NGP VAN

NGP VAN, Inc.
Private
Industry Voter databases. IT Consulting, Software as a service, Web hosting service, Online fundraising, new media technology
Founder Mark Sullivan, Nathaniel Pearlman
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Somerville, Massachusetts, United States
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Stuart Trevelyan
(President & CEO)
Revenue Increase US$ 26.8m(2014)[1]
Number of employees
 Increase 163 (2014)[1]
Divisions Fundraising/Compliance
Organizing
Digital
Non-Profits
Website ngpvan.com

NGP VAN is a privately owned American company specializing in helping progressive campaigns and organizations leverage technology to meet their goals.[2] In 2009, the company was the largest partisan provider of campaign compliance software, used by most Democratic members of Congress.[3] The company's services have been utilized by clients such as the Obama 2008 presidential campaign, the Obama 2012 presidential campaign[4], the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign, the British Liberal Democrats[5], and the Liberal Party of Canada. Its current president and CEO, Stuart Trevelyan, was a veteran of the 1992 Clinton-Gore War Room, providing research, analysis, and whip counts to the Clinton Administration as a member of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.[6]

The Wall Street Journal wrote in 2014 “NGP VAN is something of a secret weapon for the Democratic Party and the labor unions and progressive groups that use it.”[7]

History

NGP VAN was created in November 2010 by the merger of its two predecessor companies, NGP Software, founded in 1997 by Nathaniel Pearlman, who later served as chief technology officer for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign,[8] in his attic in Washington, D.C, and Voter Activation Network, founded in 2001 by Mark Sullivan, in his study in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[9]

In October 2014, NGP VAN launched their nonprofit arm, EveryAction.[10]

Products

MiniVAN is a mobile canvassing application that allows for campaigns and organizations to contact voters or supporters, collect data, and sync the information back to their VAN or EveryAction database in real time, thus eliminating the need for paper lists and data entry.[11] During the 2016 election cycle, MiniVAN was used by thousands of Democratic campaigns and progressive advocacy groups to contact tens of millions of voters.[12][13]

VoteBuilder is one of the software systems created by NGP VAN. It is used by the Democratic Party and associated campaigns to track interaction with potential voters. Votebuilder is used as part of campaign voter persuasion and "get out the vote" operations. The introduction of such software has been called a revolution in campaigning[14] as it allows for very detailed information to be stored, including "every door knock and phone call."[15] The software was created in 2006 to bridge a perceived gap in microtargeting abilities between the Republican and Democratic parties.[16] On Wednesday December 16, 2015, NGP VAN released a code update to their Votebuilder application which contained a bug that allowed two campaigns to see proprietary analytical scores.[17][18] After the bug was fixed, it was revealed that the national data director of the Bernie Sanders for President, Josh Uretsky, had been accessing scores collected by the Clinton campaign. [19][20] On late Thursday, December 17 the DNC temporarily revoked the Sanders campaign's access to the national voter file until the campaign confirmed that any copies of the Clinton data had been deleted[21] The Sanders campaign sued the DNC in District Court and concurrently they fired Uretsky. On December 19, the DNC was satisfied that Clinton data had been deleted by Sanders campaign staff, and the Sanders campaign access was restored.[22][23][24]

NGP is a software platform for digital engagement, fundraising and compliance reporting used by nearly every Democratic campaign running for federal office, in addition to thousands of down-ballot campaigns. .[25]

Innovation Platform is a series of APIs and integration that was rolled out in 2014. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “NGP VAN, the technology firm at the heart of the Democrats vast data infrastructure, announced Wednesday night that it will allow outside software developers and other engineers to write programs directly for its platforms.” [26][27] NGP VAN has integrated its tools with hundreds of third party apps to provide campaigns and organizations the ability to run “multi-channel” voter contact campaigns. Several notable integration include apps providing services such as self-serve online advertising , broadcast and peer-to-peer text messaging tools, live calls, and do-it-yourself direct mail.[28][29]

