Acronym (organization)

Acronym (styled ACRONYM) is a Washington, D.C.-based American 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation, co-founded by Tara McGowan and Michael Dubin in 2017. The organization is one of the major coordinators and producers of digital media campaigns aligned with the Democratic Party, and has been hired by or has provided support to various other organizations including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Emily's List, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Planned Parenthood. It was the majority owner of Shadow, Inc., a technology company that made the mobile application software that malfunctioned during vote tallying at the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses, but later divested its stake in the company.[6]

Acronym
FormationMarch 1, 2017 (2017-03-01)[1]
Founders
TypeNonprofit[1] political advocacy group
82-1630469[4][1]
Legal status501(c)(4)[1]
Purpose"We build power + modern infrastructure for a new progressive movement."[5]
HeadquartersWashington, D.C.[4][1]
President and CEO
Tara McGowan[4]
Michael Dubin[4][1]
Hannah Linkenhoker[4]
Revenue (2017)
$1,294,938[4]
Expenses (2017)$1,297,124[4]
Websitewww.anotheracronym.org

Digital media

McGowan and Dubin co-founded Acronym in 2017[3][7] with the stated intention of "advancing progressive causes through innovative communications, advertising, and organizing programs".[8] Since then, Acronym has made significant investments in digital media campaigns that aim to register voters. Within just over a year of its founding, Acronym had raised tens of millions of dollars for digital advertising campaigns, running more than 100 ad campaigns and registering 60,000 voters.[9]

In 2019, Acronym launched the Courier Newsroom,[10] a digital for-profit media company which publishes what appear to be local pseudo-news outlets but which are actually Democratic Party propaganda efforts.[11][lower-alpha 2][10][13] The creation and operation of Courier Newsroom has raised outrage and ethics questions about ACRONYM and about its financiers, who include billionaires Reid Hoffman and Laurene Powell Jobs.[14]

In November 2020, Fast Company called Acronym "the Democrats' most advanced digital advertising project."[15]

Funding

Acronym's backers include Michael Dubin (founder of Dollar Shave Club), Reid Hoffman, and Laurene Powell Jobs.[16]

Acronym's affiliated organizations and PAC donors include high-profile donors like the director Steven Spielberg and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.[lower-alpha 3] Other donors of $100,000 or more include Kate Capshaw, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Mimi Haas.[17] Acronym's PAC, PACRONYM, has further received "eight-figure checks" from financiers Seth Klarman and Donald Sussman, venture capitalist Michael Moritz,[18][19][20] and from George Soros' "Democracy" super-PAC.[21] Quartz summarized the top donors to PACRONYM as "hedge funds, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood."[22]

Because of the substantial volume of money that it has raised, and because of its status as a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit organization that is not required to disclose the donations it receives, Acronym has been widely described as a dark money group.[23][24] Acronym has received criticism for the lack of transparency in its funding structure,[9][24] although McGowan and others have defended the 501(c)(4) funding structure as a useful innovation for progressive advertising groups to adopt.[9][25]

Relationships with other organizations

In 2019, the Iowa Democratic Party paid $63,000 to Shadow, Inc., a for-profit software company acquired by Acronym, to create a mobile application to tally results from the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses.[26][27] Shadow, Inc. was created[28][26] in 2019 by Acronym when they acquired the technology firm Groundbase from Gerard Niemira, who was then made CEO of Shadow, Inc.[29] Niemira had also previously served as chief operating officer and chief technology officer of Acronym prior to being CEO of Shadow, Inc.[7][30]

In the wake of Acronym's involvement in the 2020 Iowa Caucuses' vote tallying problems, McGowan downplayed Acronym's connection to the app Shadow that was responsible for delays and inconsistencies in reporting election results. A report in The Intercept, however, found that "internal company documents, a source close to the firms, and public records show a close and intertwined relationship between Acronym and Shadow."[29] ACRONYM later divested its interest in Shadow Inc.[6]

In addition to Shadow, Inc., Acronym has owned several for-profit corporations, including the digital strategy firm Lockwood Strategy and the media company FWIW Media.[9][10] Acronym planned to launch an apparel company called Rogue Swag,[9] and later ran an apparel campaign under that name.[31] Courier Newsroom, which describes itself as a "progressive media company", is also owned by Acronym.[32] Courier Newsroom acts as a parent company for local news websites.[32][33]

