About Us | New. Digital. Now.

Our mission is to build a cutting-edge digital media ecosystem for Democrats. Both our strategy and our funding are 100% powered by grassroots supporters like you. Click below to learn more about who we are and what we do:

Our Story:

New. Digital. Now. is building the foundation for unprecedented grassroots innovation in the progressive media ecosystem. It all started in early 2024, when two young Democratic operatives came together in frustration with the party’s refusal to move past dated tactics.

As a veteran field organizer specializing in youth turnout at the state and local level, Shayna always felt her reach has been limited by a lack of resources from party leadership. Meanwhile, through his work building donor lists for Super PACs like End Citizens United then for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), Geordan saw how little of the hundreds of millions of dollars our donors give actually make it to down-ballot races.

That’s because every year, Democratic supporters donate millions to so-called “Scam PACs.” These entities bombard donors with URGENT texts and emails promising to 5X-MATCH their donation, which they say will go directly to help elect Democrats. And if they don’t donate to help reach some arbitrary goal, it will be the end of Democracy as we know it!

At the same time, Democrats are significantly underinvesting in new media spaces where Republicans have excelled, and our state-level candidates don’t have the resources to grow their audiences. New. Digital. Now.’s mission is to redirect the donor energy that is currently bankrolling Scam PACs into a self-sustaining new media operation for Democrats.

We developed the technology to collect actual feedback from small-dollar donors and efficiently redirect them to ActBlue. Even in early beta, we’ve well eclipsed the capabilities of the currently available landing page technology that allows Scam PACs to thrive. Our pages can be customized to gather bona-fide survey data, share YouTube videos or social posts to boost organic reach, and amplify the state-level candidates who need it most.

We first tested our technology leading up to the 2024 Election, working behind the scenes to convene perhaps the nation’s largest focus group of Democratic donors. Then, when Trump’s victory demonstrated just how far behind our party is in new media, we launched Concepts of a Pod to give our grassroots donors a voice in the Democratic conversation.

We may not have all the answers, but it’s clear that the supporters who power our movement, $5, $10, $15, or $20 at a time, feel left out of the process. After the Democrats’ $1.5+ billion presidential campaign lost the race to “concepts of a plan,” we can’t say we blame them.

Now, we’re working to grow our organic media presence, so we can hit a critical mass and establish ourselves as the most effective channel to inform and inspire Democratic donors.

Our Team:

Shayna Jaskolka

Executive Director

Shayna is a seasoned political field operative with over 15 campaigns under her belt. Through her field management, she has she has had over 200,000 doors knocked and increased the number of youth voters by 8%-10% across 5 different states.

Geordan Neinstein

Digital & Fundraising Director

After working in digital fundraising for over 5 years, I know that Democrats can do better at texts and emails. So Shayna and I started New. Digital. Now. to replace all that spam with a new user experience based on direct feedback from supporters like you!

Simone Rossi

Deputy Digital Director

From leading subscription growth and engagement at Crooked Media, to helping 5,800 volunteers send over 24 million texts at NextGen America, to driving turnout in battleground states at Movement Labs, Simone knows what it takes to meet the moment and move people to action.

Our Impact:

Supporters like you have asked where your money goes, so here's a full report on the impact of our work:

What We've Done:

The Focus Group:

We’ve convened a focus group of over 30,000 active grassroots Democratic donors, and we’re just getting started! Using our cutting-edge technology, we’re able to collect feedback on Democratic strategy and opinions on current events in real time.

Our mission to understand and educate the party’s donor base is informed by constant critical analysis of 50,000+ focus group responses and counting. Furthermore, our operations are 100% funded by our supporters, and we make it clear that the money will be invested in a new grassroots media project where donations are not required to participate.

Direct Down-Ballot Donations:

We started New. Digital. Now. with down-ballot campaigns in mind, as there are significant legal hurdles to national organizations connecting grassroots donors directly with candidates at the state level. Our mission is to overcome these obstacles with technological solutions.

We built the first iteration of our down-ballot donation dashboard as a “no thanks” option on all of our fundraising pages. With just an initial test of this system, New. Digital. Now. has raised over $25,000 directly for candidates, local organizers, and state Democratic parties.

Concepts of a Pod:

The 2024 election demonstrated that Democrats are severely lacking in new media distribution, and we have Concepts of a Pod to fix it! In this first-of-its-kind podcast, we discuss supporters’ comments on the latest news and give an in-depth look behind the scenes of our work in Democratic politics.

