Data Democracy: NationBuilder Empowers Nonpartisan Campaigns | IVN.us

"As is the case with most things in politics, the Democratic and Republican Parties became the gatekeepers to meaningful political engagement, often by restricting access to campaign, fundraising, and other organizing tools to only their authorized party members. But now that’s changing, and surprisingly enough it’s being driven by the ‘open’ market’s invisible hand. A McKinsey & Company report estimated open data’s potential annual economic value to be $3 trillion worldwide. Likewise, the number of organizations embracing the ‘open’ model has grown significantly over the last decade. Chief among them is NationBuilder, a nonpartisan community organizing platform founded in 2009 by entrepreneur Jim Gilliam. The platform (and voter data to use on it) is available to any cause or candidate, regardless of party affiliation. In an interview for IVN, NationBuilder’s vice president of business development, Adriel Hampton, pointed out how the nonpartisan ‘open’ philosophy is not only a core company tenet, but it works as a business model as well. In 2014 alone, campaigns using NationBuilder raised over $240 million ..."