The Campaign Workshop Blog

One of my favorite books is The Score Takes Care of Itself. If you have not read this book, give it a read; it’s a great resource on strategy an applicable to politics and organizing many ways. Whether you work for an advocacy organization, a political group, or a candidate campaign, you work on a team with many moving parts. It is impossible to manage all those parts alone. By defining clear goals with measurable outcomes, you can set the path for victory and measure all aspects of the campaign on whether they are on the right track to success.

Sasha Issenberg is a journalist, and author. Throughout his career, he has written for Slate, Bloomberg Politics, The Boston Globe, and Business Week. Sasha has written five books, including The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy, The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Elections, Outpatients: The Astonishing New World of Medical Tourism, The Engagement: America's Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage, and his most recent book, Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook For Winning Elections In the Disinformation Age. This week we asked him questions about his life and career.

Zvi Band is focused on building tools to bring folks back together. He’s currently building GoodSphere, Relatable, and The Sphere. These four projects are all resources focused on building relationships, and communities in a variety of mediums. ZVI co-founded Contactually and led it as CEO from an idea in 2011 to an enterprise SaaS company that was acquired by Compass. He served as general manager at Compass from 2019 to 2021 when he left to pursue his current projects. This week we asked him 7 questions about his experience and career path. 

Brian Johnson is the CEO of Equality Illinois, an organization that has been fighting for LBGTQ+ civil rights since 2016. However, inspired by his tenures as a first-grade teacher in Baton Rouge and a Teach for America Corps member, he has fought for equity in his leadership as the Vice President of Regional Impact at the Leadership for Educational Equity, where he recruited teachers to run for public office and launched community organizing initiatives across major cities with his leadership in, with his history of leadership in nonprofits, including as the executive director of Teach for America in Los Angeles. Brian fostered educational excellence and diversity in our public schools, drawing from his extensive social justice and LGBTQ+ advocacy experience. His book, The Work is the Work, is a testament to the ongoing fight for justice across realms like environmentalism, anti-racism, and community empowerment. It is inspired by his daughter and the next generation of change-makers. This week, we interviewed Brian.

Seth Masket is a political scientist, professor, and author. Seth has written multiple books, including No Middle Ground, which explores how the United States has shifted toward candidates that represent ideological extremes, The Inevitable Party, which examines different attempts to change the current party system and why they failed, and Learning From Loss, a book that walks readers through the Democratic party’s response to the 2016 election up to 2020. Currently, he is writing another book, The Elephant in the Room, which he expects to publish in 2025. Seth is a Professor at the University of Denver, where he also serves as the Director of the Center on American Politics. This week, we asked Seth questions about his life and career path.

Joe Sangirardi is involved in LGBTQ+ activism and professional nonprofit and political fundraiser. Previously, Joe served as a Director of Leadership Giving at The Human Rights Campaign and was the Director of Development at the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund. Currently, Joe serves as the Development Director for California YIMBY, California’s state-wide housing policy reform and advocacy organization. He is heavily involved in his local community as the secretary for the Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association and  Membership Co-Chair for the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ+ Democratic Club. He also serves on the Retail Strategy Committee for the Castro Community Benefit District. Joe is deeply passionate about climate change, housing, public transportation, good government, and revitalizing the LGBTQ+ legacy of his chosen home, the Castro. This week, we asked Joe questions about his career path.

David Pepper is a lawyer, writer, political activist, former elected official, and adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law where he teaches election and voting rights. Previously, he served as a councilman for the city of Cincinnati, a member of the Hamilton County, Ohio Board of Commissioners, and the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party from 2015 to 2021. David is a strong advocate for voter rights and has engaged in numerous fights and extensive litigation involving voter suppression and election laws. He recently released his sixth book and fourth novel, The Fifth Vote. This week, we asked him 7 questions.

Keith Gaby is a political communications and public affairs specialist with over 30 years of experience. Previously, Keith has worked on two presidential campaigns, as well as being appointed to the position of Director of Intergovernmental affairs before working as a speechwriter for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Throughout his successful career he also directed two films, The Quality of Light and The Bigger Hammer, a film which analyzes the messaging of the Obama and McCain campaigns during the 2008 presidential election. Currently Keith serves as the Vice President of Public Affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund, an organization dedicated to climate justice across the globe. This week, we asked him 7 questions about his career path and experience. Check out the podcast interview here. 

Todd Rogers is a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and is a behavioral scientist who has done research on increasing communication skills between families, educators, and students, employees, consumers, and voters. He is the faculty director of the Harvard Behavioral Insight Group, which focuses on using behavioral science for public good. Todd co-founded the Analyst Institute, which focuses on measuring and improving the impact of progressive campaigns on voter communication and everyday labs, which works with school districts to reduce absenteeism and increased learning by better communication with families. He is also the author of the new Writing for Busy Readers, which came out in September of this year, and is a practical guide for writing more effectively and practically to increase communication skills. This week we asked him 7 questions about his work and career. 

You can check out the Podcast interview here. 

