NGP VAN

NGP VAN, Inc.
Private
Industry Voter databases. IT Consulting, Software as a service, Web hosting service, Online fundraising, new media technology
Founder Mark Sullivan, Nathaniel Pearlman
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Somerville, Massachusetts, United States
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Stuart Trevelyan
(President & CEO)
Revenue Increase US$ 26.8m(2014)[1]
Number of employees
 Increase 163 (2014)[1]
Divisions Fundraising
Compliance
Union Organizing
Voter Contact
New Media
Website ngpvan.com

NGP VAN is a privately owned American company specializing in helping progressive campaigns and organizations leverage technology to meet their goals.[2] In 2009, the company was the largest partisan provider of campaign compliance software, used by most Democratic members of Congress.[3] The company's services are utilized by clients such as the Obama 2012 presidential campaign,[4] the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign,[5] the British Liberal Democrats, and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Its current president and CEO, Stuart Trevelyan, was a veteran of the 1992 Clinton-Gore War Room, providing research, analysis, and whip counts to the Clinton Administration as a member of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.[6]

History

NGP VAN was created in November 2010 by the merger of its two predecessor companies, NGP Software, founded in 1997 by Nathaniel Pearlman, who later served as chief technology officer for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign,[7] in his attic in Washington, D.C, and Voter Activation Network, founded in 2001 by Mark Sullivan, in his study in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[8]

In October 2014, NGP VAN launched their nonprofit arm, EveryAction.

Votebuilder

Votebuilder is one of the software systems created by NGP VAN. It is used by the Democratic Party and associated campaigns to track interaction with potential voters. Votebuilder is used as part of campaign voter persuasion and "get out the vote" operations. The introduction of such software has been called a revolution in campaigning[9] as it allows for very detailed information to be stored, including "every door knock and phone call."[10] The software was created in 2006 to bridge a perceived gap in microtargeting abilities between the Republican and Democratic parties.[11] Along with the central voter database storing the voter information, there is also an app for smartphones and tablets that is intended to be used by canvassers.[12]

2016 Presidential Election

On December 18, 2015, the firewall between the voter data collected by various Democratic presidential candidates using NGP VAN's software was reportedly compromised by a patch issued by the company, allowing candidate access to other campaigns' confidential information. The Sanders campaign admitted that their national data director, Josh Uretsky, had been accessing voter information collected by the Clinton campaign, saying he did so merely to probe the extent of the issue before reporting it.[13][14] The DNC then cut off the Sanders campaign's access to the master voter file temporarily until the campaign could bring themselves back into compliance with DNC rules.[15] As this file is necessary for effective voter outreach, Sanders supporters accused the DNC of giving the Clinton campaign an unfair advantage at a critical point in the election. The Sanders campaign sued the DNC in District Court due to a violation of contract. Concurrently they fired the person who accessed the data. The Sanders campaign was given access to their campaign database effective December 19.[16][17]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "NGP VAN - Washington, DC". The Inc.5000.
  2. ↑ "About Us - NGP VAN".
  3. ↑ Becca Milfeld and Anne Marson (September 15, 2009). "Suite Talk". POLITICO.com.
  4. ↑ "Where does Obama's Money Go?". iHartPolitics.com.
  5. ↑ "Presidential Campaign Finance". fec.gov. Retrieved 2016-04-22.
  6. ↑ "Stuart Trevelyan". Bloomberg.com.
  7. ↑ "LinkedIn: Nathaniel Pearlman".
  8. ↑ "VAN:Personal Democracy Forum". July 5, 2010.
  9. ↑ A Revolution in Canvassing Among Voters. New York Times, 2011-11-19, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/us/a-revolution-in-canvassing-among-voters.html?_r=0
  10. ↑ Stung in 2008, Hillary Clinton builds a formidable team in Iowa. New York Times, 2015-07-26, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/us/politics/stung-in-2008-hillary-clinton-builds-a-formidable-team-in-iowa.html
  11. ↑ Democrats Take Page From Their Rival’s Playbook. New York Times, 2008-10-31, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/us/politics/01target.html
  12. ↑ Obama campaign releases iPhone app for canvassing. New York Times blog, 2012-07-31, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/obama-campaign-releases-iphone-app-for-canvassing/
  13. ↑ "Fired Sanders campaign staffer speaks out". MSNBC.
  14. ↑ NGP VAN. "Data Security and Privacy".
  15. ↑ Amy Dacey. "Here's what happened with NGP VAN, the Sanders Campaign, and the Clinton Campaign". Medium.
  16. ↑ Taylor, Jessica (19 December 2015). "DNC Restores Sanders Campaign's Access to Voter Files After Data Breach: NPR". NPR. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
  17. ↑ Wagner, John (19 December 2015). "Accord reached after Sanders sues the DNC over suspended access to critical voter list".
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