Our technology allows us to push YouTube videos to supporters in real time, and we’re using the podcast to experiment with ways to boost Democrats in the algorithm. As the podcast grows, we’ll use the platform to amplify down-ballot candidates who need it most.

On-the-Ground Organizing:

After the 2024 election, one supporter said: “I keep getting asks for No Kings Act and stopping Citizens United, both are needed. But without a majority in either house, we can't get them passed. So what are the funds being used for?”

For context: Sen. Schumer introduced the No Kings Act on 8/1/24 to undo the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. The bill had no chance of passing in the House or Senate, and we’ve received hundreds of comments from donors who felt betrayed by the petitions and fundraisers that kept Scam PACs afloat in the lame duck period.

To put our supporters’ ideas into action, we’re building a growing network of grassroots partner organizations across the country. Along with our friends at The Blue Anchor Project, we joined the national communications team for the No Kings Day organizing coalition. Fueled by a surge in engagement around both the June and October protests, we deployed our technology to share supporter experiences in real time with national (and even international) press.

Meanwhile, Shayna is developing new strategies to infuse digital and field organizing on the ground in Chicago. Most recently, she teamed up with local organizations from across the city to protest the indictment of Kat Abughazaleh and the Broadview 6. We provided printed signs with NDN supporter comments and “know your rights” cards. Our outreach brought hundreds of people out to protest, including some of the indicted candidates’ opponents!

What We've Learned:

Supporters in our focus group were often split on the issues that divide the Democratic Party in the press, such as whether President Biden should drop out or who Kamala Harris’ running mate should be. However, they overwhelmingly continue to agree that the way Democrats raise money online needs to change.

One supporter said before the 2024 election: “I already gave to ActBlue – why do they keep texting asking me for more?”

From this and many similar messages, we learned that many, if not most, Democratic donors currently believe ActBlue operates as the party’s one central fundraising entity. However, emotional drive kept the money flowing through the 2024 election. It wasn’t until Democrats had spent billions of dollars on a losing campaign that donors looked back in the mirror.

On that note, the most alarming comment we saw was: “I have run up a credit card debt over $20k supporting what I thought was right, and now when I see a candidate that I want to support and see ActBlue, I shut it down because I can't be sure about where it's going.”

There is perhaps no better way to describe the damage done to the Democratic base by manipulative, churn-and-burn fundraising than that comment. The Trump era has seen grassroots donation records broken year after year, but a repeat cycle of false promise and disappointment has left our supporters feeling drained and exploited.

Democratic donor burnout is at an all-time high when the stakes could not be higher. However, the organic energy around protests such as No Kings Day or energizing candidates like Mallory McMorrow and Zohran Mamdani demonstrate a sustainable way forward.

One supporter said: "It's about time you really asked for our opinion. Hopefully it will be accepted without giving money." They’re 100% right – grassroots donors are the backbone of our party, and we cannot afford to keep ignoring their voices any longer.

What's Next:

Even after a year of sending out podcast episodes, a recent focus group found that only 38% of our respondents knew that we were an independent organization when asked directly. Clearly, many still think every single message comes directly from the DNC or ActBlue.

Every time FEC filings drop, there’s a flurry of press around Scam PACs. However, the limited reporting barely goes far beyond a rudimentary pivot table of the disclosures, with very little to say on the supporter experience and no comment from the people behind the messages.

Until the media covers the true extent of how political fundraising scams look and work, these entities will continue to get away with misleading donors. That’s why our most pressing goal is to provoke a national conversation on grassroots fundraising.

From there, we’ll continue to grow the media platform and keep grassroots donors connected to the campaigns and local organizers who need them most. Here’s how we’ll do it:

2026 Cycle Roadmap:

Establish New. Digital. Now. as a source of information Democratic donors can trust.
Expand our pilot split fundraising program and deploy our engaged list of donors to support even more state-level campaigns directly.
Develop a v1 beta version of a purpose-built data warehouse to securely store, manage, and meaningfully engage with users across channels.
Offer beta tests of our technology to Democratic campaigns and host supporter Q&As with them on Concepts of a Pod.

2028 Cycle Aspirations:

Host presidential primary candidates for supporter Q&As on the pod.
Feature and amplify state-level campaigns from across the country.
Offer our technology as a full-service platform accessible to Democratic campaigns up and down the ballot.

To learn more, see Concepts of a Pod!

For media inquires, contact Executive Director Shayna Jaskolka (shayna@newdigitalnow.org)

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