Dear MoveOn member,
We have made a big decision about the future of MoveOn, and today, we want to pull back the curtain and let you know what has been happening behind the scenes.
Since MoveOn’s founding in 1998, we have always been a digital-first organization, meaning that the primary way we communicate with members like you, run grassroots campaigns, organize volunteers, and more happens online. In order to do that, MoveOn relies on a set of digital tools that allow us to send you this email, securely collect your shipping information to send you a free sticker, let you sign up to attend a protest near you, call your member of Congress, and more.
And because MoveOn has millions of members, the technology we use is very complex—and absolutely essential to every aspect of our work.
For many years, we have used a tool called “ActionKit,” which staff at MoveOn helped to develop more than 25 years ago. But in 2021, ActionKit, along with several other digital tools used by progressive and Democratic organizations, was purchased by a private equity-owned company called Bonterra. We were deeply concerned by this, because private equity funds have a long history of purchasing companies only to conduct massive layoffs and slash services in order to make as much money with as little work as possible—and as it has turned out, that is exactly what Bonterra has done with their acquisition of ActionKit.
And while the team at ActionKit itself has always been incredible, we are not confident that Bonterra will continue maintaining the integrity of the platform in the long run. This is why we have made the decision to move to another tool called “Action Network,” which is a nonprofit-governed platform run by a team whose values align with MoveOn and the progressive movement.
Making this switch is one of the most time- and labor-intensive decisions MoveOn has ever undertaken, because it involves rebuilding, piece by piece, all of the technical infrastructure we have built over our 26-year history—and doing it all perfectly. That’s millions of lines of code. Terabytes of data.
And even a single mistake could be the first domino that takes the entire system down.
But we feel it is absolutely necessary, particularly as we head into another Trump administration. We cannot risk Bonterra’s making a snap decision to shut down ActionKit as Trump is in the middle of his mass deportation plan or efforts to ban contraception, therefore taking away the ability for MoveOn members to come together and fight back.
Thanks for all you do.
–Ilona Brand, Managing Director of Tech
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