It Starts Today is committed to respecting your privacy and protecting your personal information. We’ve tried to keep this Privacy Policy as simple as possible. Please note, when we refer to our Site, we mean the website http://itstarts.today (and any subdomain thereof), which is operated by It Starts Today, a nonprofit federally registered political committee.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Personal Information means information you provide to us that specifically identifies you (such as your name, address, email address, or billing information). Personal Information does not include aggregate information, which is data we collect about the use of our Site or about a group or category of services or users, from which individual identities or other personal information has been removed.

WHAT DO WE COLLECT?

Personal Information may be collected in a number of ways when you visit It Starts Today. We collect information you voluntarily provide to us, such as when you make a donation, send us an email, sign-up to receive email or updates, connect through a social feed, fill out a form, or request information. Such information may include Personal Information.

Campaign finance law and regulations also require us to collect certain Personal Information from those who donate.

When you use It Starts Today, some information is may be automatically collected, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your operating system, the browser type, the address of a referring website, and your activity on our Site. We treat this information as Personal Information if we combine it with or link it to any of the identifying information mentioned above. Otherwise, it is used in the aggregate only, without personal identifiers.

We may also automatically collect certain information through the use of cookies or web beacons. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive at the request of a website. Among other things, cookies help us improve our Site and your experience. For example, we use cookies to identify you so that, for example, when you return to our site, if you've already made a donation, you don't have to re-enter certain information. If we link cookies to any personally identifying information, we will treat this information as Personal Information. If you wish to block, erase, or be warned of cookies, please refer to your browser manufacturer to learn how to do so. However, if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect certain features on our Site. Web beacons are small, invisible graphic images that may be used on It Starts Today or in emails relating to It Starts Today to monitor traffic on our Site and to understand how people are using our Site and our various products and services when they are offered on third party sites.

The Site may contain links to other web sites. It Starts Today is not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our Site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This Policy applies solely to information collected by our Site.

WHAT WE DO WITH YOUR INFORMATION

We use your Personal Information to facilitate your use of the Site. We may over time use your email address to let you know about new services on our Site, or information about political issues, candidates and elections that may be of interest to you.

We do not sell, rent or otherwise share your Personal Information with any third parties except in the following specific circumstances:

• Compliance with Law. We may preserve or disclose your Personal Information if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation, or legal request; to protect the safety of any person; to address fraud, security, or technical issues; or to protect It Starts Today’s rights or property. You should also be aware that we, and the eventual recipients of your donations to Democratic nominees, are required to file public reports that contain some Personal Information with the Federal Election Commission or state campaign finance regulators.
• Functionality. Some of the tools and capabilities you will want to use on It Starts Today are provided by third parties. In those circumstances, we may share your information with our affiliates or sub-contractors to facilitate providing you the service you have requested. In all cases, your information will be protected by this Privacy Policy or, should their policy apply to your information, we will provide you an explicit opportunity to agree to their Privacy Policy prior to using the service you have requested. Specifically, in making a donation, you are agreeing to the Privacy Policy of Democracy Engine, LLC, which can be found here.
• Business Transfers. This Policy will apply to your Personal Information in the event that It Starts Today is involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or a sale of assets. However, your information may be transferred to another entity as part of that transaction.

MINORS

It Starts Today does not knowingly ask for or collect personally identifying information from children under the age of 13. If you become aware that your child has provided It Starts Today with Personal Information without your consent, please contact us at info@itstarts.today. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to remove such information and terminate the child’s use of the Site.

FEEDBACK

We value your opinions to make our site more useful and relevant. You may email us at any time with feedback, testimonials, suggestions and ideas about our products and services—or you may also provide such content through other means which we’ll call “Responses.” We may use any of your Responses in any way, without obligation to you.

ENFORCEMENT

It Starts Today is limited to users in the United States, so the privacy laws of the United States govern the use of our Site.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We reserve the right to change the provisions of this Policy at any time and will alert you to changes in this policy with an effective date at the bottom. Questions or comments regarding this Policy should be sent to info@itstarts.today.

