A new Colorado-based firm is aiming to be the one-stop shop for campaigns and progressive groups by offering communications, fundraising and issue advocacy together under one shingle.
“I think that’s one of the most unique things about our firm is that we do have all these three specialties coming together, and we have been on the other end of working with different firms, or usually multiple different firms, one for fundraising, one for communications, and they’re not all talking to each other,” said Annie Orloff, MAC Group Consulting’s managing partner, who previously held senior roles in the Colorado Secretary of State’s office including serving as communications director.
“So you end up with these kind of siloed strategies that aren’t working together, which might be okay, but we feel there are much better outcomes when you are thinking about all three of those pillars together.”
Orloff added: “We’re lucky that all three of us come from these different backgrounds, and can work together to really help our clients.”
Her two partners include Michael Whitehorn, a former manager who also served in the Colorado SOS office, and fundraiser Claire Simonson.
Whitehorn said positioning the firm as one that has a “commitment to progressive values” is consistent with Colorado’s current politics.
“I think the ideological bent of our firm fits with where the state has been going,” he said. “And I think that we’re really well positioned, especially given that we’ve got a breadth of experience that most firms don’t have — including the fundraising piece.”
Simonson noted that the biggest fundraising challenge for clients right now is donor fatigue.
“It’s been a [challenge] for the last eight years,” she said. “It’s just really keeping donors motivated and dealing with the fatigue.”
She added that text remains a good fundraising channel for clients.
“I have seen doing just really short-and-sweet, to-the-point texting programs [be effective], but also our bread and butter: we like to have meetings, get coffees, do events,” said Simonson.
