Collaboration & community
From side project to (nearly) 24/7 operation
After the 2016 election, I saw an opportunity no one had asked me to pursue: ActBlue needed a real presence on social media, and donors were already showing up there with questions we weren't equipped to answer. I took it on alongside my existing role and built it into a fully staffed, around-the-clock program.
Building the program meant solving for everything at once: crafting approved public-facing language with customer service, communications, and executive leadership; developing FAQ responses that held up for years; and creating shift structures that guaranteed coverage during both anticipated moments and unexpected ones.
It also meant developing judgment — in myself and in my team. Public replies in a politically charged environment carry real risk. I spent years teaching my team how to rapidly assess a conversation, identify bad-faith actors, and make sound decisions under pressure. What started as a side project became a formalized part of our portfolio, with dedicated staff, documented processes, and coverage that stretched into nights and weekends during election season.
The stakes were high from the start. During debate nights and breaking news cycles, a single unanswered question could represent real money not reaching a campaign that needed it. And there was a lot of conversation to sift through.
Responsiveness wasn't a nice-to-have — it was mission-critical.
over 560K
Mentions of ActBlue across platforms in 2020 alone
over 20M
Engagements on those mentions in 2020 alone
Building credibility and impact in unfamiliar territory
In February 2025, I stepped into a Product Marketing Director role with no formal product marketing background and no runway. What I had was a decade of deep institutional knowledge about ActBlue as a platform, and a clear sense of how to build relationships quickly across a team.
I started where I always start: with the people. I spent the early weeks building trust with product managers and engineers, learning the roadmap, and identifying where I could be most useful across both the tech and marketing sides of the organization. Then I got to work.
The centerpiece of my time in the role was the launch of Raise by ActBlue — a new version of the platform built specifically for state and local campaigns. I was the go-to coordinator across every team involved: legal, engineering, communications, press, partnerships, customer support, creative, video, sales, and research. I developed talking points and positioning statements, oversaw the production of demos and marketing collateral, created sales enablement materials, and synthesized customer research to inform how the product would continue to iterate after launch.
Navigating a Regulated Creative Environment
As a PAC, ActBlue operated under strict regulations about how we could show up online — seemingly innocuous wording carried real legal weight. As our presence grew and we expanded to new platforms and content formats, nearly every strategic move required legal sign-off.
That meant building a real working relationship with specific counselors — not just sending requests and waiting for a green light, but explaining the business need, understanding the actual risk, and finding a path forward together. I learned to ask the right question: not "what do you think of this?" but "what's the legal risk, and can we mitigate it?" That distinction is what allowed us to keep moving creatively within a constrained environment rather than letting caution become a ceiling.