Techno-Powered Fundraising
Draw from the experiences, successes, and occasionally the failures of
those who have gone before. A case study based discussion on digital
fundraising.
Chair: Patrick Ruffini - RightRoots
Patrick Ruffini is an online strategist dedicated to helping Republicans and conservatives achieve dominance in a networked era. He has seen American politics from every vantagepoint — as a campaign staffer, activist, and analyst. Ruffini currently advises Republican candidates and organizations on mastering new media, with a disciplined focus on Web site, e-mail, and blog strategies shaped by years of experience in the field. His strategic consulting firm is set to publicly launch in the summer of 2007.
From 2005 to 2007, Ruffini served as eCampaign Director at the Republican National Committee, overseeing the Party’s online strategy for the 2006 election cycle. His tenure saw unprecedented outreach to the online community, breakthroughs in online fundraising, and successful initiatives in the emerging worlds of social media, online video, and text messaging. Even during a difficult election cycle, the RNC’s relationship with the blogosphere grew closer and stronger than ever. Beyond these successes, the RNC’s eCampaign serves as the Republican Party’s R&D arm for innovation on the Internet, where no major development online goes unnoticed or is left untapped. In this role, Ruffini advised Republican candidates and organizations at all levels on best practices for winning online.
In the 2004 election cycle, Ruffini served as webmaster for Bush-Cheney ‘04, overseeing a wide range of activities from day-to-day website operations, designing special features around high-profile events like the Conventions and Presidential debates, and managing the first-ever campaign blog for an incumbent President. Having come to the campaign as a former blogger, Ruffini instituted an aggressive blog outreach program even though the medium was still in its infancy. Towards the end of the campaign, Time magazine noted the campaign’s adept strategy of reaching beyond official organs and touching voters through media they know and trust, among them the blogosphere.
Other professional highlights include a previous stint at the RNC during the 2002 cycle and time well spent at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the nation’s leading conservative think tanks.
Erin Hill - ActBlue
Erin Hill graduated from Wellesley College in 2001 with a concentration in Public Policy Studies and a degree in English literature. Erin has worked in the Massachusetts State House, on Capitol Hill, and at Democratic National Headquarters in fundraising, operational and legislative research capacities. She spent the 2004 election cycle working on the finance staffs of the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Brent Blackaby - Co-principle, Blackrock Associates
Before joining the Clark for President campaign and co-founding Draft Clark 2004, Blackaby served as an engagement manager for Delphinity, LLC, an online marketing consulting firm, where he developed and executed customer marketing strategies for the online credit card division of Chase Manhattan Bank. Prior to Delphinity, Blackaby was Director of Marketing for Trigo Technologies, Inc., an enterprise software company recently acquired by IBM.
Blackaby also served as a Senior Product Marketing Manager at E*TRADE, where he developed, launched, and managed the Power E*TRADE program, designed to acquire and retain active traders, the company's most valuable customers. Prior to E*TRADE, Blackaby was a consultant in McKinsey & Company's San Francisco office. Blackaby graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. in Economics.
Larry Huynh - Co-principle, Blackrock Associates
Before joining the Clark for President campaign and co-founding Draft Clark 2004, Huynh served as Senior Product Manager for BestOffer.com, a company that created a marketplace for buying and selling pre-owned cars on the Web. At BestOffer.com, Huynh developed overall product strategy, helping build the early organization from 7-person team to over 80 employees.
Prior to BestOffer.com, Huynh served as a consultant in the San Francisco office of Mercer Management Consulting, where he helped develop database marketing strategies for Fortune 100 companies and served as the firm's expert on multi-channel distribution strategies for financial institutions. Huynh graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Biochemistry from Harvard University.
|
|
