Overview

270 Strategies (270S) is a consulting firm that was launched in 2013 by Organizing For America national field director Mitch Stewart along with other supporters of President Barack Obama. Stewart was a longtime political activist who had formerly worked for the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party, the Environmental Defense Fund, the 2004 presidential campaign of then-Senator John Edwards, the 2004 re-election campaign of then-Senator Tom Daschle, and the 2012 Obama For America campaign (where he was the the battleground-states director).

The other founding partners of 270S likewise had deep ties to Democratic Party leaders and agendas. These founders included:

• Jeremy Bird, who had previously worked for the presidential campaigns of Howard Dean (2003), John Kerry (2004), and Barack Obama (2008 and 2012);
• Meg Ansara, who had worked on the 2002 campaign of Senator Paul Wellstone (Minnesota) and the 2002 gubernatorial campaign of Robert Reich (Massachusetts); partnered with Jeremy Bird as a national trainer for staff at the Democratic National Committee in 2004; and served as the 2012 Obama For America campaign’s national regional director;
• Mark Beatty, who had helped develop Organizing For America’s initial program, served on Barack Obama’s 2008 Post-Election Task Force, and served as the deputy battleground-states director for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign;
• Betsy Hoover, who had been the director of digital organizing for the 2012 Obama For America campaign, where she was responsible for “bridging the gap between online and offline organizing”;
• Lynda Tran, a Battleground Texas advisory board member who previously had been appointed by President Obama to serve as director of communications for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation;
• Lauren Kidwell, who describes herself as “an experienced strategist at the intersection of startups, government, and campaigns, with a passion for empowering staff and helping diverse organizations run effectively”; and

The objective of these 270S leaders was to help left-wing “campaigns, companies, and causes” use “grassroots organizing” methods to “transform communities” and “keep doing big things to change the world” even after January of 2017, when the second term of Obama’s presidency was due to end.

“Since launching our company in 2013,” said 270S in 2026, “we’ve worked with hundreds of campaigns, companies, and causes to reimagine how they approach their mission and help them achieve their goals.”  Asserting that “diversity is part of our strategic advantage and always will be,” 270S boasts that in order to help “clients who are committed to changing the world,” its leaders and staffers “often push beyond the comfort zone of the progressive movement.”

In servicing its clients, 270S specializes in the recruitment of volunteers to help ensure that “organizations of every size have a bigger impact.” Additional services include:

• a digital strategy that integrates email, social media, design, analytics, and advertising;
• the use of data to help clients “be more effective with their resources and time—calculating quantitative goals, establishing accountability systems, and incorporating focus groups, polling, and modeling”;
• helping campaigns, companies, and causes “tell their story, whether they’re looking to launch a new effort or respond to a crisis”;
• crafting effective earned and paid media plans;
• equipping clients for rapid response and media appearances; and
• helping clients to develop customized training programs that “foster leadership, take their organizing programs to scale, and build capacity within their organizations.”

History & Activities

From 2013-15, 270S served more than 160 clients across a variety of sectors. In the political sphere, for instance, the firm’s clients included such groups as Battleground Texas, iVote, and Ready for Hillary. The organization also provided key services for Cory Booker’s 2013 run for the U.S. Senate (in New Jersey), Terry McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign in Virginia, Rahm Emanuel‘s 2015 mayoral re-election bid in Chicago, and Ro Khanna’s (unsuccessful) 2014 run for a congressional seat representing the Bay Area and Silicon Valley.

In September 2014, 270S launched a recurring six-week program that began with five days of “intensive” campaign training at the organization’s Chicago headquarters (at a cost of $3,500 per trainee), followed by an optional five weeks of volunteer work with an “an important Democratic campaign in the United States” — an opportunity that costed each trainee an additional $1,500.

In 2015, ResponsibleOhio, an organization that campaigned for a state ballot initiative to legalize marijuana in Ohio, paid 270S some $115,000 for its consulting services.

In 2015 as well, 270S worked with “Israel for Victory 2015,” an organization that sought to remove Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office.

During the 2016 election cycle, 270S’s largest client was Black PAC, which paid the firm more than $397,000 for its services. Black Pac’s stated mission is “to engage and activate our [black] community around the issues that matter most: fighting racism and white supremacy; protecting our voting rights and access to the ballot box; defending our neighborhoods from environmental racism, climate change, and violence; creating a fair economy and access to high-quality public schools; criminal justice reform and police accountability; and an equitable healthcare system.” Additional major clients of 270 that year included:

• Women Vote!, the independent expenditure arm of EMILYs List
• Ready PAC, originally known as Ready for Hillary

During the 2018 election cycle, 33 separate PACs paid 270S for its consulting services. The largest of these clients was Swing Left, a PAC dedicated to thwarting the political agendas of then-President Donald Trump. Focusing its efforts on helping Democrats reclaim control of Congress by winning “competitive swing districts where the last election came down to a few thousand (or a few hundred!) votes,” Swing Left paid some some $511,665 to 270S that year. Other major clients included the American Civil Liberties Union, End Citizens United, and Rufus Gifford for Congress — each of which paid the firm approximately $300,000.

Over the years, 270S has supported leftwing clients like the Service Employees International Union, Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Defense Fund, Everytown for Gun Safety, the College Board, and AARP to promote their respective agendas vis-a-vis a wide range of issues—including immigration reform, health care access, “women’s equality,” a higher minimum wage, education standards, and efforts to avert the purported dangers associated with “climate change.”

Moreover, 270S has worked with numerous corporations whose “missions … align with our values.” Among these clients are multi-billion-dollar technology firms, startup companies, major health insurers, nutrition and fitness advocates, professional sports teams, and “newsmakers in the sharing economy.”