GARRETT ARWA

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT | HEAD OF PAID MEDIA & POLITICAL COMMUNICATIONS

Garrett brings nearly 20 years of political experience across state and national campaigns as Bryson Gillette’s Senior Vice President and Head of Paid Media and Political. He has managed multi-million dollar budgets and advised high-level stakeholders including Congressional leaders, labor leaders, and statewide elected officials. His most important work at BG to date was his pivotal role in electing Kyra Harris Bolden and Kimberly Ann Thomas to the Michigan Supreme Court in 2024. Previously, he served as interim executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, handling political outreach and lobbying during the last redistricting in 2021. His expertise spans paid media, organizing, non-partisan voter education, issue advocacy, candidate campaigning, and independent expenditures . His work has touched over 30 states.

Outside of the office, Garrett is an avid cook, will dance just about anywhere (especially department stores), can be found walking while listening to an audiobook, and loves to go on adventures with his wife Emily and their pug Franklin.

DAMARA CATLETT

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT | BG ADVOCACY

damara@brysongillette.com

Damara brings nearly two decades of experience leading issue campaigns, lobbying efforts, and strategic communications initiatives that drive meaningful change. She has advised major brands, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations across technology, media, civil rights, and social justice, helping them navigate complex policy environments and strengthen their public impact. Damara has led initiatives such as We Must Count and Second Chance on Shoot First, and has overseen large-scale civic engagement programs that reached hundreds of thousands of voters. In her role as Executive Vice President of BG Advocacy, Damara provides cross-functional expertise in advocacy campaigns, partnerships, and policy communications, developing tailored strategies to help clients amplify their most important messages.

Damara resides in Washington, D.C. with her fiance. Outside of work you can find Damara running, hiking or camping.

SETH LITT

VICE PRESIDENT | PUBLIC AFFAIRS

seth@brysongillette.com

Seth is a strategist, communicator, and doer who has spent 20 years bringing people together to build capacity and develop strategy to solve complex challenges. Equally skilled at media relations, brand-building, activating coalitions, and digital engagement, Seth employs every tool at his disposal to help his clients – from innovative national nonprofits to leading technology companies – expand their imagination of what is possible and then achieve their goals. A seasoned nonprofit executive and educator, Seth has strengthened public education, organized families in Los Angeles to win historic policy victories, co-founded a fund that supported more than 4,000 families during the pandemic, and founded a public high school in the South Bronx for youth affected by the criminal legal system.

Seth and his wife Lucy live in Washington DC with their two Australian Shepherds, Zeus and Lefty.

KATHERINE PROVINS

Executive Assistant

katherine @brysongillette.com

Katherine Provins provides administrative support on a wide variety of projects for Bryson Gillette, including project management, client relations, finance, operations, and event planning.

Katherine is a Chicago native now living in Los Angeles. Outside of the office, you will find her at the dog park, hiking with her Boxer puppy, or spending time with her daughter.

ANNA WOOD

Senior Director | Enterprise Operations

anna@brysongillette.com

Anna Wood manages Bryson Gillette’s internal operations and is thrilled to be part of the firm’s strategic growth. Anna wears many hats at Bryson Gillette, and is passionate about building smart, efficient processes that increase her colleagues’ impact. Prior to joining Bryson Gillette, Anna worked as the strategic operations manager at Los Angeles’ Central City Association. She also led organizing teams for youth voter mobilization and issue advocacy efforts as regional organizing manager at New Era Colorado.

Outside of work you can find Anna exploring LA with her husband, packing the car for a weekend trip, or cuddling with her cats at home, tea or cocktail in hand.

JESSICA TAYLOR

Director | People Operations

jess@brysongillette.com

Jess Taylor provides strategic operations and human resources support to help scale team impact. She has served both political campaigns and public affairs clients through a variety of duties, including project management, media tracking, a variety of writing duties, and an array of production responsibilities. Prior to joining Bryson Gillette, Jess managed organizing teams and special projects for statewide and national political campaigns, including Senator Elizabeth Warren’s senate re-election campaign and presidential bid, and the Democratic ticket in New Hampshire in 2020.

