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David Droga was the face of Accenture Song even before it was called Accenture Song. The ad legend sold his agency Droga5 to Accenture’s creative advertising and marketing division then-called Accenture Interactive in 2019. He became CEO of that division in 2021, and rebranded Interactive as Accenture Song in 2022. So when he stepped down in May, the $20 billion company was not only losing its CEO, it was also losing the voice of the agency. Named to lead the new era was Ndidi Oteh, who comes from leading Songs operations in the Americas, and has been at Accenture for about 14 years, where in her previous role she was the global account lead for Nike, and retail industry strategy and consulting lead for the West Coast. Earlier this month, Oteh officially sat down behind the CEO desk. Song is facing a lot of the same challenges as the rest of the advertising and marketing services industry: layoffs, restructuring, and shifting client budgetsall as AI wreaks havoc on the traditional ways of doing business. But its new CEO believes it has the tools and capabilities to thrive. Droga once told AdAge, “You either grow into the future or you’re shrinking into the past.” Oteh says that thanks to Drogas vision of bringing creativity together with Accentures technology and business services, Song has had a head start in preparing for the future of marketing and advertising. Despite its size, Song is still just about 30% of Accenture’s overall business. The larger parent is a broad, global consultancy that specializes in digital transformation and operations efficiency. Not only does this give Song the opportunity to pair its capabilities with Accenture’s, it also shields it from some of the ebb and flow of the ad industry as those industries figure out how to navigate a world where success means more than producing great creative. This isnt a conversation about having a great Super Bowl ad, one could argue it never was, she says. The reality is now, we aren’t only talking about marketing. We’re talking about marketing, customer service, social commerce, sales, creating digital products, and how that should all be powered by AI. We have always had the right pieces, but we are now connecting all of it in a way that’s very different. Industry of one In Accentures most recent earnings report, released last week, Songs revenue was up by 8% to $20 billion. Despite the positive results, Song is not immune to the shifts in its business. As of September 1, Accenture bundled services including strategy, consulting, Song, technology, and operations into a single integrated business unit called Reinvention Services. Song’s parent company, which has a workforce of about 800,000, also laid off more than 11,000 employees over the last three months as part of a $865 million restructuring program. The holding company model is in a state of flux, with significant consolidation reflecting the need for greater efficiency. Omnicom and Interpublic are merging to create the worlds largest advertising and marketing services holding company. Publicis recently combined Publicis Worldwide and Leo Burnett into a single entity called Leo. The promise of the holding company model has always been to deliver world-class creative and strategy at scale, with technology, media, and everything else all under one roof. Traditionally, a major hurdle has been overcoming the fact that most of these capabilities are from separate companies, gradually acquired by the holding company, and silod from each other in a way that is both confusing and inefficient for the clients. Companies under the same parent have often been competing against each other more than collaborating, with clients complaining about workflow bottlenecks and a lack of consistency. All the recent consolidation is an effort to strip away these barriers. In 2022, Song itself consolidated a number of the creative agencies under its roof, moving all but Droga5 under one P&L. Song has made more acquisitions in the last few years. In August, it acquired social and influencer agency Superdigital. And in 2024, it bought consumer engagement firm Unlimited, digital design and tech agency Work & Co., and Brazilian creative shop Soko. Oteh says that Song approaches acquisitions through the lens of capability, building, and expansion. In most cases, we either already have the capability, and we’re saying we want to do more, or we’re saying we see this is where the future is heading, and we want to make sure that we have it, she says. The key is how its integrated into the company as a whole. How do we embed it so all of us lift, not that there’s just this siloed organization? she says. If we cant, that doesn’t help you drive reinvention. Our clients are asking for a company that understands how everything’s connected, how to bring people together, and how to bring different functions and capabilities to be able to drive those harmonized customer experiences. Oteh says Song sits apart from the ad holding companies by virtue of its own parent company. I don’t really think about where Accenture fits in comparison to holding companies, says Oteh. Song is powered by Accenture, and that means the foundation of technology. Actually understanding your datawhat it takes to build an AI infrastructureis what Accenture does every day. In many cases, Accenture is already helping them with the infrastructure, so that allows us to have different types of insights into what they need to do to really make sure they’re driving growth with their customers. I