What spawned the idea of CampaignGateway?

Why CampaignGateway?

I have had several people ask me this question over the past few months on why I wasted my time designing such a complex and integrated platform that has such niche use. After all, Canadian elections are primarily every four years with municipal elections in Canada typically staggered in with a four or five year format depending on your jurisdiction. I was asked why I would bother for several reasons, some being:

• All main political parties have their own software contracted already, what’s the market?
• Campaigns are so infrequent, what’s the point of making something for use every four years or so?
• Why not make the programs that exist just work better?

To answer those questions, part of my history needs to be established. What I do, where I worked, and the issues I hope to solve with CampaignGateway that have been pervasive in global electoral politics since the rise of technology. Stay with me, you’re in for a long one!  

Who are you?

My name is Chris. I am twenty-five years old and got my start in electoral politics at 2018 by volunteering to knock doors and make phone calls for my riding’s provincial candidate. Politics was something I always enjoyed and grew up around. My grandfather was the federal Deputy Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 1990s. My step-grandmother ran for provincial office in 2003 falling short by just 47 votes in a heavily Conservative riding while running as a Liberal. When I say politics was always a discussion at the dinner table, it was non-stop. After 2018, I continued to volunteer. In 2019, I volunteered to knock doors and phone call for a federal candidate. In 2020, I was brought onto the central team for a provincial election and taught everything over the course of a few days. Constituency programs, data management, communications, flagging, issues management, multi-riding coordination. Take your pick and it would’ve been touched on. We’re talking twelve hour days, seven days a week just learning. It was truly the most fun I ever had which I realize sounds absurd. After that election, I was hired onto the provincial party’s team and we went from there. My role evolved and devolved over time. From being a technology guru (which as a side note is slightly offensive), to aiding in fundraising, to managing data across forty-nine ridings, to directing a provincial field program. In this sense, I have done it all. I have spoken to field operatives, candidates, and normal people from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia and even from Texas to California and across to Massachusetts. Over time, I developed a pseudo “wish list” of sorts. Things that I wanted to see in the programs I used in politics. After leaving my previous job, I have spent the past few months dedicating myself to the idea of CampaignGateway. Upon creation, I was focusing on the following observations by myself and that were mentioned to me:

• Many volunteers are older and are not comfortable with technology. How can we make them comfortable?
• How can we make it a fun and rewarding experience for volunteers beyond the basics?
• What are the biggest challenges many candidates face technologically?
  • Access to appropriate technology for their campaign.
  • Linked websites and databases.
  • Scheduling.
  • Volunteer management.
  • Supporter tracking.
  • Donation management.
  • Jurisdiction rules.

So, as one does I spent eight months working on a platform to remedy all of those common complaints that I received from people. CampaignGateway is meant to be a low-cost alternative to competitors and include similar (at times, better) features. The reasons this can stay low cost are simple:

• The single largest expense on this website is storage. By purging campaigns after their payment plan is finished and/or their campaign has concluded, it saves money on storage.
• This is not a permanent solution. Large political parties tend to have massive databases with data extending back decades. This tool focuses on the present.
• This is strictly built for campaigns and thus, there’s no features that are designed to carry on for years.

In my experience, the largest expenses political parties have from these databases and websites and donation tools is the fact that they hoard data for years and that data takes up storage which costs money. That is emphasized as they keep it outside of an election period which is where CampaignGateway differs. I hope I’ve provided some context behind this project. To be clear, CampaignGateway will always be evolving with new features, refined features, and constant optimization. If you read this far, thank you! Chris