Heidi Drauschak (left) and Samantha Biggio of CrowdLobby (Photo courtesy CrowdLobby)
Effective lobbying is a key to getting legislation passed, whether in Virginia’s General Assembly or in the halls of Congress. But not everyone knows how to go about lobbying or has the means to hire someone to do it for them.
As law students at the University of Richmond, Heidi Drauschak and Samantha Biggio (both 2018 graduates) saw an opening for an online platform that would help people connect around issues and pool their money to hire lobbyists, giving them a stronger voice. This way, the interests of regular folks can compete with those of large corporations and other monied entities for lawmakers’ attention.
That was the inception of CrowdLobby, a startup venture that recently raised $35,000 in seed money on Kickstarter.
“We wanted to get rid of the confusion around lobbying and make it accessible to everyone,” Drauschak says. “After all, everybody has something political that they want to voice.”
The website (wearecrowdlobby.com), which launched on Sept. 18, acts as an interactive portal to join and commit to an issue. Once a lobbying effort is funded, participants get access to an app that, Drauschak explains, “connects members to actual giving and work. Since everything happens after the donation, it becomes the dashboard interface for the campaign to see where we are in the lobbying process.”
CrowdLobby’s initial intent was to be a national player in government, but Drauschak says she and her partners want to keep their focus on Virginia for now. While they have been talking to connections in California, Georgia and Pennsylvania, they decided that it would be better to prove their model here before expanding to other states.
Voter protection and marijuana decriminalization are issues that have resonated with constituencies around Virginia during the past few months, she says. In December, other efforts underway through the site included raising the minimum wage, equal funding for all public school students in the state and allowing residents to sell their energy to the electrical grid.
“I had a very different idea of what this would be like,” Drauschak says. “As we built the [project], I realized it was really about fulfilling people’s needs.”
CrowdLobby’s founders discovered that there are many people from all levels of society who want to work together, she says.
“It’s very difficult to stay involved, and this platform gives people the chance to become a new community, moving beyond just lobbying and representation,” Drauschak says. As for the startup’s future in Richmond, the partners see the city as a “beautiful hub for what we’re doing, and we plan to be here long term.”
What’s the best decision you made?
Bringing Chief Technology Officer Matt Capelli aboard early on. “He was able to synthesize our goals into technology that allowed us to make significant steps forward.” —Heidi Drauschak, CrowdLobby
What’s something you’d do differently?
“Lots of things. Specifically, though, I would have been much more specific and focused on what we needed to do in the short term,” making the startup process significantly faster. —HD