Effective date of this version: January 27, 2017

WHAT IS BLUE MISSOURI?

Blue Missouri, formerly known as It Starts Today Missouri, crowdsources support for Democratic statehouse nominees. Community members contribute monthly (our average is $14/mo); those funds are distributed to Missouri’s Democratic nominees for state legislature after the Democratic primary. Since 2017 our community has raised and distributed over $350,000 for Democratic nominees for Missouri state legislature. We are proud that our grassroots community is one of the largest donors to Democratic statehouse nominees.

If you want to read more about our story and how we came up with the idea, check out our article in Daily Kos!

On the legal side, It Starts Today Missouri is a nonprofit registered as a PAC with the Missouri Ethics Commission. All contributions to It Starts Today Missouri are reported to the MEC quarterly and publicly disclosed on their website.

HOW DOES BLUE MISSOURI WORK?

In a nutshell: your donation is split amongst a family of Blue Missouri NOMINEE PACs. Those ; NOMINEE PACs exist to evenly fund every Democratic nominee for state legislature each election cycle. Blue Missouri’s NOMINEE PACs donate directly to candidates and do not engage in "independent expenditures." Compliance for Blue Missouri’s NOMINEE PACs is provided as an in-kind contribution by It Starts Today Missouri, which is funded by your "tips." This allows IST-MO NOMINEE PACs to divvy up all available funds among Democratic nominees for state legislature.

Blue Missouri uses a “bathtub method” of funding, where the community funds are used to lift the nominees from the bottom up. After the primary, Blue Missouri will look at each Democratic primary winners' most recent campaign finance filings, and distribute community funds until the nominees all have at least $1,000. Then we'll continue raising the “water level” until the Blue Missouri community funds are exhausted.

And you will always be able to look up our filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission to make sure we're fulfilling our promises.

We can hear you do-it-yourselfers asking: Hey, if this is really just a way for me to save and organize funds now to donate after the primary, can’t I just do it myself? And the answer is - of course you can! But cutting individual checks and sending them to as many as 180 campaigns - all in enough time for the candidates to be able to actually use the funds… Well, it’s a project. But this is what we do, and we’re happy to do it.

Donations to support and market this project are contributions to It Starts Today Missouri, a nonprofit Missouri PAC.

WHEN WILL THE NOMINEES GET MY MONEY?

In general, each nominee will start to receive the money just after the primary election. After that first big lump sum, there are weekly distributions until the election.

WHAT ABOUT CONTRIBUTION LIMITS?

Good question. We spent a lot of time figuring this all out and arrived at a very simple solution: we'll need to do a lot of compliance filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission. Each PAC in Missouri is limited to donating $2,000 to a candidate for the House and $2,400 to a candidate for the Senate per election. The more of you who donate, the more PAC's we'll create (future donors to this project might not be funding the same PAC as you, but the PAC will have the same stated goals). And that's what we are going to do.

It's a lot of paperwork, but our co-Founder, Jonathan Zucker, is a campaign finance attorney and was the driving force behind getting ActBlue into all 50 states about a decade ago; he lives to solve these sorts of complex problems as efficiently as possible.

To answer a more personal question for each of you, because these are PAC donations, your personal donation limit to each nominee will not be impacted.

WHAT ABOUT FEES?

Credit cards are not free and just like everyone else (including ActBlue and Kickstarter), we have to account for processing fees. Blue Missouri’s payment processor is Democracy Engine, LLC. Jonathan Zucker (our founder) also founded Democracy Engine, which charges you a lower rate than other sites you might know of, like ActBlue.

While ActBlue collects 3.95% and Kickstarter keeps 5% on top of processing fees, Democracy Engine collects a 3.75% + $0.30 processing fee on top of your contribution to the Democratic nominees. This sum covers both the processing fees—credit card, debit card, ACH, etc.—and costs of distribution to candidates.

We believe in transparency, which is why we show you those processing charges right up front. That means 100% of the funds you donate to nominees go to nominees, credit card processing fees are broken out separately for you to easily see, and Blue Missouri does not take a percentage of the funds you donate.