think that puts us in what feels a little bit like an industry of one. Growth engine CMO A decade ago, Oteh says that many CMOs had given away a lot of the core components of their brands connections to the customer. The technology teams owned the consumer data, as well as the strategy around digital tools like e-commerce. In too many C-suites, the CMO was brand-only. Oteh says this has shifted dramatically. They were spending a lot of time talking about what to build from a messaging and marketing perspective, but the other core components of what it takes to truly understand your customer had been given out, she says. Now, there’s not a CMO today who is not talking about two things: First, I have to do more with less. And second, getting better insight ot of my customer data to drive forward. For Oteh, CMOs should be the growth engine again for their company, instead of marketing being the first stop when cuts need to be made. The CMO wants to be at the center again, and in order to do that, they have to really make sure that they’re modernizing the way in which they work, she says. Maybe gone are the days where you have 100 different agencies that you’re working with. Maybe gone are the days that you’re spending most of your time doing your operational tasks that truly can be done through AI. There has to be a transition, and every single CMO that we talk to today is saying, ‘How do you help us get there?'” Back in 2022, Droga told me the key to Songs success was about making sure that it can effectively combine its strengths with those of the rest of Accenture’s capabilities. Now, Oteh says the real challenge is to do everything theyve been doing, but faster. So many of the opportunities that we’ve had over the past year are not just about marketing, but about sales, customer service, design, building a product, and connectivity to finance, she says. And that did not used to happen at the rate that is happening now.
Category:
E-Commerce
Whatever happens next at Starbucks will be studied for decades to come. The worlds largest coffee chain has faced six quarters of declining same-store sales. But for the last year, its new chairman and CEO, Brian Niccolthe surest bet in the restaurant industryhas been architecting a turnaround. Hot off turnarounds at Yum Brands with Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, which he followed up by modernizing burrito building at Chipotle, Niccol has proven himself to be both a master marketer and operations expert. Which is why, when he announced that his strategy for Starbucks was to revive the third place, even some of Niccols fans were skeptical he could pull it off. Earlier this month, we published our Fall cover story in which I profiled the plan through an unprecedented amount of access with Niccol. And the same morning that story went live, I sat down with him at our Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York. [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company] In front of a standing-room-only audience, Niccol gave his first public interview since taking the job. And what the audience experienced was remarkably like what I did over hours of previous conversations with Niccol: He is disarmingly practical, charmingly matter-of-fact, and flatly uncompromising. Unlike many CEOs who will say just enough to escape off the stage, he proved open to take on any question about his business with gusto. You can hear the full interview on this months episode of our podcast By Design, watch it on our site, and also read the full transcript below. From his plans to design a new Starbucks chair to his comments on his biggest competitor, you dont want to miss this onebest enjoyed alongside a hot cup of joe. Fast Company: No matter what your feelings are about Starbucks, in your heart of hearts, there was a time that Starbucks was the best. And I don’t know that we’re going to agree on what that year was, but whatever it was, Brian wants to bring you back to it. Since taking over as CEO last year, hes kicked off a design-led turnaround for Starbucks, re-skinning stores, bringing back seats, rethinking sort of back-of-house service. But I do have one little confession. When Brian and I first met for this story, I said that at the announcement of his hiring, I wasnt sure he was the guy for the job. Sure his bonafides were really as the top guy in the restaurant industry. He came from Taco Bell, where he launched an app and turned that company around. He went to Chipotlea very different, very analog companywhere he installed screens and a second line for making burritos that brought new efficiency. He upgraded their app significantly, and turned Chipotle around. But Starbucks has the best app already! So what could he do there? And I think what we really got into quickly was that for Starbucks to have a design turnaround, it actually needed to rethink its entire infrastructure. Brian Niccol: Look, the Starbucks strategy of Back to Starbucks is all about ultimately getting to the place of being the best of Starbucks again. And if you think about what makes Starbucks special, it’s how you feel when you’re in a Starbucks, when it’s truly a community coffee house. It truly is the third place. I think it is our point of difference and it’s why people fell in love with Starbucks. It’s why I fell in love with Starbucks 20 years ago when we had the first Starbucks come to the little town I was in just outside of Cincinnati. And I think there’s no reason why we can’t have that today. And I actually think people want it more than ever. I know