Crowdpac is a for-profit website founded in 2014, with the purpose of helping unknown Democratic political outsiders raise money and run for office, and to track political data from across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. While it was originally marketed as a non-partisan political fundraising site, the platform is currently only open for fundraising to select political ideologies.

History

Crowdpac was co-founded in 2014 by Steve Hilton, a former political advisor to British Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

, along with Adam Bonica, Gisel Kordestani, and

Paul Hilder Paul Hilder is a British-born social entrepreneur, writer and organiser. As well as working for non-profit organisations, he is a co-founder of openDemocracy.net and has stood for various positions in the Labour Party. Career He is co-founder and ...

. The website is based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, and Hilton served as its CEO until 2018. One of the company's most successful crowdfunding campaigns was for Kathryn Allen, who raised three times as much money as incumbent Congressman

Jason Chaffetz Jason E. Chaffetz (; born March 26, 1967) is an American retired politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2009 until his resignation in 2017. He chaired the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 2015 until 2017. Ch ...

, before Chaffetz announced that he would not run for re-election. The website also uses an algorithm built by researchers at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

to track political candidates' sources of funding to predict how ideologically partisan they are. In May 2018, Crowdpac announced that it was suspending fundraising for Republican candidates on its platform because of issues with "hate speech and the rhetoric and actions used to stir up racial animosity legitimized by the President of the United States". At the same time, Hilton was fired as CEO due to his relationship with

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is o ...

as a conservative

political pundit A pundit is a person who offers mass media opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport). Origins The term originates from the Sanskrit term ('' '' ), meaning "knowledg ...

and his conflicting values with the company, with Jesse Thomas appointed as acting CEO. The website suspended all donations and closed on June 19, 2019. The site was acquired by Prytany and relaunched in November 2019.

Criticisms

Crowdpac was criticized for promoting endorsements by

Ron Conway Ronald Crawford Conway (born March 9, 1951) is an American venture capitalist and philanthropist. He has been described as one of Silicon Valley's " super angels". Early career Conway graduated from San Jose State University with a bachelor's d ...

, one of its investors and a candidate for office, in a 2015 election in San Francisco. 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." Thomas cited an example of a

neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...

candidate, who was kicked out of the Republican convention, attempting to raise money through the website.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crowdpac Internet properties established in 2014 Crowdfunding platforms of the United States American political websites Campaign finance in the United States Companies based in San Francisco

History

Criticisms

See also

References