Instead, we rely upon your generous “tips” to Blue Missouri to grow and sustain this project and others.

ARE YOU PART OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY?

No, Blue Missouri is independent. Our funds go directly to the nominees, not the party or the coordinated campaign. We have only one goal: break radical Republican control over the Statehouse.

CAN I HELP YOUR EFFORTS BEYOND MY SUBSCRIPTION?

Absolutely.

First and foremost, you can share what we are doing with your friends, family and fellow progressives (a post on Facebook or a tweet is great, but even better is sending personal e-mails to people you know care about Missouri).

Second, if you have the means, you can help our outreach efforts by funding them directly. Just click here to make a donation.

WHEN WILL MY SUBSCRIPTION END?

You can end your subscription at any time by contacting us at info@bluemissouri.org.

WHO IS BEHIND IT STARTS TODAY?

Glad you asked. The prime mover is Jonathan Zucker: a progressive campaign finance attorney and political technology entrepreneur who has been at the heart of some of the most innovative campaign finance initiatives of the last fifteen years.

Jonathan was the first employee of ActBlue, where he served as the first COO and second Executive Director (CEO) between 2005 and 2008. During his tenure, ActBlue grew from $870k in total donations to over $85 million. Before joining ActBlue, Jonathan was the national director of operations for finance at the Democratic National Committee, overseeing the infrastructure of the DNC’s (then) record-breaking $100-million major donor program during the 2004 election.

After leaving ActBlue, Jonathan founded Democracy Engine, LLC: a software platform that's all about executing complex political contributions (in compliance, of course, with applicable laws and regulations). In 2011, he joined Ruck.us as co-founder and COO, since 2013 he’s been serving as senior strategist and counsel to Crowdpac, and in 2014, he co-founded if.then.fund and progressive.fund.

Before getting into political technology, Jonathan took on the roles of field organizer, fundraiser, administrator, and attorney for a variety of progressive organizations, including the Interfaith Alliance, Human Rights Campaign, Color of Change, Genderpac, Democratic Leadership Council, and the Gill Foundation.

Jonathan has authored, commissioned, and/or consulted on several groundbreaking Advisory Opinions from the Federal Election Commission. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University and a B.A. from Yale University.

Jonathan is joined by Jerald Lentini, a campaign veteran who has worked with dozens of Democratic campaigns and organizations such as the AFL-CIO, Ready for Warren, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee; Caitlin Howarth, an experienced organizer and strategist who has worked with the Truman National Security Project, the New Leaders Council, and the Roosevelt Institute, among other groups; Laura Duncombe, a writer, organizer, and mother whose work can be found on Jezebel and who has been knocking doors for Democrats since 2008; and Ben Resnik, a Democratic operative with experience in startups at the intersection of politics and tech, including Ruck.us, if.then.fund, and DSPolitical.

The one thing on which everyone opposed to Trump and this radical GOP Congress can agree is that we need a Congress that's going to work for the people, and not just rubber stamp the Trump agenda. To do that, Democrats need to take back Congress. There is strength in numbers and we need to replace as many Republicans with Democrats as possible in the 2018 midterm elections.

We know that to win those races, Democrats are going to need money.

And we believe in the profound power of large numbers of people making small, monthly, contributions.

Directly funding every Democratic nominee for Congress in 2018 is not the only thing people should be doing to resist Trump and the radical GOP Congress, but it is a simple, easy thing that all of us who can afford to do should be doing along with everything else. It Starts Today makes that possible.

We hope you will join us in this effort.

PRESS

You can read about It Starts Today in the following articles (we’re just getting started, so expect this list to grow):

• WIRED.com: Now You Can Save the Democratic Party for the Low Low Price of $4.68 a month
• NBC News: Want to Resist Trump’s Agenda? There’s an App for That
• Business Insider: A grassroots movement to help Democrats win back seats in Congress has already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars
• Salon: Is $4.68 the key to saving the Democratic Party?

Press inquires should be sent to press@itstarts.today.

You can reach us at info@itstarts.today. Press inquires should be sent to press@itstarts.today.