References

  1. 1 2 "NGP VAN - Washington, DC". The Inc.5000.
  2. ↑ "About Us - NGP VAN".
  3. ↑ Becca Milfeld and Anne Marson (September 15, 2009). "Suite Talk". POLITICO.com.
  4. ↑ "Where does Obama's Money Go?". iHartPolitics.com.
  5. ↑ Mark Pack; Author, 101 Ways To Win An Election - Connect
  6. ↑ "Stuart Trevelyan". Bloomberg.com.
  7. ↑ Washington Wire-Democrats Take Lesson From Apple’s Playbook By Patrick O'Connor; The Wall Street Journal; Aug 21, 2014 9:43 am ET
  8. ↑ "LinkedIn: Nathaniel Pearlman".
  9. ↑ "VAN:Personal Democracy Forum". July 5, 2010.
  10. ↑ EveryAction.com - about
  11. ↑ MiniVAN App Computes On The Campaign Trail - App Provides Names, Gender, Addresses Of Registered Voters by Graham Hakala for KQDS-TV; March 2, 2016
  12. ↑ Technology Helps Campaigns Talk More Efficiently To Voters By Jude Joffe-Block, Mark Brodie for KJZZ-FM Thursday, October 20, 2016 - 2:16pm
  13. ↑ How Mobile Canvassing Upgraded Campaigns in 2016 from NGPVAN-Blog by Kyle Tharp; November 21, 2016
  14. ↑ A Revolution in Canvassing Among Voters. New York Times, 2011-11-19, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/us/a-revolution-in-canvassing-among-voters.html?_r=0
  15. ↑ Stung in 2008, Hillary Clinton builds a formidable team in Iowa. New York Times, 2015-07-26, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/us/politics/stung-in-2008-hillary-clinton-builds-a-formidable-team-in-iowa.html
  16. ↑ Democrats Take Page From Their Rival’s Playbook. New York Times, 2008-10-31, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/us/politics/01target.html
  17. ↑ Here’s what happened with NGP VAN, the Sanders Campaign, and the Clinton Campaign; And here are the steps we are taking to address the problem by Amy Dacey DNC CEO; Medium.com Dec 19, 2015
  18. ↑ What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”? - The definitive explanation of the Democratic National Committee’s “Datagate” scandal and what the mainstream media got wrong. by Björn Westergard for JacobinMag.com; 24 Dece,ner 2015
  19. ↑ "Fired Sanders campaign staffer speaks out". MSNBC.
  20. ↑ NGP VAN Corporate Blog. "Data Security and Privacy".
  21. ↑ Amy Dacey. "Here’s what happened with NGP VAN, the Sanders Campaign, and the Clinton Campaign". Medium.
  22. ↑ Taylor, Jessica (19 December 2015). "DNC Restores Sanders Campaign's Access to Voter Files After Data Breach: NPR". NPR. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  23. ↑ Wagner, John (19 December 2015). "Accord reached after Sanders sues the DNC over suspended access to critical voter list".
  24. ↑ Steal the Bern - A brief campaign software glitch led to what the DNC said was improper access of records by Bernie Sanders' campaign. by Kim LaCapria; Snopes April 30, 2016
  25. ↑ Suite Talk, Sept. 15, 2009 Politico By Anne Marson and Becca Milfeld; 09/15/2009 05:04 AM EDT
  26. ↑ Democrats Take Lesson From Apple’s Playbook; By Patrick O'Connor for The Wall Street Journal; Aug 21, 2014
  27. ↑ Democrats' Data Platform Opens Access to Smaller Campaigns- NGP VAN Now Connects to Many Tech Partners By Kate Kaye for AdAge; Published on July 13, 2016
  28. ↑ Voter Targeted Digital Ads Now at Fingertips of Thousands of Democratic Campaigns by DSPolitical; September 15, 2016
  29. ↑ SpeakEasy Political Announces Data Partnership with NGP VAN by Speakeasy Political; February 23, 2016
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