digital and AI and the ability to connect and get bits of information in all forms or fashion are faster and easier than ever before. But I think nothing beats the good old-fashioned sit-down with a friend, sit-down with a family member, sit-down for a job interview face-to-face over a cup of coffee. It never can be replaced. And so I think when we do it right, there’s nobody better. And I firmly believe the best days of Starbucks are still in front of us. I’ve had the opportunity to travel around the world and experience our coffee and the community coffee house around the world, and it transcends cultures; it transcends borders. It really is, I think, the best of humanity when you get people together around a table, in a safe place, over a cup of coffee. I really do believe it’s important to get these ceramic mugs back too because there is something to this like mug hug when you get your warm cup of coffee. And we want all those little moments to be back again. We’re designing a new mug, we’re designing a new seat, we’re doing these coffee house uplifts. I do believe the customer experiencethe aesthetic of that community coffee houseis really important. It seems like at an age when everything is basically digital and convenience dominates, it’s no longer a distinguishing feature for your brand. Look, we’ve got to have access through the app, we’ve got to be quick, we’ve got to be convenient, we need to have drive-throughs. I think the thing that separates us is that coffee house moment. Whether you’re walking into a coffee house to just grab your cup and go, I think it’s important that you walk into a coffee house. We’ve all been in those places where we’ve gotten to-go food. And if you walk into a place and it’s empty and soulless, you don’t feel great about that to-go order. If the place has a soul, a connection, even if it’s a to-go order, you feel much better about that to-go order. And I think the same is true for Starbucks. That’s part of the business argument, right? That basically upgrading the physical space will actually increase digital orders and other things along those lines. Absolutely. And look, the other thing too is there was a lot of feedback from our partners on what it took to run the Starbucks. Now you have three key access points: You’ve got the drive-throug, mobile-order pickup, and now you have the café or the counter experience for the café. And we’ve worked on technology and process and flow and staffing to ensure that our teams are set up where they can do all three of those access points successfully. Some of the feedback I was getting initially is they’re not set up for success. And so you might’ve heard us talk about this Green Apron service model that we just started to roll out, and we’re investing $500 million to $600 million into additional labor in the stores. But it’s purposeful. It’s purposeful to make sure that every transaction is more than a transactionit’s actually a moment of connection both at the time you order and at the time you hand it off. So I want to rewind a bit: You start last year, you come into the role. Tell me what drove you crazy. Well, there were a few things that drove me crazy. I had left Chipotle and I had about a month, month and a half before I was starting at Starbucks. And the thing I did was I started going to Starbucks with a lot more frequency. I was kind of between jobs and I heard that’s kind of one of the things you do is you go hang out at Starbucks. But when I went, what I quickly realized is we had done some things that basically did not deliver on having a great in-café experience. I walked into a store, and outlets were covered or outlets weren’t working. There weren’t enough seats. It was clear that we had prioritized a waiting area for mobile orders over solving, How do we better sync up the timing of when you order your drink and when you show up for your drink so that you don’t need as big of a waiting area and we can put those seats back in? I also saw it was very transactional, as opposed to giving our baristas, or our partners, the time to create connection and also do their craft correctly, consistently. When I started to see these things . . . it was really interesting. There was one customer, he happened to be in front of me and he didn’t realize I was the CEO. And he ordered a brewed cup of coffee from our Clover Vertica machine, and our barista turns around, makes the brewed cup of coffee and then sends it down the line behind lattes and everything else. The gentleman’s literally getting anxious. You can tell he just wants his cup of coffee right now, and instead we were sending it down the line. And so I just asked him: I was like, Hey, does this happen to you all the time? He’s like, All the time. . . . I can put my own milk in my coffee. And what I found out was we had removed the condiment bar during COVID and we never put it back. And we had also changed the process of brewed coffee to go down the line as opposed to just handing it back to you at POS. It went down the line because the barista was the one to pour in the oat milk or whatever. That’s right. And inevitably, your coffee’s very personal. So to tell somebody how much milk to put in or how much sugar to put in, it’s very hard to get it correct when the person doesn’t see what’s going on. So we also had a scenario where we’re redoing these coffees a lot, or worse yet, I saw somebody hand somebody their cup of coffee, a cup with some milk, and then a cup full of sugars. And then this person’s gotten now three cups and is looking like, Well, where