Jess lives in Atlanta with her partner, Anna, where they’re aiming to try all of the delicious food, dance to lots of live music, and immerse themselves in the city’s legacy of activism.

RISA SUNAKAWA

SENIOR MANAGER

risa@brysongillette.com

Risa is a communications strategist specializing in earned media, particularly in tech reform, environmental justice, and education. From gaining national coverage for emerging initiatives to preparing spokespeople for major media opportunities, she brings a knack for creative storytelling that drives impactful narratives.

Risa is a Yankees fan, but will root for the Angels for Ohtani. In her free time, she likes pretending like she knows about wine.

REBECCA PEARCEY

PARTNER | PAID MEDIA & POLITICAL COMMUNICATIONS

rebecca@brysongillette.com

Rebecca is one of the nation’s most respected political strategists, bringing 25 years of experience leading winning campaigns at the local, state and national levels. She develops innovative media and campaign strategies that help candidates win tough races. A former political director and senior advisor for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign, she has guided hundreds of races nationwide and played a pivotal role in flipping over 400 legislative seats in 2018. Rebecca is also a dedicated mentor, training emerging diverse leaders in strategic campaign management, blending her deep expertise with a commitment to building the next generation of political talent.

If Rebecca hasn’t missed her flight, she is probably tweeting about how close she’s calling it and offering travel tips on Twitter.

JACQUELINE LEE RIVERA

VICE PRESIDENT

jacqueline@brysongillette.com

Jacqueline is a strategic communications leader who develops integrated campaigns that increase visibility, build influence, and advance mission-driven goals. She advises social impact organizations, cultural leaders, and global brands on aligning messaging, media, and partnerships to achieve measurable change. Her work bridges philanthropy, entertainment, and global brands to move ideas from strategy to concrete impact and has earned recognition from the Anthem Awards, Shorty Awards, and Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards for excellence in social impact.

Jacqueline is passionate about the power of storytelling to open hearts and minds and can be found watching the latest films, sampling new restaurants, and attending concerts across Los Angeles.

RAÚL HERNÁNDEZ

Vice President | People

raul@brysongillette.com

With a knack for making strategic connections between people, programs, and resources, Raúl Hernández builds capacity in teams and institutions to maximize impact. A former educator with nearly 20 years of experience in education reform and talent development, Raúl oversees all things human resources at Bryson Gillette. He has expertise in designing and delivering learning experiences that resonate with audiences. Prior to joining Bryson Gillette, Raúl led alumni and corps member work for Teach For America Los Angeles for over 10 years. He supported a network of over 3,600 leaders across a variety of industries in Southern California through program partnerships, facilitating leadership development, talent matching, and ongoing engagement. Previously, Raúl spent eight years as a public school classroom teacher in Baltimore and Boston.

Raul lives with his wife, Rohini, and their two little girls. You can find him spending time with his family, going on walks with their dogs, or on the course trying to become a scratch golfer.

SHIRA FINE

PARTNER | HEAD OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

shira@brysongillette.com

Shira leads the firm’s public affairs practice and has helped grow the company from 10 employees to more than 40 in a few short years. She specializes in launching new organizations and campaigns, guiding them from bold ideas to measurable impact. Shira advises foundations, nonprofits, and changemakers on strategy, media relations, branding, and crisis planning — helping philanthropic entities navigate emerging risks, designing crisis responses for hit television shows, and advancing responsible tech through XR for good and child safety campaigns. Her career highlights include spearheading Netflix’s Crip Camp social impact campaign and pressing technology companies to remove child sexual abuse material from their platforms. In 2026, she received both the PRWeek’s Women of Distinction award and PRNews’ Top Women in PR and Communications Changemaker award.

On the weekends, she can be found hiking in Griffith Park, wandering on the beach or discovering new playgrounds with her husband and two sons.

