{"id":1248342,"date":"2023-10-05T17:48:27","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T17:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=446727"},"modified":"2023-10-05T17:48:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T17:48:27","slug":"as-2024-looms-democrats-campaign-tech-crumbles-under-private-equity-squeeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/10\/05\/as-2024-looms-democrats-campaign-tech-crumbles-under-private-equity-squeeze\/","title":{"rendered":"As 2024 Looms, Democrats\u2019 Campaign Tech Crumbles Under Private Equity Squeeze"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The company in<\/u> charge of the Democratic Party\u2019s prized campaign technology tools announced its second round of layoffs in <\/a>just under a year<\/a> on September 6, slashing a total of nearly 350 jobs this year just as the 2024 elections ramp up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, the privately owned monopoly<\/a> over the Democratic Party\u2019s voter data has changed hands from one for-profit company to another. Apax Partners, a global private equity firm, currently owns<\/a> EveryAction and NGP VAN, the firms that house the Democrats\u2019 suite of voter file, compliance, and organizing tools. Apax acquired them from another private equity firm in 2021, creating a new merged entity called Bonterra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, according to current and former employees, Bonterra cut at least 20 percent of its staff, more than 200 employees. Staff members across EveryAction and NGP VAN, which hold the Democratic Party\u2019s most sensitive data, were cut. At least a quarter of the people laid off belonged to the union, 51 of them unit members from EveryAction and NGP VAN. At least half of the developers at ActionKit, a fundraising and customer relations management software acquired by EveryAction in 2019, lost their jobs. (Bonterra did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The myriad challenges facing Democrats ahead of 2024 include lagging fundraising<\/a>, low voter enthusiasm<\/a>, and potential challengers<\/a> to President Joe Biden. Neglect of long-standing issues with the party\u2019s campaign tech infrastructure could further complicate those challenges, as could staff cuts at the firms Democratic campaigns rely on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For insiders, the decision to make deep cuts at certain parts of the operation suggests changes could be in store for the even more crucial parts of the company. There are alternatives to ActionKit, but fewer to NGP VAN, where Bonterra could cut more staff with little notice, said Tara Harwood, who was laid off from her role as ActionKit lead quality assurance engineer last month. \u201cI really think that Bonterra is a menace to the sector,\u201d Harwood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to prevent Bonterra from doing to NGP VAN what they did to us,\u201d she added. \u201cWhat\u2019s happened to ActionKit should be a cautionary tale to every NGP VAN customer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent cuts at Bonterra come after layoffs earlier in the year, which preceded a wave of contraction in the Democratic-aligned campaign industry. In the two years since Bonterra\u2019s creation, at least 340 people have been laid off. Cuts in January were followed three months later by layoffs at other Democratic and progressive consulting, media, and polling firms like Middle Seat<\/a> and ActBlue<\/a>. Last month, EMILY\u2019s List laid off eight people, including most staff working on grassroots candidate outreach and training, and shut down its national training and recruitment program. The leader of the group who oversaw the cuts, Laphonza Butler<\/a>, was just appointed to represent California in the Senate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats\u2019 main concern should be with who owns the party\u2019s most important campaign tech tools, said Michael Podhorzer, the assistant to the president for strategic research at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the nation\u2019s largest union federation. \u201cThe problem,\u201d Podhorzer said, \u201cis when the monopoly is owned privately, like NGP VAN was, and can be sold to another company that doesn\u2019t have the founder\u2019s original commitment to the party or progressives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"UKRAINE\n

