Who We Are
Sara Ackerman
Prior to joining PowerThru, Sara worked on a number of political and issue campaigns including a state senate race in southern California and a ballot initiative in Maryland. Sara also worked as the Project Coordinator of the Move Your Money Project, a campaign created by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post that encourages individuals and institutions to divest from ‘Too Big To Fail’ banks and move to small community banks and credit unions. Under Sara’s direction, the Move Your Money Project experienced a revival, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement and Bank Transfer Day. To date, over 10 million individuals have moved their money, with an additional 5.6 million moving in the Fall of 2011.
Matt Holland
Working with a wide range of local and national organizations — TrueMajority.org, USAction, EarthDay Network, EnviroCitizen, Vermont Public Interest Research Group and others — Matt has developed both the strategies and technology for online communications, and trained scores of nonprofits. He organized TrueMajority’s “Million Doors for Peace” national volunteer field canvass, managing 8,000 volunteers in 49 states on a single day. Under his leadership the organization grew to more than 600,000 members nationwide, and raised over a million dollars online. Matt now serves at the Online Director for Avaaz.org.
Drew Hudson
Drew has been a political organizer with state and national campaigns for the last 9 years, specializing in merged online work with on-the-ground field organizing. As Field Director for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group he organized the state’s largest volunteer network, including planning and executing 5 summer canvass programs on clean energy and climate change that collectively spoke to more than 300,000 individuals, and raised more than $1 million. At MoveOn.org Drew planned and executed all-volunteer vigils, petition deliveries and other actions as a leader of the Operation Democracy project. In the most recent election cycle he has directed voter registration, identification and turnout campaigns for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gaye Symington.
Mike Nellis
Mike comes to PowerThru from having spent the last two and a year half years at BuzzMaker, LLC where he provided strategic new media support to a variety of campaigns and non-profits. He is widely credited with the revival of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall’s campaign for U.S. Senate in 2010. Once considered dead in the Democratic primary, Marshall beat back the establishment candidate with an innovative online program developed by Mike. Marshall would raise $1.7 million in small-dollar donations in 2010 alone. Mike has also earned praise for his work with Congressman Alan Grayson, Florida Watch Action’s “Pink Slip Rick” campaign, and many other projects as a consultant. Previously, he served as the New Media Director for the Kansas Democratic Party and co-managed a primetime city council election in his hometown of Omaha, NE that led to Democrats retaking the council for the first time in 25 years.
Laura Packard
Laura has consulted for and trained progressive non-profits, political campaigns, and small businesses around the country for the past several years, covering online strategy development, organizing and outreach, fundraising, messaging, advertising and social media. She is a veteran of numerous political campaigns and organizations over the past eight years, including serving as internet communications director for Senator Stabenow’s re-election in 2006, interim executive director for the New Organizing Institute in 2008, and as new media director for the Bill Halter for Senate primary campaign in 2010 which used the Internet in innovative ways and raised over 3.5 million dollars online in 4 months. She served as the director of the Secretary of State Project national 527 in the remainder of the 2010 cycle.
Chris Potter
Chris brings ten years of experience in web design and development, including stints as senior web designer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, designer/developer for Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, and creator of numerous issue campaign sites. Chris has a M.S. in Multimedia Design and has delivered training to other developers on the Salsa platform at the request of Democracy in Action. He has developed and deployed custom packages on the Salsa network, as well as building many outside systems connected to Salsa via the API, in a high-volume production environment.
Jon Wheeler
Jon has wide-ranging skills and experiences from the nexus of non-profit organizations, technology and politics. Jon’s worked managing computer operations on Capitol Hill; as the field director for a state delegate re-election campaign in Virginia; helped a friend start an Internet company in his living room in Chicago; taught technology and social-entrepreneurship to high school students in Massachusetts; and started a political leadership training non-profit in DC. He also served as the lead Salsa support specialist for their largest clients with the most complicated needs, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Moms Rising, True Majority and Oceana.
Colin Whitworth
Before joining PowerThru, Colin worked in journalism and multimedia training and volunteered for numerous local and state political campaigns in Alachua County, Florida. His most notable campaign was a multi-level effort to reduce the campaign contribution limits and improve reporting transparency for local campaigns in Alachua County, which included lobbying state lawmakers to allow the county to create local contribution limits, and going to the voters with a straw poll and then two changes to the county’s charter. All three votes passed overwhelmingly.
From Our Blog
Custom P2P page creation and workflow on Salsa
A client of ours wanted to create a donation campaign with Salsa’s P2P donation package. This package allows supporters to create their own fundraising page and send their own friends and family to the donation page they created. The client wanted to create eye-catching donation pages by allowing the supporter to add a personal image [...]
What our clients say
Todd Bailey | VtLCV:
The great thing about working with PowerThru was that they did 95% of the work. All they needed was a little bit of guidance from me on what I wanted to accomplish, and they took that information, turned it into an excellent plan and then implanted that plan to a T.