PAUL BEAN

Designer

paul@brysongillette.com

A British designer who’s hopped the pond and is obsessed by clever, considered, beautiful typography, created digitally or by hand, Paul Bean gently pushes each project as far as it can go, to live up to its potential. His expertise is in stripping away the nonessentials to make the communication as powerful as possible. Paul was trained in branding and print design at Kingston University, London, where he won a D&AD New Blood Award before joining the prestigious product design agency SeymourPowell, where he trained under Richard Seymour. While running Delivery of Thought, a small design studio, Paul worked with a wide variety of clients from The Prince’s Trust, Unilever, Freedom From Torture, Puma and Adidas (not at the same time!). Since then, he has been busy designing branding, websites, digital and print ads, policy reports, and a wide range of collateral for all types of clients, from political candidates and advocacy organizations to Fortune 100 corporations and education institutions.

Paul and his wife, Becky, have lived in both New York City and Seattle, and are now settled in Santa Barbara with their beautiful daughter, Poppy.

KASEY POULIN

Senior Director | Strategic Operations and Paid Media Production

kasey@brysongillette.com

Kasey Poulin leads the firm’s paid media and production work. From video production, ad buying all the way to direct mail, Kasey helps to shepherd our political and public affairs clients through the process of creating compelling paid media content from beginning to end. Previously, she was national travel manager for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign and before that served on Warren’s successful U.S. Senate re-election campaign. Kasey began her career as a field organizer for Jay González’s gubernatorial campaign in Massachusetts.

Kasey and her wife Annie live in Worcester, Massachusetts, where they enjoy getting involved in local political races.

MARCOS RODRIGUEZ

SENIOR DIRECTOR

marcos@brysongillette.com

With a decade of experience working at the intersection of strategic communications and political consulting, Marcos helps organizations navigate politically charged environments. From building crisis playbooks to preparing advocates for congressional hearings, he has guided clients through high-stakes moments. Marcos has trained leaders of top tech, philanthropic, and public institutions, landed op-eds in the Washington Post and USA Today, and designed communications strategies that reach audiences in both English and Spanish.

Marcos has guided candidates up and down the ballot through competitive campaigns, from Congress to school boards. In the closing weeks of the 2024 campaign, he worked at the Pennsylvania headquarters of the Harris campaign, working with senior leadership to develop Election Day communications. Marcos develops paid media campaigns that persuade and turn out voters, creates bilingual ads, and leverages research, polling, and creativity to help candidates win.

Outside of work, Marcos loves to travel and often spends his weekends outside of Los Angeles. He also enjoys trying new restaurants and knows the best spots in L.A.

BILL BURTON

FOUNDING PARTNER | CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

bill@brysongillette.com

Bill is a renowned political and communications strategist who has worked as a senior adviser to some of the nation’s most influential political leaders, corporations, advocacy organizations, and nonprofits. After serving as national press secretary for then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Bill became a senior adviser and deputy press secretary during President Obama’s first term in the White House. For over two decades, he has shepherded hundreds of candidates in races across the country while also driving national communications campaigns on the biggest issues of our time, from climate change and education reform to voting rights and racial justice. A natural communicator who simplifies complicated ideas and designs strategies that break through the noise, Bill empowers leaders and organizations large and small to communicate with authenticity and build lasting relationships with their audiences.

Since 2015, Bill has made Santa Barbara his home with his wife Kelly Ward Burton and three kids, Oscar, Emma, and Miles. Bill loves playing guitar and teaching his son to play basketball.

Published: June 29, 2020

A round-up of data, texting, and digital content sharing services

This is not your father’s campaign season. Nor is it the campaign of 2018, when GOTV was still by the books and everyone drank matcha and judged social media influencers while sorting Saturday morning canvassing assignments.

Obviously the days of paper lists are dead. Data aggregation is already lightyears beyond what it was two years ago. There are new P2P texting companies, tried-and-true data processors, a slick new buffet of video-sharing apps, and multiple social media management tools.