am I supposed to go with this? We don’t have the seat for him to sit down to go put the cream and sugar into his coffee. So those were little things where I’m like, Gosh, this is really frustrating and there’s no reason for it to happen. It made it hard on our partner, it made it hard on our customer. And these were simple things to solve. And hopefully you’ve seen that already go into effect where now we have the condiment bars back. When you do order brewed coffee, they should hand it to you right at the order point. Let me pause you there, though. Because on paper it’s simple enough to put the milk back on the condiment bar. But on the back end, you stopped charging more for different or alt dairy milks, right? That’s a relatively big decision, but you made it pretty quickly. Yeah, well that was another thing that I was hearing from customers. And I guess probably the point, to go back to your question, when I first startedI always take the approach of what are customers saying? What are our partners saying? What’s working? What’s getting in the way? And then it’s a really easy list to create to say, Okay, if we just fix these things to eliminate these pain points for both our customers and our partners, I think we’re going to make a lot of progress. One of the pain points was why is regular milk no upcharge, but there’s an upcharge when I want oat milk? I was listening to it, and I’m like, I think they’re right. As a customer, that would not delight me. So we made the decision to stop charging for alt milk. Doing that also freed us up to then have the right milks on the condiment bar. What I found out was one of the weird little barriers was, well, we wanted to charge for the alt milk, so we didn’t want to put it on the condiment bar. I saw the hacks where people get the espresso, pick up the oat milk, and dump half the container. Kind of screws everybody, but also saves a dollar. What’s so interesting is you see these compensating behaviors, and you’re like, this is really silly. We can make it very simple. And the simplicity actually works for everybody. You’re changing store design quite a bit. There will be three core store designsI would say small, medium, and large. And the small in particular is going to be a new format store we haven’t really seen before, modeled after a classic espresso bar. So the idea is in a small format you can still have a great barista connection and still have a couple of seats. You’ve all experienced these places as you’ve traveled around the world. The traditional espresso bar is actually, though, just a walk up to the bar, get a shot of espresso, maybe have a few words, and out you go. I do believe we still need to have some atmosphere where if you want to sit down and have your drink, you can still have a seat. So there’ll be small formats primarily driven toward the idea of like, hey, I want to get my coffee. Maybe just have a minute or two at the barista [counter] and then move on. But [we will] also provide six to eight seats where if you want to sit down, you can sit down. Then obviously when you go to the medium store, you’re going to have probably 30 seats. And then as it gets bigger, you can get to 50, 60 seats. In some cases, even bigger. You might’ve seen we just opened a flagship store in Spain at the Bernabéu [Stadium] in Madrid, and that is the third place on steroids. You have a complete view of the pitch or the Real Madrid soccer team. It’s amazing. It really is amazing. I think actually, I think Fast Company called it the most beautiful Starbucks in the world right now. So my point is they can be beautiful when they’re big and multistoried, or they can be beautiful and intimate when it’s 800 square feet with 10 seats. We do not have to make a trade-off. You’re adding 30,000 seats back? I think it’s going to becloser to hundreds of thousands of seats back. We’ve basically seen every major restaurant chain rip out seats over the last five years. I wrote an essay a few years ago called “Death of a place to sit,” and we’ve seen this trend everywhere. Do you think this is going to lead the industry in a resurgence of seating? Do you think people sort of draft off of Starbucks like they did Starbucks’s rewards app years ago? I think people want a place to be able to spend time with each other over food or over coffee. When I was at Chipotle, there was a moment there where we were like, Oh, you don’t need that front of house anymore. You can just do everything through the digital-make line. At the time I felt like I was a little bit out on the island, but I was like, I disagree. I think people like to come into the store, interact with [other people]in that case going down the line to get your customized experience. And the same thing’s true at Starbucks. I hear over and over and over again, the connection between the barista and our customers is unlike anything I’ve heard. There are these examples where people walk in, and the barista knows them so well that they’ve already made their drink before they’ve gotten to the POS. I wish every single one of our transactions was that intimate, that personal. That’s what we need to get to. [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company] This is taking a lot of investment. You’re going to staff up; these store uplifts cost about $150,000 apiece, and remodels cost a little bit more. All of these improvements I do believe could move the needle significantly for Starbucks. But are you worried with a pinched middle class where we’re seeing credit card debt rising and the economy’s obviously shaky? If