No, you didn’t sign up for that list
Fair warning. This is in the weeds. But mostly in your in-box and texts. Stuff from groups like the one named above.
Adam Bonica at his On Data and Democracy Substack wondered if there was an outfit behind all those (or many) spam fundraising emails and texts that arrive unwanted from lists you can’t seem to unsubscribe from even when you do. He did: Mothership Strategies.
After studying the FEC filings of these PACs, Bonica explains:
To understand Mothership’s central role, one must understand its origins. The firm was founded in 2014 by senior alumni of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC): its former digital director, Greg Berlin, and deputy digital director, Charles Starnes. During their tenure at the DCCC, they helped pioneer the fundraising model that now dominates Democratic inboxes—a high-volume strategy that relies on emotionally charged, often hyperbolic appeals to compel immediate donations. This model, sometimes called “churn and burn,” prioritizes short-term revenue over long-term donor relationships.
After leaving the DCCC, Berlin and Starnes effectively privatized this playbook, building a business around the party’s most aggressive tactics and turning an internal strategy into a fundraising powerhouse for the Democratic Party—or so it might seem on the surface.
They became the operational heart of a sprawling nexus of interconnected political action committees, many of which they helped create and which now serve as their primary clients. These are not a diverse collection of grassroots groups; they are a tightly integrated network that functions primarily to funnel funds to Mothership. Their names are likely familiar from the very texts and emails that flood inboxes: Progressive Turnout Project, Stop Republicans, and End Citizens United to name a few.
F%cking D-Triple-C veterans. You might have known, huh? Bonica links to a list of PACs that are in bed with Mothership.
But here’s the kicker. “Since 2018, this core network of Mothership-linked PACs has raised approximately $678 million from individual donors,” Bonica writes. But after consulting fees, $22.5 million to a text message delivery vendor, staff salaries, etc., Bonica drops the bomb:
My analysis of the network’s FEC disbursements reveals that, at most, $11 million of the $678 million raised from individuals has made its way to candidates, campaigns, or the national party committees.
But here’s the number that should end all debate:
This represents a fundraising efficiency rate of just 1.6 percent.
Kamala Harris’s campaign warned its supporters last year not to fall for fundraising scams you’ve all seen (not all from Mothership-aligned groups. The Bulwark reported last summer:
One recent text included a picture of Barbra Streisand, the famed singer, actress, and longtime Democrat, saying how “excited” she is “to support KAMALA HARRIS!” and offering a “700% MATCH ACTIVE” for donations to help “crush” Donald Trump.
But the text wasn’t from Streisand or the Harris campaign. It was from “Democratic Power,” a group started in October 2022 at an address that appears to be a UPS store in Southeast Washington, D.C.
So not as organized as Mothership, but “part of a growing universe of entities that have taken advantage of loose campaign finance regulations and the proliferation of online giving to raise millions of dollars, which they then use to raise more cash.”
Lovely.
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