About ProgressNow
Since 2003, ProgressNow has been developing our network of state partner organizations to fill a unique and critical role in the progressive infrastructure of key states.
ProgressNow state partners serve as non-stop, multi-issue advocacy organizations. Year-round, we promote progressive ideas and causes with creative earned media strategies, targeted email campaigns, and cutting-edge new media. Working with our allies, we have significantly improved the communications effort of the entire progressive community in our states.
Today, we’ve built an email list that exceeds 2.2 million people. We’ve generated thousands of news stories in local, state and national press. And we’ve pushed the use of social technologies and new media, not only through our own organizations, but in partnership with our allies.
ProgressNow is a year-round, never-ending progressive campaign.
Political campaigns are relatively short-lived. They come and they go, leaving little behind of lasting value. But ProgressNow’s presence in our states never ends. There are hundreds of local and state issues that we can organize and communicate around literally year-round. Day in and day out, we’re working in our states to counter the right wing and create a perpetual issue advocacy culture.
We’ve developed a niche by focusing on earned media and online communications and organizing.
Many state-based traditional, single-issue advocacy groups lack the internal capacity to execute communications well. But ProgressNow state partners excel in this area. Each ProgressNow state partner organization has full-time staff who are expert in communications, online campaigns, and new media. We mobilize citizens through our extensive email lists and through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. We quickly produce and publish video on YouTube. We even developed new social networking and organizing tools that have been used successfully not only by our state partner organizations, but by other progressive organizations, including Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
We’re unique in our focus on state and local issues.
Simply put, ProgressNow state partners are the only multi-issue, perpetual advocacy organizations in the states. It’s been said that “all politics is local”, and our experience is that lasting change must be rooted in our communities. By focusing our civic engagement and communications work at the state and local level, we are uniquely situated to play an important role in creating true, lasting change in our states.
As a progressive rather than partisan organization, our work is always important and reaches a broad audience.
Because we work to promote a “progressive” agenda, not a partisan one, our work continues regardless of which party controls the levers of power at the federal, state and local level. Whether we’re fighting against conservative policies or promoting progressive ones, we can be effective. And because we are nonpartisan, we can be effective vehicles to reach citizens across the political spectrum, and not simply preach to the choir. The composition of our email lists, which include a broad range of political affiliations, demonstrates this.
About the leadership
ProgressNow operates under the direction and leadership of the team of Michael Huttner and Bobby Clark. Huttner and Clark have been working together since 2002.
Michael Huttner
Founder and CEO of ProgressNow
Michael Huttner is the founder and chief executive officer of ProgressNow, a cutting-edge webbased advocacy organization, with affiliates in California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Huttner started ProgressNow with a list of 700 email addresses in 2003 and now the ProgressNow partner states combined membership exceeds 2.2 million individuals.
He is the author of the recently published book “50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America.”
As a private political consultant, Huttner helped spearhead Colorado’s legislative efforts in 2004. He has taught Legislation and Lobbying as an adjunct professor at the University of Denver College of Law.
Before going into private practice, Huttner worked as policy advisor to Governor Roy Romer, and before returning to Denver, he clerked at the White House for the Office of the Counsel to the President.
Huttner earned his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law, and his Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. Huttner was chosen by The Denver Business Journal as one of the “Forty under 40” Leaders of Denver and by Denver’s 5280 magazine as the “Top Up-and-Comer to Keep Your Eye On.”
Huttner is married to Debbie Huttner, a lawyer by training who founded The Wellness Initiative to teach yoga in lowincome schools; they live in Boulder with their three-yearold son, Lee and two-year-old daughter, Evy.
Bobby Clark
Executive Director of ProgressNow
After years of working in the technology industry, Bobby Clark launched the groundbreaking internet effort for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in January of 2003, and helped grow an email network of 750,000 and raise more than $50 million in one year. Since 2004, Bobby has served as a social media consultant for dozens of candidates and organizations throughout the country and abroad.
In 2005, Bobby helped launch ProgressNow in Colorado and led the development of ProgressNow’s innovative online tools and strategies for state-based progressive activism and rapid response media. Bobby helped develop the same platform that ultimately was used by Barack Obama’s presidential campaign to power My.BarackObama.com.
In 2006, ProgressNow was recognized with a Golden Dot award from the Center for Politics, Democracy & The Internet for our cutting-edge online campaigns and voter engagement in the 2006 election. ProgressNow’s innovative work has been covered nationally in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and USA Today.
As ProgressNow’s executive director, Bobby manages operations and leads the network’s online strategy and technology development.