A photo illustration of the Apax Partners private equity firm logo.<\/p>\n

Photo: Pavlo Gonchar\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Gett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Consolidation and Collapse<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was the first candidate to use ActionKit in 2016. The company\u2019s clients have included liberal and progressive groups like MoveOn and the Natural Resources Defense Council. (The Intercept uses ActionKit for its email newsletters and fundraising.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was in the process of moving its list over to ActionKit from NGP VAN last month when staff members working there on the transition were laid off. Harwood said she was laid off while she was working on Warren\u2019s migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of the people that we\u2019re all counting on to make a difference in 2024 are relying on ActionKit. That\u2019s horrible,\u201d said Tanya Africa, the company\u2019s former vice president of product. When she left the company in December, Africa said, \u201cthe writing was on the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats\u2019 campaign technology was once described<\/a> as \u201ctoo big to fail.\u201d Republicans had largely dominated<\/a> the voter targeting landscape before the early 2000s, when VAN was first created to track and store voter data. By 2006, its software was being used by 25 state parties. In 2007, the Democratic National Committee centralized VAN and made it a preferred vendor<\/a> offered across 50 states<\/a>. VAN became the de facto tool for Democratic campaigns and went on to power Barack Obama\u2019s presidential win in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

VAN merged with Stu Trevelyan\u2019s NGP fundraising software in 2010, followed by a long line of roll ups<\/a> in the campaign technology space. Companies combined operations across email and fundraising to compete with the growing number of firms that did similar work with greater profit, like Salesforce and Blackbaud, whose clientele extends beyond the Democratic Party sphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last decade, EveryAction tried to secure its leading position by acquiring a <\/a>slew of campaign tech firms<\/a>, including ActionKit and Mobilize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The acquisition<\/a> of EveryAction and NGP VAN by Apax continued the trend. The creation of Bonterra rolled those firms and three other fundraising, corporate philanthropy, and case management firms into one entity. Less than two years later, the major layoffs came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the initial acquisition, Bonterra let ActionKit continue to operate mostly independently, Africa said. That was smart for business because ActionKit brought in so much money. From the perspective of a venture capital firm, the layoffs were a \u201cshocking miscalculation,\u201d Africa said. In a LinkedIn post shortly after the layoffs, she said ActionKit clients should plan emergency migrations as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am personally confident that Bonterra will not be able to support ActionKit and hasn\u2019t left the team with adequate staffing to do so,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the layoffs, Africa said she\u2019s most concerned with how staff cuts will affect campaigns this cycle and beyond. \u201cI don\u2019t know if Bonterra actually realized what they did,\u201d she told The Intercept. \u201cThere\u2019s no way that the support\u2019s going to be up to what people expect for 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the layoffs, five developers are now responsible for their own systems and database maintenance, quality assurance, and tech support, Harwood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just feel really bad for the clients. I\u2019m just not seeing how they\u2019re going to be able to keep everyone afloat.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just feel really bad for the clients,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m just not seeing how they\u2019re going to be able to keep everyone afloat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to layoffs, Bonterra\u2019s merged companies were given an internal rating to invest, maintain, or harvest, Harwood said. ActionKit was labeled \u201cmaintain,\u201d which meant they would keep doing their work but wouldn\u2019t necessarily grow. If Bonterra decides that NGP VAN doesn\u2019t meet its criteria for further investment, it could lay off staff in an instant, Harwood said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They don\u2019t care about the movement,\u201d she said. \u201cBonterra\u2019s not in it to get Democrats elected, to provide the progressive movement with tools.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day of the layoffs, Bonterra\u2019s CEO Scott Brighton announced<\/a> that NGP VAN would be reorganized as a separate and independent business unit \u201cfocused exclusively on serving the needs of the Democratic and progressive ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can share that the Dem party should be prepared to have NGP VAN staff \u2018augmented\u2019 by ChatGPT,\u201d said a former NGP VAN staffer who was laid off last month and requested anonymity to protect professional relationships. As an autonomous unit, NGP VAN will be a saleable asset, Harwood added. \u201cThey could sell it to anyone,\u201d she said. \u201cThey could sell it to Elon Musk, right? Why wouldn\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"WASHINGTON,\n

Senate Democratic leadership members pose for a group photo at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 8, 2022.<\/p>\n