Katie has over 20 years of experience in social justice and political work. Throughout these years, she has worked with nonprofits and for-profit organizations, boards and staff teams, as well as coalitions and campaigns to align around a shared mission, build robust implementation plans to engage leaders, foster leadership development and deliver real success to the communities they serve. In 2015, Katie launched her own company, Katie B. Strategies, LLC, which is a owned business committed to equity and representation. Katie B. Strategies exists to bring individuals and teams together to design actionable change. This week, we asked her questions about her experience and career.

David Fleischer is the founder and former director of the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Leadership LAB, and the creator of the pioneering outreach approach called “deep canvassing”. Before the Leadership Lab, David led political training programs at the LGBTQ Victory Fund and the National LGBTQ Task Force. He has politically organized all over the country, advocating for LGBTQ+ rights for decades. His work has been profiled in major publications such as The Atlantic and the New York Times days, David has an amazing Substack you should check out and writes about deep canvassing and its empirically proven ability to change hearts and minds. This week, we asked Dave 7 questions about his career path and experience.  Checkout the podcast interview here.

Daniel Hernández Jr. was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. He's a first-generation college student who attended the University of Arizona and while in college, interned for then Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and was the first to administer first aid to her on that day of the tragic attack on her life. Daniel was inspired by Congressman Gifford's commitment to public service, so he decided to run for office and was elected to the local school board, becoming the youngest school board president in the district's history. I do remember that starting in 2017, Daniel then went on to serve at the Arizona State House as one of the youngest members ever elected. As a representative, Daniel co-founded the House LGBT Caucus and worked with both Republicans and Democrats to pass bills to protect survivors of sexual assault. He also worked to secure over $20 million for counselors and social workers to help pass a bipartisan budget to invest in K-12 funding in Arizona. Daniel is currently serving as the Government Affairs Director at Stand for Children in Arizona. This week, we asked Daniel 7 questions about his career path and experiences.

You can listen to the interview with Daniel Hernandez on how to run for office on the How to Win a Campaign podcast. 

Susan Markham is a partner and co-founder of Smash Strategies. Previously, she served as Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), director of Women's Political Participation at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and a senior strategist here at The Campaign Workshop. Susan is a passionate advocate for gender equality and female empowerment, and advocates for the critical role that women play in politics and development. She also just recently released her new book Feminist Foreign Policy in Theory and in Practice. This week, we asked her 7 questions about her work and career path.

You can also listen to this interview with Susan Markham on the How to Win a Campaign podcast. 

Hal Malchow is a seasoned political consultant and writer with a successful career in politics. As the chairman of MHSC partners, Hal spearheaded the use of control group experiments and advanced data analytics to improve political targeting and campaign strategy. He’s worked with the US Olympic Committee, Planned Parenthood, and five Democratic presidential nominees. Through his work modeling voter lists, he set many different fundraising records for the Democratic National Committee. He has been recognized for his revolutionary work with the Sisk Award in 2005 and his induction into the American Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame in 2016. His work is also chronicled in Sasha Issenberg’s book The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, and has written political strategy, political fiction, political thriller, and young adult fantasy novels. We asked Hal 7 questions about his career and experiences and his book Reinventing Political Advertising. 

Listen to the How to Win a Campaign  Podcast interview with Hal Machow here. 

Katherine Miller is the author of At the Table: The Chef's Guide to Advocacy. She is involved in advocacy training, and strategist. She has previously served as the VP of Impact at the James Beard Foundation where she worked with leaders in the food system to create new and innovative programs to help address gender equity, sustainability, food waste, and child nutrition. She is a current Distinguished Fellow at GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs, and is a professional alum of the LA Times, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the U.N. Foundation. This week, we asked Katherine 7 questions about her career and experience. 

As nonprofits leave Twitter or X, we discuss the implications of this decision and where nonprofits can go instead. Before you go, plan the next steps and consider the impact on your organization. This post serves as an update to one of last year's most engaging discussions.

Ballot language for ballot initiatives matters more than anything else and can make or break your initiative from the beginning. It has long been said that ballot measure language can be the difference between winning and losing. Here are some basics on ballot measure wording and how it can make or break your measure.

As anyone who’s worked on a ballot measure campaign will tell you, ballot measures tend to fly under voters’ radar. You typically need a strong ground game and a dedicated group of local volunteers to be successful. Most ballot measure campaigns also need an element of voter education and persuasion added to their programs. Without it, many voters won’t understand what the measure does and why it’s important. Ballot measures are often the very last thing on the ballot, so sometimes you simply need to remind voters to fill out the entire ballot or to flip the ballot over.

Should I use Substack for Non-Profit communications?  Substack is primarily a newsletter and blogging platform. Think of it as a more user-friendly version of Medium that has garnered a large following. Many people I know regularly post on Substack. Initially, I explored Substacks focused on branding, organization, and food, but the platform's political content has grown, and I now follow a few political Substacks.

Brandon Wolf is a nationally recognized gun safety and LGBTQ+ civil rights advocate and public speaker. Brandon is a survivor of the 2016 shooting at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub. After losing two of his best friends that night, Brandon set out to honor their and the other 47 victims’ legacies with action. Brandon is a co-founder of The Dru Project, a non-profit organization that helps fund higher education to empower youth and future leaders in the LGBTQ+ community. We asked Brandon 7 questions about his experience and career path.