The digital campaign landscape is vast. What follows is a comprehensive list of data companies to consider for voter organization, outreach and GOTV efforts.

There are four main categories in this list of companies for digital campaigning in Covid-19:

DATA MANAGEMENT

TEXTING/PHONE BANKING PLATFORMS

DIGITAL CONTENT SHARING

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Data management

There are dozens of data and digital companies that will aggregate your phone lists and help you organize potential voters. Several serve as a one-stop-shop for creating a campaign, from website templates to fundraising scripts. Others even create apps. Below is a list of companies that can help you move from zero organization to hero organization:

Action Network
Partners with progressive candidates to facilitate mass emails, organizing, messaging

Acronym
Digital company making ads and creating content

Aristotle
Non-partisan DC firm advising campaigns and giving support with data and CRM tools, as well as compliance and filing in all fifty states

eCanvasser
Non-partisan digital one-stop-shop based in Canada with advising, list building, canvassing organization

iDONATEpro
Fundraising website for basic operations

NationBuilder
One-stop-shop for data management, website building, list organization

NGP-VAN
Democratic organization maintaining the master of all Dem voter lists across the country

Phone2Action
App-based social advocacy program connecting organizations (unions, companies, members) to their local elected leaders to educate and inspire

Organizer
Cloud-based data management replacing clipboards and paper lists

Run for Office
Partnered with NationBuilder, resource partner with directory of all elected offices in country, trainings, guidance for campaign planning

Run for Something
Organization devoted to helping first-time candidates with consulting and resources

SparkInfluence
Data/volunteer/advocates organization, better suited for issue advocacy than candidates

Tectonica
Consultants for progressive candidates and issues, very international, tied to NationBuilder

VoteRockit
Creates candidate apps, yes—an actual app for your candidacy, including local customized voter info, news, voter engagement, fundraising, etc. Who doesn’t want their own app?

Texting platforms

Traditional GOTV efforts like canvassing and phone banking provide a human connection, bringing faces and voices together. But door-knocking usually only results in a 20% answer-rate, which translates into roughly five voter conversations in one hour of work.

Phone banking is equally hampered by the decreasing amount of landlines in the country, blocking thanks to caller ID, and disconnected phone numbers.

Enter: texting. Peer-to-peer (P2P) and friend-to-friend (F2F) texting have changed grassroots politics, making volunteering and voter-connection infinitely more efficient.

P2P is for large campaigns usually with massive text lists (starting at 100k) and providing a rented “central” number from which all calls emanate. While P2P is good for the masses and the state and national races, it might not be cost-effective or necessary for local and down-ballot races.

F2F, which is often a better fit for those local and down-ballot races, allows you to upload your own contact lists, and ideally the contacts of your friends and supporters as well. This is the universe in which you communicate with voters and eventual supporters. It’s personalized and meant to have even more direct, meaningful contact with targeted voters in your district.

Political texts have an open rate of 98% within 3 minutes of receipt. As long as it’s not over-used and has a succinct call-to-action, texting can achieve tremendous results in campaign efforts.

Here are average prices:

$.08/sms

$.11/mms (links, photos, videos)

$.0025 per vetted number (since half of lists are often not textable, you need to weed out land-lines and disconnects)

Here’s a sample price guide, for a list of 100,000 contacts:

Validate the numbers at $.0025/number = $250 (validating weeds out 50% of numbers)

$.08/text x 50k = $4,000

Total cost = $4,250

Below is a list of texting platforms to consider, with some thoughts on the distinctive features of each. Most of these companies are competitive on price.