A graduate of the University of Oklahoma and Vanderbilt Law School, Bobby lives in Denver with his partner, Shaun Cartwright, and their two dogs, Buddy and Lady.
Board
We wish to thank the following, our national board members, each of whom has been instrumental to our success.
Kim Anderson
Kim Anderson is the manager for Issue Advocacy in the National Education Associations Campaigns and Elections Department. She oversees NEAs independent expenditure projects, issue advocacy work, and helps represent NEA in numerous national coalitions and partnerships. She currently serves as the treasurer of America Votes Education and Action Fund as well as the national board of Progress Now. Kim has been active in Virginia politics, having served on the State Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Virginia, served as the secretary of the Eighth Congressional District Democratic Committee, and was an active member of the Alexandria Democratic Committee for ten years. She was appointed by Governor Mark Warner to serve on Virginias Board of Pharmacy and served as the first treasurer of Senator Jim Webbs Born Fighting PAC.
Prior to joining NEAs political team, Kim served as a lobbyist in NEAs Government Relations Department for seven years. Prior to her work with the NEA, Kim served as deputy legislative director and counsel to Senator Charles Robb of Virginia, overseeing the legislative program and staff, as well as serving as Sen. Robbs counsel during the impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton. Prior to her work in the Senate, Kim was an associate at the law firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, DC. She received her undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and received her law degree from George Washington University where she was a member of the George Washington University Law Review, the Moot Court Board, and president of the Student Bar Association.
Denise Cardinal
Denise Cardinal is the executive director of Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM) part of the ProgressNow family of organizations.
Before moving back to her home state of Minnesota in 2006 to be communications director for America Votes Minnesota and then start ABM, Denise served for five years as senior press officer for the National Education Association in Washington, D.C.
She also spent time in our nations capitol as the press secretary for U.S. Senator Kent Conrad (DND). Shes worked at newspapers in Nevada, Idaho, and Iowa and earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in 1995. Shes the first in her family to attend and graduate from college.
Ryan Friedrichs
Ryan Friedrichs has worked to build diverse coalitions and to empower historically underrepresented communities for the past 13 years. Ryan currently serves as the executive director of State Voices (http://www.statevoices.org), a national organization founded in 2004 by the current secretary of state of Minnesota that recent moved its headquarters to Detroit. State Voices supports 16 state affiliate networks or tables that coordinated the mobilization of over 15 million voters in 2008. Ryan is a Michigan native and graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Universitys JFK School of Government. While at UofM he worked with the United Farm Workers and co-founded Voice Your Vote, an organization that helped lead him to work with MTVs Choose or Lose campaign after graduation, to serve as executive director of the Youth Vote Coalition, as campaign director of the Young Voter Alliance, and conduct one of the first published studies of cost effective partisan young voter mobilization. He has worked as a consultant with Skyline Public Works, HillPac, Atlas Project, with Professors Marshall Ganz, David King, and Senator Al Franken. Ryan lives and works in Detroit with his wife Jocelyn Benson, a 2010 candidate for secretary of state in Michigan.
Rob McKay
Rob McKay is the president of the McKay Family Foundation (MFF), which supports community-based organizations working for long-term social, political, and economic progress. Rob, along with his brother and parents, established the MFF in January 1992. In recent years, MFF has supported efforts to bring health care coverage and a living wage to low-income workers, and it has given grants to groups in California working on issues such as affordable housing, economic development, and voter engagement.
MFF originated from the hard work and success of McKays father. Robert Sr. had his own business, a small architects firm and construction company. In the early 1960s he was hired to design a building for a new fast-food company named Taco Bell. After completing the job, he joined the young company as president. Over the next 15 years, he expanded Taco Bell from one restaurant to a successful national chain, eventually engineering its sale to Pepsico.
Susan McCue
Susan McCue is a political strategist and president of Message Global LLC, a strategic public affairs firm she founded in January 2008 to advance progressive campaigns, global non-profit advocacy, grassroots activism and corporate social responsibility.
McCue served as the chief of staff for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) from 1999 2006 where she managed his leadership, policy and political operations. She also oversaw Reids leadership and Nevada races. When he was elected Democratic Leader in 2004, she created a cutting-edge communications operation for congressional Democrats and was a key strategist in the 2006 mid-term elections.
Following the historic 2006 congressional victories, McCue become the founding president & CEO of The ONE Campaign, a high-energy grassroots and grasstops advocacy campaign backed by U2s Bono to make global extreme poverty history.
In January 2008, McCue opened Message Global LLC with ONE as a main client and she rejoined Majority Leader Reid as a media and political strategist. In August 2007, GQ magazine named McCue one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington and in 2006 Washingtonian magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful women in Washington.