In November 2019, Acronym founder Tara McGowan announced that Acronym and its affiliated Super PAC, called Pacronym (and styled PACRONYM), would undertake a $75 million online advertising campaign targeting four potential swing states in the 2020 United States presidential election.[34][35] Pacronym received $2,407,208 in 2018 and spent $1,000,000 (43%) the same year in payments to Lockwood Strategy, also owned by Acronym.[36] Since the campaign of incumbent president Donald Trump was reported to have a significant advantage in digital advertising during the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, this large expenditure by a Democratic-aligned organisation was considered by many political strategists and media commentators to be a crucial safeguard for the Democratic Party against the risk of being outspent in digital advertising before their presidential nominee could be chosen.[34][37] Nick Fouriezos of Ozy magazine identified Acronym, and McGowan's efforts in particular, as "one of the major forces shaping the Democrats' general-election fight against Donald Trump".[9]

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Emily's List, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Planned Parenthood have hired Acronym for digital organizing services.[9]

David Plouffe, who was campaign manager for former president Barack Obama, serves on the board of directors of Acronym.[7][38]

Productions

Acronym started a weekly newsletter called FWIW,[39][40] as well as in 2020 created an accompanying podcast called the FWIW Podcast.[41] Hosted by McGowan, the FWIW Podcast was a biweekly podcast about the digital race for the White House. Past guests included David Plouffe, Jeff Zeleny, and DNC CTO Nell Thomas.[41][42]

Notes
  1. "ACRONYM, "a new, digital-first political organization" co-founded by Michael Dubin, the Dollar Shave Club CEO"[3]
  2. Courier Newsroom, which Bloomberg called “a liberal, digital spin on local news.”[12]
  3. Acronym's affiliated PAC and web of other organizations are funded with millions from high-profile Democrats including director Steven Spielberg and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman[2]

