Michael Whitney

• Led the expansion of the independent news outlet’s newsletter and email fundraising programs, doubling the size of the newsletter subscriber list and significantly expanding its paying membership base.
• Worked with product managers, designers, and developers to integrate newsletter subscriptions and membership signup modules throughout the website, and to redesign newsletters themselves to maximize readership and engagement.

• Led two in-depth, months-long fellowships on digital fundraising for 40+ fundraisers and organizers at NGOs, political parties, and news organizations in Oceania.
• Consulted for six NGOs in Australia on projects about digital fundraising and supporter engagement.

Worked as a digital mobilization and small-dollar fundraising consultant for progressive candidates and organizations, including Gabby Giffords, Zephyr Teachout, and DeRay Mckesson.

I managed the digital fundraising program for Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, raising more than $218 million online from an unprecedented 8.5 million individual contributions and 2.7 million donors.

This program was hailed by the New York Times as "a new reality for digital campaigning," and is largely recognized as one of the most successful and efficient online fundraising operations ever, at times surpassing President Barack Obama's historic efforts. My work included content development, list management, lead acquisition, candidate endorsements, ally coordination, and more.

I worked as an independent consultant for progressive organizations, including: ♦ MoveOn.org: Created a pilot program for member-to-member fundraising, building on the success of the group’s distributed petition platform to encourage members to raise money for their own campaigns. ♦ Everytown: Worked with the gun violence prevention group to build national email program; developed strategies for distributed campaign plans to connect local organizing groups with national digital capacity.

I directed email campaigning for Change.org’s 20 million U.S. users, and helped manage the brand and editorial direction of the content received by the company’s 55 million users worldwide. In this role I managed a team to create content on a fast-moving production calendar that sent more than 400 million action alerts to U.S. users in 2013 and accounted for 60% of the company’s realized revenue, growing the email list more than three times in size.

I coordinated email work with international campaign teams, business development, product & engineering, and executives to meet company goals and to collaborate on new company initiatives and strategies.

I led email campaigns for Change.org petitions, working with issue experts and organizers in the U.S. and Australia to develop strategy, messaging, and targeting for campaigns on the Change.org platform. The latter part of my work in this position included serving as the organizing team lead for the successful petition started by Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, to prosecute her son’s killer.

Managed a team to organize advocacy campaigns, send emails and newsletters, build web products, and improve tech infrastructure for multiple web properties with two million monthly visitors for this progressive political blog.

I managed online activities for the Employee Free Choice Act campaign and financial reform issues, including direction of email, blogs, online advertising, and online press communications across a labor coalition. Responsibilities also included managing a team of five online organizers to support the union’s advocacy efforts.

Worked on online operations for this labor rights group, including supporter advocacy, blogger relations, and website management and development.

CollegeLabs.org was a project of Music for America to organize student voters in the the 2004 election. I advised campus organizers and project coordinators on online organizing and student media outreach.

I created Students for Dean, a nation-wide organization of students supporting Howard Dean for President, organizing our online and offline communications and managing a team of bloggers and campaigners. When the race ended in March 2004, we had more than 23,000 students and 1,200 groups to support Howard Dean for President -- at that time, the biggest youth organizing effort by a presidential campaign.