Photo: Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

\u201cNeed to Future-proof\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Impacts on 2024 remain to be seen. So far, however, layoffs have lowered morale among the workers who created and sustained the party\u2019s campaign tech tools, said one former NGP VAN staffer who was laid off in January. Staff cuts mean heavier workloads for everyone else, they said: \u201cAs customers, they\u2019re going to see that in terms of the quality of service that they\u2019re seeing, and internally, burnout.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because campaigns run by seasoned staffers don\u2019t need the same attention or support that a fledgling candidate typically does, high-priority campaigns for Biden or other major federal candidates will likely be insulated from tech issues, they said. The cuts could be detrimental to campaigns for new candidates or people running in rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe smaller candidates, the first timers, the people coming from rural areas, those are the people that when I was onboarded \u2014 that was our focal point,\u201d the former NGP VAN staffer, who asked for anonymity to protect future job prospects, said. \u201cBut now that they’re kind of pulling that back, those are going to be people affected most for this next cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent layoffs are in some ways typical for an off-cycle year, when it\u2019s harder to generate small-dollar donations, said Chuck Rocha, who advised both of Sanders\u2019s presidential campaigns and founded Solidarity Strategies. (Rocha is a senior adviser to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego\u2019s Arizona Senate campaign.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broader layoffs reflect the near-total transformation of campaign tech over the last three decades since <\/a>Howard Dean<\/a> and <\/a>Obama<\/a> harnessed what was, at the time, the <\/a>cutting-edge<\/a> power to mobilize voters through the internet, Rocha said. It\u2019s possible that Democrats staffed up too quickly in efforts to mimic Sanders\u2019s insurgent fundraising campaign in 2016 and ride the wave of unprecedented donor engagement under former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become really competitive,\u201d Rocha said. \u201cYou can\u2019t throw a dead cat in D.C. and not hit a digital consultant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The larger problem at work, said Democratic strategist Ben Tribbett, who runs Pocket Aces Consulting, is lack of competition. Strategists get nervous when the few companies that do provide key services confront financial problems, he said: \u201cIt just raised alarm bells for everyone \u2014 having this technology in so few hands is a long-term concern for the party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fundamental problem for the party\u2019s campaign technology is the lack of innovation in recent years, said Chris Lundberg, co-founder and former CEO at Salsa Labs, which was acquired by EveryAction in 2021. Lundberg is now the CEO of Frakture, a company that automates communication and fundraising tools. Beyond low donor enthusiasm, the party needs to reckon with the fact that its most coveted tools aren\u2019t on the cutting edge like they were in the early 2000s, he said. And the Democratic National Committee is the only body with the power to do anything about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried about the tech failing on Election Day. I\u2019m worried about somebody like the Republicans coming up with a better idea.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s perhaps an underreported aspect of this \u2014 that nobody can move without the DNC,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve ceded that territory for a while because they don\u2019t want to make a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The failure to innovate drove a slow decay in the party\u2019s campaign technology apparatus, which could eventually give up space to competitors, he said. \u201cI\u2019m not worried about the tech failing on Election Day. I\u2019m worried about somebody like the Republicans coming up with a better idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dozens of alternative campaign tech firms serving Democrats and progressives have come and gone in recent years. In April, Politico reported<\/a> that an outside entity called the Democratic Data Exchange<\/a> would serve as \u201cthe primary national real-time data sharing hub\u201d for the DNC and Biden\u2019s reelection campaign. (The DNC did not respond to a request for comment.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harwood, the former ActionKit engineer, said Movement Cooperative is among the organizations best positioned to build an alternative; they just need the funding. The campaign tech firm has partnered with groups like MoveOn and Forward Majority Action. She said, \u201cWe need to future-proof ourselves against Bonterra\u2019s potential mismanagement of NGP VAN.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post As 2024 Looms, Democrats\u2019 Campaign Tech Crumbles Under Private Equity Squeeze<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Democratic campaign tech monopoly cut more than 200 people, the second round of deep layoffs this year.<\/p>\n

The post As 2024 Looms, Democrats\u2019 Campaign Tech Crumbles Under Private Equity Squeeze<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1248342"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1256527,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248342\/revisions\/1256527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1248342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1248342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1248342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}