Every Action/NGP/VAN Must Go!

The time is now!

Dear Ben Wikler, Ken Martin and others running for DNC Chair,

We ask for an immediate transition away from the monopoly at the very center of our most critical Party infrastructure: Every Action/NGP/VAN.

We have allowed a foreign private equity company to control our central database for voter outreach, volunteer/relational organizing, and fundraising/compliance at the local, campaign, state, and national levels.

This urgent transition must be understood as not one of a laundry list of "issues" like policy or coalition building via outreach and better communications, improved relationships or culture of the party (all important!!) but as one that impacts everything our party does and must do to win back power.

These proposed bullet points demand an urgent transition away from the Every Action/NGP/VAN monopoly at the heart of our critical Party infrastructure.

We must focus on everyday economic issues that resonate with working-class voters. Allowing this monopoly to persist contradicts any message of understanding or commitment to disrupting the monopolies that harm them.

Year-round organizing and community engagement, in collaboration with local Democratic parties, depend on secure, functional infrastructures. Ignoring this vulnerability undermines our efforts and perpetuates a problem we've failed to address since the database's foreign private equity acquisition.

State parties must provide better access to resources in “unwinnable” counties to cut Republican margins statewide. Rural candidates face significant barriers to accessing VAN due to cost and poor data quality. Leadership must commit to fixing these issues with a secure, improved voter/volunteer/donor database.

Thank you for addressing this critical flaw in our Democratic Party. With all eyes on Virginia, we have the perfect opportunity to move away from this foreign monopoly.

Stair Calhoun, Network NOVA and the Virginia Grassroots