you have all of these challenges around a $6 or $7 coffee, does that offset your gains? I don’t think so. When you have a commitment to craft and quality like we do, and then you have a commitment to what I would call a great customer experience. I would love for Starbucks to become the world’s greatest customer service company. Right now, when I ask people Name me a great customer service company, I usually get a blank stare. Which I find fascinating because I’m like, well geez, that tells me right off the bat there is a huge opportunity to be the defining customer service company. I think there is tremendous value in being a world-class customer service company combined with great craft, great quality food and drink. And I think when you look at putting those two things together for the price that we will have to charge for it, I think it’ll turn out to be invaluable. It comes back to experience. I’m still seeing reports that to provide that customer experience baristas are taxed a little extra. And I know you’re staffing up. I know that you are simplifying the menu, and you’re doing all sorts of things to help them out, to buy them time. But they’re writing with Sharpies on cups again, they’re still slammed. When do you feel like you’ll see a broad relief for that group? Our goal is to create a situation where our partners can thrive. I do think we have to accept what the standards need to be, though. And so our standard is going to be great customer service and great craft, and I don’t believe we can lower the standard. I think what we need to do is make sure we create process, programs, investment so that the standard is achievable. And the other thing tooand I’ve said this to our organizationI was like, here’s the fact: The standard’s going to go up every year. If you think the Sharpies are hard today . . . Well no, what happens is over time the Sharpie becomes just, “This is what I do.” That’s the baseline. That’s the baseline. And it is partly a new thing right now. Therefore, as with anything, any little bit of change, sometimes there is a change curve. I think the mistake sometimes is we read into the change curve as like, Ooh, we need to lower the standard. I actually think, no, we need to provide the support to get through the change curve and then give people the ability to hit the standard. What I’ll tell you is when people hit the standard and they get that great customer experience, they are unbelievably proud of what they just provided. We as the corporation need to make sure we’re setting our teams up for success so they have every right to hit the standard. You mentioned a new chair and new cups. These are sort of pet projects that you’ve had. I don’t know if anybody remembers, but Starbucks used to have this purple chair that was very Tim Burton-esque. And when you came on, you were like, We’re bringing back the chair. When you walk into these places that are personal to you, there’s always a seat that you’re like, That’s my seat. And even if somebody’s sitting in it for the moment, you keep an eye on it. And the reality is that purple chair was one of those seats in our stores where it was like, You know what? Once that seat’s available, I’m going to grab it. You would also see young kidsit was amazing to mebut six kids would be using that one chair. And so we’re going to come out with, I think our contemporary version of that signature chair. It probably won’t be in every single Starbucks, but it will be in a lot of them. And then I also think there’s an opportunity to differentiate ourselves with a special mug. So when you choose to stay in our café, you get a ceramic coffee mug that aesthetically says, Hold me, stay with me. And ideally people will be wanting them personally. Maybe they’ll even want to buy em for their own use at home. I was going to ask: Is that something I could buy, or is it something I’d only drink out of at a Starbucks? Can I buy the chair? So there’s a debate. Look, my preference is, why not? Why not let people, if you love the chair and you want to buy it, we should probably do something with Pottery Barn or Williams Sonoma or whoever, Restoration . . . where they can turn around and resell this chair for us. We’re not going to be in the chair-selling business. There’s a debate though. Some folks are like, Oh, we should only have the mugs in the store. And I’m like, Well look, if you enjoy it in the store, why not let people purchase em to enjoy at home? I think the more you’re exposed to our brand, the better. I feel like a lot of your decision-making, at least in our conversations, tends to come through as, not o oversimplify it, but common sense. I think sometimes we overdo it and we walk past common sense. And I say this to our team all the time. I’m like, Why are we doing this? Because common sense. I don’t need a study. I don’t need more analytics. This is obvious. So therefore we’re going to do it, and we’re going to do it with urgency. I think sometimes we like to make simple things sound super complicated, and I’m like, You know what? I don’t have time for the complication. We need to be moving at the speed that our customers are moving. And when you see common-sense solutions, you just got to act on it. We have only a few minutes left and now we are at the point of Mark has questions about Starbucks as a Starbucks customer. So, what’s up with matcha? Matcha is going way up, but my understanding is there’s not a lot of matcha in the world. It’s funny you bring this upwe were just talking about this. We’re going to figure out how not to