Crowdpac
Type of site | Crowdfunding |
|---|---|
| Created by | Steve Hilton, Adam Bonica, Gisel Kordestani, Paul Hilder |
| Website | https://www.crowdpac.com/ |
| Alexa rank |
 |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Launched | 2014 |
| Current status | Online |
Crowdpac is a for-profit website whose purpose is to help unknown Democrats and independent political outsiders raise money and run for office, and to track political data from across the United States. While it was originally marketed as a non-partisan political fundraising site, the platform is currently only open for fundraising to select political ideologies.[1]
History
It was co-founded in 2014 by Steve Hilton, a former political advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron,[2][3] along with Adam Bonica, Gisel Kordestani, and Paul Hilder. The website is based in San Francisco, and Hilton served as its CEO until 2018.[4][5] One of the company's most successful crowdfunding campaigns was for Kathryn Allen, who raised three times as much money as her would-be challenger, Jason Chaffetz, before Chaffetz announced that he would not run for re-election.[3][6] The website also uses an algorithm built by researchers at Stanford University to track political candidates' sources of funding to predict how ideologically partisan they are.[7]
Co-founder and CEO Steve Hilton, was fired in May 2018 due to his relationship with Fox News as a conservative political pundit and his conflicting values with the company, with Jesse Thomas appointed as acting CEO.[8]
Crowdpac announced in May 2018, they have suspended fundraising for Republican candidates on its platform because of the issues with, "hate speech and the rhetoric and actions used to stir up racial animosity legitimized by the President of the United States".[8]
Criticisms
Crowdpac was criticized for providing partisan endorsements in a 2015 election in San Francisco.[9] One of their investors is Ron Conway, and he was a candidate for the 2015 election.[9] It was noted that Crowdpac's social media advertised or promote towards certain candidates, like Conway.[9] However Crowdpac denied the claim.[9]
Although launched with the aim to be a non-partisan platform, in 2018 the company acting CEO Jesse Thomas decided to block Republican candidates from raising on the platform, stating "This decision has been a hard one for our company, but as Trumpism has spread through the Republican Party we’ve started to see an increase in campaigns for Republican candidates that we cannot allow on our platform."[10][1] Thomas cited an example of a neo-Nazi candidate attempting to raise money through the website.[10]
See also
References
- 1 2 Thomsen, Jacqueline (2018-05-15). "Campaign fundraising site suspends Republican accounts in effort to reject 'Trumpism'". TheHill. Retrieved 2018-05-15.
- ↑ Payne, Sebastian (3 September 2014). "Steve Hilton, a Brit out to disrupt American politics with Crowdpac". The Washington Post. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
- 1 2 Garcia, Eric (9 May 2017). "Crowdpac Helps Candidates Test the Waters". Roll Call. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
- ↑ Garofoli, Joe (31 May 2017). "Could this San Francisco tech CEO's show pull Fox to the middle?". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
- ↑ "About". Crowdpac.com. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
- ↑ Johnson, Eric (19 April 2017). "To fix politics, you have to fix fundraising, Crowdpac CEO Steve Hilton says". Recode. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
- ↑ Moody, Chris (14 January 2015). "Rating 2016 candidates by donors busts conventional wisdom". CNN. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
- 1 2 Jesse Thomas (May 14, 2018). "A stand against Trumpism, a stand for democracy". Medium.
- 1 2 3 4 Martin, Jay (2015-11-03). "Community View: Crowdpac's Not So Nonpartisan SF Endorsements". MissionLocal. Retrieved 2018-05-03.
- 1 2 Tani, Maxwell (2018-05-15). "Fox News Host Exits His Company Over Support for Trump". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2018-05-15.
