Acronym (styled ACRONYM) is a Washington, D.C.-based

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

501(c)(4) A 501(c) organization is a nonprofit organization in the Law of the United States#Federal law, federal law of the United States according to Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 501(c)) and is one of over 29 types of nonprofit organizations exe ...

non-profit corporation, co-founded by

Tara McGowan Tara McGowan (born ) is an American political strategist and journalist. She was the co-founder and CEO of multiple organizations which have been noted for large expenditures on digital advertising in preparation for the 2020 United States presid ...

and Michael Dubin in 2017. The organization is one of the major coordinators and producers of

digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...

campaigns aligned with the

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, and has been hired by or has provided support to various other organizations including the

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is the United States Democratic Party, Democratic Hill committee for the United States House of Representatives, working to elect Democrats to that body. The DCCC recruits candidates, raises ...

, Emily's List, Everytown for Gun Safety, and

Planned Parenthood The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...

. It was the majority owner of Shadow, Inc., a technology company that made the mobile application software that malfunctioned during vote tallying at the

2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses The 2020 Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, the first nominating contest in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election, took place on February 3, 2020. Pete Buttigieg received the most state delegate equivalents (SDE ...

, but later divested its stake in the company.

Digital media

McGowan and Dubin co-founded Acronym in 2017 with the stated intention of "advancing progressive causes through innovative communications, advertising, and organizing programs". Since then, Acronym has made significant investments in digital media campaigns that aim to register voters. Within just over a year of its founding, Acronym had raised tens of millions of dollars for digital advertising campaigns, running more than 100 ad campaigns and registering 60,000 voters. In 2019, Acronym launched the

Courier Newsroom Courier Newsroom is a digital media company which produces pink-slime journalism and sponsors political content intended to support Democratic candidates. The goal of Courier Newsroom publications, according to an internal memo obtained by Vice N ...

, a digital for-profit media company which publishes what appear to be local pseudo-news outlets but which are actually Democratic Party propaganda efforts. The creation and operation of Courier Newsroom has raised outrage and ethics questions about ACRONYM and about its financiers, who include billionaires Reid Hoffman and Laurene Powell Jobs. In November 2020, '' Fast Company'' called Acronym "the Democrats' most advanced digital advertising project."

Funding

Acronym's backers include Michael Dubin (founder of

Dollar Shave Club Dollar Shave Club is an American company based in Venice, California, that delivers razors and other personal grooming products to customers by mail. It delivers razor blades on a monthly basis and offers additional grooming products for home del ...

), Reid Hoffman, and Laurene Powell Jobs. Acronym's affiliated organizations and PAC donors include high-profile donors like the director

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...

and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. Other donors of $100,000 or more include Kate Capshaw, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and

Mimi Haas Miriam "Mimi" Lurie Haas (born 1946) is an American billionaire businesswoman. She is the widow of Peter E. Haas, who was the great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, the founder of denim manufacturer Levi Strauss & Co. Early life She was born Miriam ...

. Acronym's PAC, PACRONYM, has further received "eight-figure checks" from financiers Seth Klarman and

Donald Sussman Selwyn Donald Sussman (born June 8, 1946) is an American asset manager and philanthropist who is the founder and chief investment officer of the Paloma Funds. Sussman has served on the boards of a number of civic, cultural, educational, and rese ...

, venture capitalist Michael Moritz, and from George Soros' "Democracy" super-PAC. '' Quartz'' summarized the top donors to PACRONYM as "hedge funds, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood." Because of the substantial volume of money that it has raised, and because of its status as a

political nonprofit organization that is not required to disclose the donations it receives, Acronym has been widely described as a dark money group. Acronym has received criticism for the lack of transparency in its funding structure, although McGowan and others have defended the 501(c)(4) funding structure as a useful innovation for

progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...

advertising groups to adopt.

Relationships with other organizations

In 2019, the Iowa Democratic Party paid $63,000 to Shadow, Inc., a for-profit software company acquired by Acronym, to create a mobile application to tally results from the

. Shadow, Inc. was created in 2019 by Acronym when they acquired the technology firm Groundbase from Gerard Niemira, who was then made CEO of Shadow, Inc. Niemira had also previously served as chief operating officer and chief technology officer of Acronym prior to being CEO of Shadow, Inc. In the wake of Acronym's involvement in the 2020 Iowa Caucuses' vote tallying problems, McGowan downplayed Acronym's connection to the app Shadow that was responsible for delays and inconsistencies in reporting election results. A report in '' The Intercept'', however, found that "internal company documents, a source close to the firms, and public records show a close and intertwined relationship between Acronym and Shadow." ACRONYM later divested its interest in Shadow Inc. In addition to Shadow, Inc., Acronym has owned several for-profit corporations, including the digital strategy firm Lockwood Strategy and the media company FWIW Media. Acronym planned to launch an apparel company called Rogue Swag, and later ran an apparel campaign under that name. Courier Newsroom, which describes itself as a "progressive media company", is also owned by Acronym. Courier Newsroom acts as a parent company for local news websites. In November 2019, Acronym founder Tara McGowan announced that Acronym and its affiliated Super PAC, called Pacronym (and styled PACRONYM), would undertake a $75 million online advertising campaign targeting four potential swing states in the

2020 United States presidential election The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...

. Pacronym received $2,407,208 in 2018 and spent $1,000,000 (43%) the same year in payments to Lockwood Strategy, also owned by Acronym. Since the campaign of incumbent president Donald Trump was reported to have a significant advantage in digital advertising during the

2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries Presidential primaries and caucuses were organized by the Democratic Party to select the 3,979 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention held on August 17–20 to determine the party's nominee for president in the 2020 Unit ...

, this large expenditure by a Democratic-aligned organisation was considered by many political strategists and media commentators to be a crucial safeguard for the Democratic Party against the risk of being outspent in digital advertising before their presidential nominee could be chosen. Nick Fouriezos of '' Ozy'' magazine identified Acronym, and McGowan's efforts in particular, as "one of the major forces shaping the Democrats' general-election fight against Donald Trump". The

, Emily's List, Everytown for Gun Safety, and

have hired Acronym for digital organizing services.

David Plouffe David Plouffe (; born May 27, 1967) is an American political and business strategist best known as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant, he was a partner ...

, who was campaign manager for former president Barack Obama, serves on the board of directors of Acronym.

Productions

Acronym started a weekly newsletter called FWIW, as well as in 2020 created an accompanying podcast called the FWIW Podcast. Hosted by McGowan, the FWIW Podcast was a biweekly podcast about the digital race for the White House. Past guests included David Plouffe,

Jeff Zeleny Jeffrey Dean Zeleny (born June 10, 1973) is an American journalist and the Chief National Affairs Correspondent for CNN. He previously was Senior Washington Correspondent for ABC News. During his newspaper career, he won a Pulitzer Prize with the ...

, and DNC CTO Nell Thomas.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Official website 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations 2017 establishments in Washington, D.C. Digital media organizations Democratic Party (United States) organizations Progressive organizations in the United States