You Don’t Need Wealthy Donors to Run a Campaign: How NationBuilder is Making Sure Every Vote Counts

There are 500,000 elected officials in the U.S. according to research from the University of Chicago law school. It’s a staggering number that includes a plethora of local positions like school board or sheriff. And in those offices candidates without the benefit of wealthy donors and big advertising budgets often win by just a handful of votes according to Joe Green, cofounder and president of NationBuilder, who also developed Facebook Causes.

But how often can the average person identify their Congressperson, much less the woman across town running for the Water board? “A lot of people never hear from their campaign,” Green asserts. That’s where NationBuilder comes in. Its enterprise software aims to turn the challenge of running as an unknown into an opportunity to galvanize a community. And it doesn’t cost much. For about $20 a month, Green says the software effectively replaces developing and using an ad hoc set of tools that could cost candidates a small fortune. NationBuilder folds a custom website, news feeds, blog, and donation tools along with social media analytics into a dashboard that shows a stream of activity from supporters. But it also helps with to turn voters’ tweets and Facebook likes into part of a targeted effort to drum up support.