NGP VAN Ramps Up Investment in New Data Tech
Democratic voter data giant NGP VAN is making a new seven-figure investment in its data tech.
The company announced on Tuesday that it would ramp up spending on an effort to modernize and expand its application programming interfaces, or APIs, that effectively allow users to access NGP VAN’s data and integrate them into their own organizing tech.
The investment also comes alongside the creation of a new unionized API and data products team that will focus on expanding NGP VAN’s API capabilities and creating new data products, the company said.
“Our customers and partners have been clear: NGP VAN’s APIs are mission critical to modern organizing,” NGP VAN’s General Manager Chelsea Peterson Thompson said in a statement. “This investment reflects our responsibility to the ecosystem: focused teams, faster shipping, and an API engineered to scale with the future of campaigns and advocacy.”
NGP VAN, long the dominant voter data system in Democratic politics, has moved to upgrade and expand its tech footprint over the past year. Last summer, the company named a new vice president of engineering followed by the rollout of several new initiatives and updates.
One initiative, “Organize Everywhere,” was geared toward making Mobilize, the company’s web-based volunteer and event management platform, more accessible to state Democratic parties. NGP VAN also unveiled new integrations between its organizing and fundraising tool ActionKit and NGP VAN Payments, the company’s donation processing service.
NGP VAN’s efforts to beef up its tech and data offerings comes amid a broader conversation in Democratic and progressive circles over the left’s fundraising and data infrastructure. A report from The New York Times last year spotlighted concerns about NGP VAN’s long-term stability after outside groups were forced to intervene in 2024 to keep the voter data system afloat during peak moments of the campaign.
Meanwhile, some groups, including the Democratic National Committee, have begun to look into new organizing tools. ActBlue, the Democratic small-dollar fundraising clearinghouse, dove into the digital organizing game in September when it acquired the organizing tech company Impactive.
