we got very positive feedback from the campaign and caucus. They really appreciated the usefulness of what we had delivered.

8. How was tech leveraged by the campaigns?

In our first project, we produced information for each district campaign, and right away they were able to use the information for fundraising efforts. We saved them a great deal of time, because it would have taken very many hours to gather the information manually.

9. How did TFC help the campaigns?

We don’t yet have end-result feedback yet in terms of dollar amounts from our fundraising databases, but we know from the campaign that they’ve seen value from our work.

10. What did you get out of volunteering for this campaign?

I have the feeling that I am participating in something that has a positive impact on the political landscape.

Get involved! Learn more about David Reid’s campaign and the Virginia House Democratic Caucus, and be sure to join the community at Tech for Campaigns.