Friend2Friend (F2F)

Team by Tuesday Company

DCCC used for 2018 house races
Harness volunteers’ personal networks and contacts via text, phone and Facebook
Tuesday Company keeps data with the aim of long-term community building

Outreach Circle

Used by several US Senate and down-ballot races
Pricing by month with no limit on texting
Pricing plans catering to tiny campaigns and able to scale to massive
$30/month

Peer2Peer (P2P)

CallHub

No party affiliation, requires a central admin

An entire call center hub – has been around for years as online phone-banking.
Client rents phone numbers from CallHub
Pricing: $.034/text, $.12 cents for MMS

Getthru

Founded by Bernie Sanders staff in 2016
Works with AOC, Missouri Dems, SwingLeft, ACLU & others
“ThruTalk” and “ThruText”
.08 outgoing, unlimited incoming

Hustle

Founded in 2014 and became exclusively Dem in 2016
Used heavily by Democratic heavyweights
A very big dog in the field of P2P texting
Pricing available upon request, averages out as mentioned above

OpnSesame

Massive P2P platform used by Donald Trump reelection campaign
Contact for pricing

Peerly

Very shopify kind of website
New and slick website
At $.014/text, Peerly highlights its low pricing

Point Blank Political.com

Founded in 2019
Provides graphic designers for MMS
No contracts
Pricing: $.035/text, .08/mms

Prompt.io

Founded in 2014
Bi-partisan in approach to services
Specializes in messaging beyond texting including social media

RumbleUp

Robust GOP-oriented texting platform used by NRCC among others
Price comparison: Monthly ranging from $19 – $499/month plus $.10cents/sms or $.13/mms

Spoke

Open source platform
Used by Bernie Sanders who sent 260 million texts
Scripted messages pop-up, responses pop-up in to-do list
Admin dashboard manages workload, syncs updates, etc
Manages/assigns numbers for LOCAL engagement
Helpdesk to file tickets with coders
Unique pricing: .01 cent to send/receive SMS, .02 cents to send and 2 cents to receive MMS

VoterCall.com

New kid on the block focused on business more than politics
.07/text, reduced pricing at capacity

VoterTrove

New guy on the block based in Texas with an extensive and hilarious blog
Helped Mayoral race in Connecticut
Pricing $.10 – $.12/text; $.025 per phone number for validation

Digital content sharing

Posting and sharing videos to TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook is individualized, and the right video just might go viral and win your election. But the process is not easily focused or organized for a community point of view. Enter a new wave of sharing apps:

Greenfly

Gather your supporters, team, staff and volunteers in one place. Together, you can make videos and upload them to a central hub. In that hub, an organizer tags, sorts, organizes and shares user-generated videos. Then the videos can be distributed for much broader sharing. The central administrator can create calls to action to the community members, such as “share with us why resolution 16 is good for kids.” Folks record their videos, upload to you and you’ve just amplified your message and distributed this new video content.

Countable

Countable is a news source and app that aggregates all bills considered by Congress and makes visually appealing articles that are easily shared. Their purpose is to inform the electorate. They’ve taken a new step by creating an app in which a central admin (you) inspire followers to upload their own testimonials and videos that you can eventually share far and wide. Similar to Greenfly, but founded with civic duty and issue advocacy in mind.

Social media management tools

Managing a multitude of social media accounts is demanding work. In order to cut down on the massive amount of time and energy it can take up, campaigns can benefit from using a scheduling application. Here’s a list, with some info on some of their offerings:

Buffer
User-friendly dashboard for most social platforms

Everypost
Specializes in visual and multimedia content
Share content across Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest & Tumblr

Hootsuite
The original go-to for managing multiple social media accounts
Originally for businesses, but excellent user experience and low cost

Social Flow
Predictive analytics and broad-based social posting
Meant for large organizations with ample engagement

Social Ooomph
Free management of Twitter (plus Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr for pay)
Automatically queues posts for re-posting

Spred Fast
Massive platform for comparing/contrasting data across social platforms
Meant for large organizations with ample engagement – requires tutorial to set up

Sprout Social
App for serious social marketers
Post across multiple social media platforms and provides strategic posting insights

Tweet Deck
Thorough Twitter organization, especially for multiple accounts