run out of it, that’s for sure. But yeah, matcha is having a moment. And look, the reason is, it’s really good, right? One of my afternoon drinks is a cold matcha latte. And I think also it tastes really good when you put one of our cold foams on it. The Chinese chain Luckin is really growing quickly. They have a very opposite model, like very Uber-based transactional. Is there anything you admire from what they’re doing? I think there’s always something you can learn, and they’ve done a nice job with I would say, some of their flavor work. I think they’ve done an interesting job on how they’ve turned the app into the only way you can interact with that business. It’s a different approach. I don’t think it’s the right approach for us. It’s definitely having an impact in China. But I will tell you our Starbucks business I think is having a nice recovery in China as well by us getting back to making sure that we’ve got the right product innovation and also the right customer experience. The one thing that they’ve probably done a nice job of is just an unbelievable pace of product innovation. And so I think it kind of sets the tone for like, Hey, we cannot be complacent on flavors and drink combinations. Alright, we’re at time. Do you have a secret to share about any future menu items? Well, I will tell you, and this probably isn’t all that secretive, but we are coming out with protein cold foam. Oh, come on. That’s not a secret. The other thing I’ll tell you is we are going to be reimagining all of our baked items. I think there’s a real opportunity for us to be much more artisanal, and I think it will complement our beverages. I do believe our food needs to match the craft of our coffee, and I think there’s a real opportunity for us to elevate and be much more artisanal in what you experience out of our bake case. Then ultimately, even with our food, the reality is you can’t get past people talking about protein. I keep thinking it’s peaked, and I’ve been proven wrong. So you’re going to see us figure out how we can combine more protein with gluten-free options, and I think you’re going to see a nice improvement on the food side of things. So even more protein. Even more protein.
Category:
E-Commerce
Soon after Zohran Mamdani secured the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor, Amanda Litman posted a video selfie on TikTok. The dinosaurs of the past, the boomers, the hostile managers, the assholesthey are behind us, she preached to the camera. If viewers felt inspired to run to take on the status quo, they should head to her organizations website and register. Though Mamdani is not affiliated with Litmans eight-year-old nonprofit, Run for Something, his generational fight aligns with its purpose: to encourage young and underrepresented people to run for political office, including hyperlocal positions like city council and school boards. Litman says that Mamdanis win sparked the organizations biggest-ever candidate recruitment surge, with 5,000 sign-ups in five days. That follows the previous record: 10,000 sign-ups within two weeks of Trumps (second) election. A total of nearly 250,000 people have reached out to express interest in running for local races. About 10% of them have pursued office in 50 states and D.C. Litman believes that Run for Something has the largest candidate pipeline on either side of the political aisle. If Litmans nonprofit were a business, it would be booming. But when you depend entirely on donations, and you operate in the fickle realm of politics, income is always precarious. There are ebbs and flows. In 2022, Run for Something raised $17 million; in 2023, after successful midterms, the figure dropped to $8 million; in 2024, it reached $12 million. This year, it is tracking slightly downward again. Democratic donors are capricious, Litman says. Year over year youre hoping that they havent changed their minds about everything they believe. As Alexandra Acker-Lyons, a Denver-based Democratic donor adviser and longtime Run for Something funder, puts it, Republicans have a 40-year plan, and if were lucky, we have a four-year plan. And backers often give nonprofits less leeway than they would businesses, even when the backers are wealthy enough to weather economic stressors. If you were investing in a company, you would give them five years of runway, 40% of their budget, and would say, Lets talk in two years, Acker-Lyons says. That is just not how it works in nonprofits. But todaywith DEI in a tailspin, the cost of living causing anxiety, and democracy erodingfunding has felt a bit more stable. Litman says the most active donors right now are those disillusioned with the Democratic party and those more interested in building long-term power than merely scoring a cocktail party invitation and a photo with a future senator to put on your fridge. Litman began her career as an email writer for Obamas 2012 campaign; she then headed up Hillary Clintons email outreach in 2016. She cofounded Run for Something in 2017, on the day of Trumps first inauguration. In each year of that presidential term, 15,000 prospective local candidates signed up, eager for the organizations help with everything that newbies need, from collecting signatures to hiring staff. Run for Something has raised funds from major foundations and entities including George Soross Open Society Foundations, eBay founder Pierre Omidyars Democracy Fund, and crypto investor Mike Novogratz, as well as many individuals giving $500 or less. In 2022, it had about 24 people employed, on its way to a planned