A New Jersey native, McCue is a graduate of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, with degrees in economics and journalism.
Doug Phelps
Doug Phelps is a member of the board of trustees of Green Century Funds and the board of directors of Green Century Capital Management. Mr. Phelps also is chairman of the board of U.S. PIRG, the national association of state PIRGs. Mr. Phelps is also chairman of the advisory board of the Fund for Public Interest Research, which raises money for and provides technical assistance to nonprofits such as the Sierra Club, Human Rights Campaign, and Environmental Action. Mr. Phelps chairs the board of Green Corps, the environmental leadership training school, and serves on the board of the National Environmental Law Center. He lives in Colorado and is a graduate of Colorado State University and Harvard Law School. He previously directed Harvard Law Schools public interest and public service careers program.
Jeff Rusnak
Jeff Rusnak, senior vice president and director of M+Rs Ohio Office, is an experienced campaign strategist who has guided nonprofits, corporations, foundations, ballot initiatives, and candidates (such as Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland) on media, communications, organizational development, public affairs, and marketing. In addition, he has planned and managed small and large events, from intimate gatherings and town hall meetings for thousands of people to celebrity bus tours and roundtables. Recognized early on by Campaigns & Elections magazine as a rising star in American politics, he helped launch and direct independent expenditure organizations that have played a critical role in advancing Ohio; served as the lead consultant in the successful effort to secure a stable source of public funding for Cuyahoga Countys world-class arts and cultural organizations; and is a donor advisor to several prominent individual donors. Jeff is a board member of the Lotus Foundation and Greater Cleveland Film Commission.
Greg Speed
Greg Speed has a broad range of experience advancing progressive causes by leading grassroots advocacy programs, strategic communications efforts and political campaigns, and by working as a senior staffer to Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. Greg is currently the executive director of America Votes, the nations largest coalition of progressive organizations committed to effecting change through coordinated voter mobilization efforts. Prior to joining America Votes, Greg helped launch Envision Communications, a new Democratic media and communications firm where he provided consulting services for a variety of progressive organizations, labor unions, political candidates and committees.
Anne Summers
Anne Summers is executive director of The Brico Fund, an LLC based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Brico Fund focuses its philanthropic giving on initiatives that drive systems change. With a strategy around infrastructure, leadership development, and enhancement of civic engagement and advocacy programs of Wisconsin organizations to drive such change, Bricos framework for giving focuses on the environment, women and girls, and organizations promoting a just and equitable society.
With 15 years of nonprofit management experience in development and communications, Anne served as the vice president of development at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and the vice president of development at the YWCA. Prior to her nonprofit experiences, Anne worked as a legislative aide in the Wisconsin State Assembly (Peter Barca, D-Kenosha). Anne is an Illinois native and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.A. in political science. She also holds a master’s of business administration degree from Cardinal Stritch University.
Currently, she is the board chair of State Voices, a board member of ProgressNow and America Votes Education and Action, chair of the State Funders Caucus of the Funders Committee for Civic Participation, a board member of the Donors Forum of Wisconsin, an officer of the Wisconsin Donor Collaborative and a member of the Planning Commission for the Village of Whitefish
Ted Trimpa
Ted Trimpa is an attorney at the law firm of Hogan and Hartson. He practices in all areas of federal, state, and local legislative law, with a special concentration on public policy, political strategy, and political participation. He is a sought-after advocate resulting from his deep understanding of the national and multistate political and nonprofit landscape. He has been recognized in national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, National Review, The Advocate, and The Weekly Standard for his central role in designing cutting-edge public policy strategies.
Mr. Trimpa is a graduate of the University of Denver College of Law where he received an American Jurisprudence award in appellate advocacy. He also received his B.A. from the University of Denver where he graduated magna cum laude.
Joe Zimlich
Joseph Zimlich is the chief executive officer of Bohemian Companies, a group of family-owned real estate and private equity holdings. Bohemian Companies also manages a family office and the Bohemian Foundation, a family foundation.
Mr. Zimlich served previously as a manager in mergers and acquisitions and as a specialist in the not-forprofit and banking industries for an international accounting firm. Mr. Zimlich has served at the director level for Fortune 500 companies in both the technology and food products industries. He has also served at the executive level for privately held companies in the technology industry as well as for a number of start-up businesses.
Mr. Zimlich has significant experience at the board of director level in a variety of industries, including: technology, semi-conductors, water filtration, banking, restaurant and venture-capital funds. He is also currently an active board member for EnviroFit, a corporation created to develop and disseminate technologies that reduce pollution and promote energy efficiency.