NationBuilder is a Los Angeles-based technology start-up that develops content management and

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategic process that organizations use to manage, analyze, and improve their interactions with customers. By leveraging data-driven insights, CRM helps businesses optimize communication, enhance cus ...

(CRM) software. Although the company initially targeted

political campaigns A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referen ...

and nonprofit organizations, it later expanded its marketing efforts to include other people and organizations trying to build an online following, such as artists, musicians and restaurants. The software uses

voter Voting is the process of choosing officials or policies by casting a ballot, a document used by people to formally express their preferences. Republics and representative democracies are governments where the population chooses representatives ...

data such as names, addresses and other information, such as previous voting records in the case of political campaigns, to allow users to

centralize Centralisation or centralization (American English) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning, decision-making, and framing strategies and policies, become concentrated within a particular ...

, build and manage campaigns by integrating various communication tools like websites, newsletters, text messaging and social media channels under one platform.Alt URL
/ref> Among other features, the software enables users to quickly create

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

s, build databases through registrations, send targeted

newsletter A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of ...

s, analyse data from multiple sources and leverage

micro-donations Micro-donation or microphilanthropy is a form of Charity (practice), charitable donation that is small in the donated amount. In the past, micro-donations have been used most effectively by companies collecting spare change at registers and check ...

. The software's appeal towards political campaigns comes from the combination of a number of previously separate campaigning services, channels and

data sources Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted formally ...

into a single platform that was presented as a facile solution for non-technical users and which enabled political campaigners to quickly deploy campaigns by convincing numerous people to donate.

History

NationBuilder was founded in 2009 in Los Angeles by

Jim Gilliam James William "Junior" Gilliam (October 17, 1928 – October 8, 1978) was an American second baseman, third baseman, and coach in Negro league and Major League Baseball who spent his entire major league career with the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Do ...

and launched in 2011. In 2012 Joe Green joined NationBuilder as co-founder and president. He left that role 11 months later in February 2013. Gilliam was previously a movie-maker who co-founded

Brave New Films Brave New Films (BNF) is a nonprofit film company based in Culver City, California. Founded by filmmaker Robert Greenwald, BNF produces feature-length documentaries and investigative videos that seek "to educate, influence and empower viewers t ...

with

Robert Greenwald Robert Greenwald (born August 28, 1945) is an American filmmaker, and the founder of Brave New Films, a nonprofit film and advocacy organization whose work is distributed for free in concert with nonprofit partners and movements in order to educ ...

and had sought funding for his films through

crowd-sourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

. Green, who studied

organizing Organizing or organized may refer to: * Organizing (management), a process of coordinating task goals and activities to resources * Community organizing, in which communities come together to act in their shared self-interest * Professional organi ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

and was

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling sharehold ...

roommate A roommate is a person with whom one shares a living facility such as a room or dormitory ''except'' when being family or romantically involved. Similar terms include dorm-mate, suite-mate, housemate, or flatmate ("flat": the usual term in Brit ...

, is also the co-founder of the Causes Facebook app; he left NationBuilder in 2013. Since its founding, the company has helped campaigns raise $1.2 billion. In 2012, NationBuilder announced that 1,000 subscribers have used its software to amass 2.5 million supporters and raise $12 million in campaign donations. In 2015 it has helped raise $264 million, recruit over one million volunteers and coordinate some 129,000 events. By 2016, the company said its software was used by about 40 percent of all contested elections at the state and national level in the U.S., which included 3,000 political campaigns. Using such software is easier in the U.S. than Europe, where comprehensive

data protection Data protection may refer to: * Information privacy, also known as data privacy * Data security {{Authority control ...

and

privacy law Privacy law is a set of regulations that govern the collection, storage, and utilization of personal information from healthcare, governments, companies, public or private entities, or individuals. Privacy laws are examined in relation to an ind ...

s are in effect since 2018.

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

was the first political party to use NationBuilder, harvesting vast amounts of data pertaining to voter activity via websites such as Facebook and Twitter. This revelation prompted outrage over privacy concerns. Guy Herbert of the No2ID campaign called the use of such data harvesting tools by the SNP "utterly hypocritical".

Funding

Investors in NationBuilder include

Chris Hughes Christopher Hughes (born November 26, 1983) is an American entrepreneur and author who co-founded and served as spokesman for the online social directory and networking site Facebook until 2007. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of ''The ...

- the

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

co-founder,

Sean Parker Sean Parker (born December 3, 1979) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, most notable for co-founding the file-sharing computer service Napster, and was the first president of the social networking website Facebook. He also co-foun ...

- first president of Facebook and co-founder of

Napster Napster was an American proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared ...

and Causes,

Dan Senor Daniel Samuel Senor (, ; born November 6, 1971) is an American columnist, writer, and political adviser. He was chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and senior foreign policy adviser to U.S. presidential candidate Mitt ...

- the former Republican foreign-policy adviser and

Ben Horowitz Benjamin Abraham Horowitz (born June 13, 1966) is an American businessman, investor, blogger, and author. He is a technology entrepreneur and co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz along with Marc Andreessen. He previously co ...

, co-founder of

Andreessen Horowitz AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of M ...

. In 2012, it has raised $6.3 million in funding from a number of investors.

Notable implementations

The software is reported to have played a role in some public elections in Europe, the US and New Zealand, as well as non-profit initiatives, and political parties in Australia. Notable users include

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from the state of Vermont. He is the longest-serving independ ...

Mitch McConnell Addison Mitchell McConnell III (; born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky, a seat he has held since 1985. McConnell is in his seventh Senate term and is the long ...

Andrew Yang Andrew Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American businessman, attorney, lobbyist, political commentator, and author. He founded the political party and action committee Forward Party (United States), Forward Party in 2021, for which he serves ...

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Baroness May of Maidenhead (; ; born 1 October 1956), is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretar ...

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

, the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

and

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

France

La République En Marche Renaissance (RE) is a political party in France that is typically described as liberal and centrist or centre-right. The party was originally known as (EM) and later (, LREM, LaREM or REM), before adopting its current name in September 2022 ...

used NationBuilder to help in the 2017

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

New Zealand

NationBuilder's services are used by many New Zealand political parties, including in the campaigns of both the National and Labour parties in the

2017 New Zealand general election The 2017 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 23 September 2017 to determine the membership of the 52nd New Zealand Parliament. The 51st New Zealand Parliament, previous parliament was elected on 20 September 2014 and was official ...

United Kingdom

Despite stricter data protection and privacy laws in the UK and EU, NationBuilder was used to significant impact in a number of UK elections, most notably in the 2016 campaign for

withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET). The UK, which joined t ...

. The company later made a public announcement that both sides in the Brexit campaign have used its software.Alt URL
/ref>

United States

NationBuilder was used in the Donald Trump presidential campaign to advance his election efforts and eventually win the 2016 presidential race. Jill Stein of the Green Party, Republican

Rick Santorum Richard John Santorum Sr. ( ; born May 10, 1958) is an American politician, attorney, author, and political commentator who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2007. He was the Senate's Chairman of the United Sta ...

, and independent supporters of various candidates all used NationBuilder during their 2016 runs for president. During the 2018 US election cycle, political entities paid more than $1 million for the use of NationBuilder. Among the entities paying the most are Donald J. Trump for President, Prosperity Action and the Republican Party of Tennessee.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
Political software 2009 establishments in California Companies based in Los Angeles Web applications Software companies of the United States