total staff of 80. But after Democrats exceeded expectations in the 2022 midterms and attention turned to 2024, donations began to fall. In November 2023, there were more than 60 people on payroll, but in January 2024 Litman and her cofounder, Ross Morales Rocketto, had to begin laying off staffers. Every part of it sucked, Litman says. [But] it was the right thing to do, because if we had not, we would not exist in this moment. Among the 30 employees remaining are a trio of engineers who have built tools that are helping Run for Something handle its current growth. Its a small group, but very few organizations in our space have full-fledged tech teams at all, says chief technology officer Jordan Haines, who joined in 2023 after building an edtech startup. One tech platform they built looks for matches between the roughly 500,000 open elected positions in the country and the 250,000 potential candidates in the pipeline. Run for Something can score viable candidates dynamically based on various factors, including what Haines calls some gnarly pieces of data like age, issue leanings, renter status, and geography, which Litman says can get really messy quickly because elected-office districts dont map easily onto zip codes. Another toola CRM where the C stands for candidate, Haines saysis a custom-built platform to manage the 1,000 or so candidates farther along the pipeline who have applied for Run for Somethings endorsement since 2024. Interested candidates typically sign up online, where they gain access to resources including conference calls, webinars, and an app for connecting with past candidates and mentors. But once candidates file to be on a ballot, they may apply for Run for Somethings nod, and they have about a 50% chance of securing it. Criteria include running as a Democrat or an independent for the first, second, or third time; being born after 1984; and other subjective criteria, such as running a grassroots campaign with heart and hustle and being what it calls a hell yeah! candidate. One reason that Run for Somethings pipeline is growing so fast is a new partnership with Bernie Sanders. As part of his ongoing Fighting Oligarchy tour with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Vermont senator is recruiting progressive candidates, particularly from working-class backgrounds, who are then filtered into one of three candidate-supporting organizations. Hes said the whole time that the goal isnt to just pop into a state and do a rally, says Jeremy Slevin, Sanderss senior adviser. So far, more than 7,000 prospective candidates have signed up with Sanders, with more than 3,000 onboarded with Run for Something. The Sanders allyship may be surprising, given Litmans association with the historically more moderate Clinton; the acrimony between the former rivals, particularly from Clintons side, is hardly a secret. Centrist Democrats argue that deferring to the partys left resulted in Trumps victories and that the Mamdani playbook is not widely translatable. But progressives invert that narrative and are bent on challenging a lackadaisical establishment. What Im not seeing is a willingness to do deep reflection, Acker-Lyons says of current Democratic leadership. We lost to a monster twice, and we need to take a really hard look in the mirror as to why. Nearly half of Sanderss registrants are running as independents. I am very much supportive of [that] in places where the Democratic brand is so dismal that they cant win. Run for Somethings win rate stands somewhere around 54%, though Litman stresses that she doesnt think victory is the best success metric. The organization wants to be competing in contested races in purple and even red districts. If we had a 70% or 80% win rate, those are folk that probably didnt need that much help to begin with, she says. For instance, former pastor Justin Douglas won his race for commissioner of Dauphin County, which includes Hershey, Pennsylvania, by 184 votes in 2023, flipping control of the commission for the first time in more than a century. Many successful Run for Something candidates are now seeking even higher office, such as Anna Eskamani, who flipped a Florida House seat in 2018 and is now running for mayor of Orlando. Frankness from Litman is part of her brand. Shes outspoken on social media, where her praise for Mamdani was accompanied by scorn for Andrew Cuomo. She has proudly expressed support for divisive figures like David Hogg, who departed as DNC co-vice chair after planning to support primary challenges by younger leaders against older Democrats. Shes transparent in her Substack newsletter about being disappointed that her recent book, When Were in Charge, was absent from the major bestsellers lists. (Even though I said I didnt care, obviously I cared. Sigh.) When asked if its smart for the head of an organization that represents a wide range of candidates to be so vocal about her own opinions, she says, Ultimately, I speak for the organization. Also, I dont know any other way to be. She thinks its important for her to inspire others to be their own authentic selves. Litman knows that her work will only get harder as expectations for Run for Something rise, particularly leading up to the midterms and 2028 presidential election. Theres a perpetual tension, she says. Even if nonprofits have substantial money, theres always more they could be doing. But right now, shes optimistic. I know what it feels like when things are going bad, Litman says. I do not feel that way this year.
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