References
  1. "ACRONYM". Influence Watch. 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  2. Corse, Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman and Alexa (February 5, 2020). "The Shoestring App Developer Behind the Iowa Caucus Debacle". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved February 5, 2020. Acronym and its founder Tara McGowan{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. McCammond, Alexi (October 26, 2017). "Digital-first startup launches to elect progressive Dems". Axios. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  4. "Form 990 Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax" (PDF). Influence Watch. July 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  5. "ACRONYM homepage". Acronym. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  6. Schleifer, Theodore (May 8, 2020). "The Democratic Party's most hated startup can't change what happened in Iowa. But it can change its name". Vox. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  7. "Maker of Glitchy Iowa Caucus App Has Democratic Party Ties". The New York Times. Associated Press. February 4, 2020. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  8. "About ACRONYM". Acronym. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  9. Fouriezos, Nick (September 5, 2019). "Meet the Democrats' most dangerous digital strategist". Ozy. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  10. Emily Stewart (February 6, 2020). "Acronym, the dark money group behind the Iowa caucuses app meltdown, explained". MSN. Retrieved February 7, 2020. the Courier Newsroom, a for-profit media company under Acronym's umbrella that runs multiple local sites that deliver left-slanted news
  11. Hasen, Richard (February 23, 2020). "If Democrats fight right-wing "fake news" fire with fire, we all lose". Salon. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  12. Marantz, Andrew (February 6, 2020). "Inside Acronym, the Tech Consultancy Behind the Disastrous Iowa-Caucus App". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  13. Massoglia, Anna (May 22, 2020). "'Dark money' networks hide political agendas behind fake news sites". OpenSecrets.
  14. ALEX THOMPSON (July 14, 2020). "Newsroom or PAC? Liberal group muddies online information wars". Politico. Retrieved September 5, 2020. Acronym — a sprawling digital organization whose programs include millions of dollars in traditional political advertising and voter engagement efforts, with financing from some of the deepest pockets in progressive politics, such as liberal billionaires Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Laurene Powell Jobs, the majority owner of The Atlantic — has stirred outrage and provoked debate about the ethics of such political tactics
  15. Pasternack, Alex (November 2, 2020). "This data expert helped Trump win. Now he's built a machine to take him down". Fast Company. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
  16. Jim Rutenberg; Matthew Rosenberg (March 30, 2020). "Trump Won the Internet. Democrats Are Scrambling to Take It Back". The New York Times. Retrieved August 31, 2020. Another initiative went more smoothly, at least at first. It was called Acronym; among its backers were the Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin, Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Powell Jobs.
  17. Ari Levy (February 4, 2020). "Top Hollywood celebrities and Silicon Valley investors are linked to the app that failed in Iowa". MSN. CNBC. Retrieved May 3, 2020. Mimi Haas, who's not in tech but is a major Bay Area figure and the widow of Peter Haas of the Levi Strauss family [...] Director Steven Spielberg contributed $500,000 to Pacronym as did his wife, the actress Kate Capshaw. Producer Jeffrey Katzenberg [...] each put in $100,000.
  18. "New Details Show How Deeply Iowa Caucus App Developer Was Embedded in Democratic Establishment". February 4, 2020.
  19. "Become an FT subscriber to read | Financial Times".
  20. Soo Rin Kim (February 4, 2020). "What to know about Shadow Inc., the vendor behind Iowa Democrats' caucus app". ABC. Retrieved February 6, 2020. under the leadership of McGowan, who was also previously the director of strategy with Priorities USA, one of the largest Democratic-aligned outside groups, PACRONYM raised more than $7 million, receiving a series of eight-figure checks from wealthy supporters including financier Seth Klarman and Donald Sussman
  21. Anna Massoglia (May 22, 2020). "'Dark money' networks hide political agendas behind fake news sites". Open Secrets. Retrieved August 31, 2020. Democracy PAC, a super PAC created by George Soros in 2019 to influence the presidential election. FEC records show Democracy PAC shelled out $1.75 million to PACRONYM
  22. Jeremy B. Merrill; Hanna Kozlowska (April 15, 2020). "A well-heeled liberal group is filling the local news void with Trump-bashing coronavirus ads". Quartz (publication). Retrieved May 3, 2020. according to Federal Election Committee filings, top donors to Acronym's political action committee, Pacronym, hail from hedge funds, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood
  23. Markay, Lachlan (November 22, 2019). "How a Dem Dark-Money Group Is Invading the News". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 24, 2019. (subscription required)
  24. Cawthorne, Cameron (October 10, 2019). "Liberal Dark Money Group Launches $1 Million Impeachment Ad Campaign". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  25. Warzel, Charlie (November 1, 2019). "Can Democrats Compete With Trump's Twitter Feed?". The New York Times. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  26. McGowan, Tara [@taraemcg] (January 17, 2019). "I'm so excited to announce @anotheracronym has acquired Groundbase, the best CRM + SMS tool on the political market, along with their incredible team led by @gjniemira + are launching Shadow, a new tech company to build smarter infrastructure for campaigns" (Tweet). Retrieved February 3, 2020 – via Twitter.
  27. Robillard, Kevin (February 3, 2020). "This Is The Buzzy Democratic Firm That Botched The Iowa Caucuses". Huffington Post. Retrieved February 3, 2020.
  28. "Shadow". Archived from the original on September 21, 2019.
  29. Fang, Lee (February 4, 2020). "New Details Show How Deeply Iowa Caucus App Developer Was Embedded in Democratic Establishment". The Intercept. Retrieved February 5, 2020.
  30. Sara Fischer (July 9, 2019). "Progressive non-profit ACRONYM to invest $1M in local media effort". Axios. Retrieved February 7, 2020. ACRONYM has invested in other for-profit companies, like Shadow Inc., a political technology company based in Denver
  31. Corosaniti, Nick (November 19, 2019). "The Twitter Ads That Weren't". The New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  32. "About Us". COURIER. Archived from the original on February 4, 2020. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  33. Guaglione, Sarah. "Nonprofit Acronym Invests Over $1 million In 'The Dogwood' Site, Shores Up Local News". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  34. Goldmacher, Shane (November 4, 2019). "Democratic Strategists Set Up $75 Million Digital Campaign to Counter Trump". The New York Times. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  35. "One Year from Election Day 2020, Progressive Group Launches Massive Effort to Combat Trump Online". us16.campaign-archive.com. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  36. "Pacronym: Expenditures, 2018 cycle". Open Secrets.
  37. Ye Hee Lee, Michelle (November 19, 2019). "Democrats, anxious over Trump's money advantage, launch swing-state spending efforts". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  38. "HuffPost is now part of Verizon Media". February 4, 2020.
  39. FWIW. "FWIW". fwiwnewsletter.substack.com. Retrieved September 10, 2021.
  40. "FWIW Newsletter". Acronym. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
  41. "FWIW Podcast". FWIW Podcast. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
  42. Uberti, David (November 23, 2019). "The 'MVP' of Trump's 2016 Facebook Campaign Just Joined a Liberal Group Trying to Take Him Down". Vice. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
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