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Crowdpac
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| Crowdpac | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | Palo Alto, California |
| Type: | Corporation |
| Affiliation: | nonpartisan |
| Top official: | Steve Hilton, CEO |
| Founder(s): | Steve Hilton |
| Year founded: | 2013 |
| Website: | Official website |
Crowdpac was a for-profit corporation located in Palo Alto, Calif. Crowdpac stated that it aimed "to help end the stranglehold of big money donors and special interests on the political system and to help create a more representative democracy."[1] According to Crowdpac, it sought to do this by offering interactive issue-specific sources, allowing users to view where political candidates aligned with the user's own political views, and by scoring candidates. The scoring system by which it measured and categorized political candidates used a liberal/conservative scale based on contribution information, voting records and verbal communication (e.g. speeches, social media, etc.).[1]
Crowdpac ceased operations on June 19, 2019.[2]
Mission
As of August 2015, Crowdpac had the following mission:[3]
| “ |
Crowdpac is the definitive resource for objective data on US political candidates. Our unique data model shows you where politicians stand on the issues, based on what they say, how they vote and who gives them money. Crowdpac's mission is to help everyone participate more easily and effectively in the political process. Crowdpac is independent, non-partisan and for-profit. This is the new politics.[4] |
” |
Background
Crowdpac was a political education advocacy for-profit company. It was officially launched in 2014, by British native, Steve Hilton. Hilton, a former aide to British Prime Minister David Cameron, sought to empower "individuals to make their own decisions about politics without the filter of lobbyists, political insiders and big donors," according to The Washington Post.[5]
According to Crowdpac, they used a scoring system that considered candidates' and politicians' stances on issues and ordered them on a liberal/conservative scale. Some of the criteria used included campaign contributions, Congressional voting records and the frequency of words or phrases used by candidates and politicians.[1]
The following is an example from Crowdpac's website of their data model used to score politicians:[1]
- "Money - which individuals or organizations have contributed to the candidates' campaigns, and which campaigns the candidates themselves have contributed to, as reported to federal and state regulatory authorities. This gives us a good indication of their overall political position."
- "Speech - what the candidates say: the bills they sponsor or co-sponsor (if they are currently in office or have been elected before); the words or phrases they use most, as reported in legislative text and floor records, and candidate statements made on official websites, Facebook profiles and via official tweets. This gives us a good indication of their political priorities."
- "Votes - the candidates' voting record (if they are currently in office or have been in office before). This helps increase the accuracy of our predictions - from around 92% to 94% - and to estimate candidates' position on specific issues."
In December 2015, Crowpac set out to rank U.S. cities with populations over 6,000, by their political leaning using campaign contribution information dating back to 1980. Crowdpac's analysis indicated that Western and Eastern U.S. tended to be more liberal, while the South and Midwest tended to be more conservative. The Washington Post said that Crowdpac's study was one indication that the U.S. is politically polarized.[6]
Leadership
The following is a list of Crowdpac's leadership as of August 2015:[1]
- Steve Hilton, CEO and Co-founder
- Adam Bonica, Data and Politics Expert and Co-founder
- Gisel Kordestani, COO and Co-founder
- Eric Smith, Software Engineer
- Eric Halpern, Interim Chief Technology Officer
- Mason Harrison, Political Director
- Liz Jaff, Political Director
- Stephen Melrose, Senior Software Engineer
- Luke Miner, Vice President, Data Science
- Mike Polyakov, Vice President, Data Science
- Jesse Thomas, Vice President, Digital Strategy
- Fernando Velloso Neto, Senior Manager, Content & Data
- Dan Carson, Lead Designer
- Ethan Kessinger, Political Analyst and Project Manager
- Cedric Hulin, User Acquisition Analyst
- Bryan Dacanay, Business Operations Manager
- Emma Leeds Armstrong, Political Analyst Fellow
In addition to the leadership, Crowdpac also had seven advisors that help drive content. The following is a list of the advisory team for Crowpac as of August 2015:[1]
- Ben Ginsberg
- Marc Elias
- Jonathan Zucker
- Tammy Haddad
- Pablo Chavez
- Kevin Twohy
- Phillip Bensaid
Finances
According to Crowdpac, seed funding for the organization came from the National Endowment for the Arts, InterWest, Index Ventures, CAA and SV Angel.[1]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Crowdpac. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Crowdpac, "This is the new politics," accessed August 11, 2015
- ↑ Crowdpac, "Farewell from Crowdpac," accessed September 10, 2019
- ↑ Crowdpac, "Crowdpac," accessed August 11, 2015
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Steve Hilton, a Brit out to disrupt American politics with Crowdpac," September 3, 2014
- ↑ The Washington Post, "The 10 most liberal and conservative cities in the U.S. — as judged by campaign donors," December 14, 2015
