New Organizing Institute Education Fund (NOI Education Fund)

New Organizing Institute Education Fund (NOIEF) was the charitable arm of New Organizing Institute (NOI), a progressive nonprofit that trained digital organizers and campaigners for the Democratic Party. The organization, described by a Washington Post reporter as “the Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry,” trained 30,000 members in ten years before experiencing a mass staff walkout in 2015. ¹ Shortly afterward, the Institute and its Education Fund were disbanded and its core program and most remaining members were folded into Wellstone Action, one of the largest left-of-center training campaigner training organizations.

In 2012, Whitney May, Tiana-Epps Johnson, and Donny Bridges founded Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a left-of-center voter outreach group. All three would work for New Organizing Institute from 2012-2015 and then return to CTCL. In 2020, CTCL received a $250 million grant from Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.

Leadership

New Organizing Institute Education Fund and New Organizing Institute were co-founded by Judith Freeman, a long-time strategist for the Democratic Party and allied organizations. In 2004, after attending college at the University of Chicago, Freeman worked for M+R Strategic Services and on then-Senator John Kerry’s (D-MA) presidential campaign. In 2005, Freeman began serving as a senior political strategist for the AFL-CIO labor union federation and co-founded New Organizing Institute. In 2008, Freeman worked as a digital field director for Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. ² From 2006-2013, Freeman served as executive director of NOIEF, until she was replaced by Ethan Roeder. Freeman remained as president of NOI and chair of both organizations’ boards. ³⁴

In 2013, Ethan Roeder became the new executive director of NOIEF and the Institute. Roeder had served as a voter file manager and the national data manager Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. He then worked at NOI as director of data, technology, and election administration for three years until he returned to President Obama’s reelection campaign as director of data. ⁵

Activism

“Hogwarts” for Democrats and “The Left’s New Death Star”

For more information on NOI’s activism, see New Organizing Institute (Nonprofit)

In July 2014, a reporter for the Washington Post published a piece covering the New Organizing Institute (NOI), calling it “the Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry” and “the Left’s think tank for campaign know-how.” ¹

The piece detailed how NOI trained activists, campaign staffers, and nonprofit employees in digital technology such as HTML coding, voter outreach via email lists and social media adverts, donor outreach and fundraising methods, tips for spreading online video content, and proper eye-catching online messaging. The article explained that the impetus behind the Institute’s formation was the desire of Democratic Party operatives for their field workers to be trained in the latest digital techniques perfected by the Obama presidential campaign during the 2012 election. By spreading the latest skills in coding, social media, and internet advertising to as many left-of-center activists as possible, NOI could diffuse digital learning through the progressive movement as those activists went on to different places in their careers, giving a lasting advantage to Democrats. ¹

NOI’s “About” page (archived here) quoted a CNN article which called it “The Left’s New Death Star,” bragging that “even as Republicans made impressive strides in digital and data-driven campaigning in 2014, Democrats retain a culture of innovation and an army of campaign geeks that far outpaces their GOP foes . . . There is nothing like [NOI] on the Right.” ⁶

Dissolution and Staff Walkout (2015)

In February 2015, eight senior staff members and an unknown number of the “20 or so” lower level staffers of the New Organizing Institute (NOI) quit en masse. The day prior, senior staff members had presented an ultimatum to the New Organizing Institute board demanding the resignation of executive director Ethan Roeder due to alleged financial mismanagement which had left the organization on the verge of insolvency. The board, led by Judith Freeman, refused to remove Roeder. ⁴

After the walkout, Freeman vowed to continue the New Organizing Institute,⁴ but the Institute and the Education Fund would dissolve eight months later. In an October press release, Freeman announced that NOI’s core training program would be absorbed by Wellstone Action (now RePower). ⁷

Center for Tech and Civic Life

Among the senior staff members who quit the New Organizing Institute in February 2015 were Whitney May, Tiana Epps-Johnson, and Donny Bridges. ⁸⁹¹⁰ In 2012, these three had founded the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a voter outreach organization which targets demographic groups which tend to support the Democratic Party. After establishing the organization, the three joined the Institute. May served as the group’s voter information project state liaison and election administration government liaison. Johnson served as the Institute’s election administration director. Bridges served as the Institute’s election administration research director. ¹¹

In February 2015, after leaving the Institute, the three rejoined CTCL. May became director of government services, Epps-Johnson became executive director, and Bridges became director of civic data. ⁸⁹¹⁰

In 2020, CTCL would receive $250 million from Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg to increase voter registration and mail voting for the 2020 election. ¹²

Connections to Major Liberal Political Groups

Funders Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP)

For more information, see Funders Committee for Civic Participation

Democracy Alliance

For more information, see Democracy Alliance

Leadership

Co-Founders

New Organizing Institute and the New Organizing Institute Education Fund and were co-founded by Judith Freeman, a long-time strategist for the Democratic Party and allied organizations. From 2005-2015, Freeman served as president of New Organizing Institute. ^{13 4}

In 2004, after attending college at the University of Chicago, Freeman worked for M+R Strategic Services and on then-Senator John Kerry’s (D-MA) 004 presidential campaign. In 2005, Freeman began serving as a senior political strategist for the AFL-CIO labor union federation and co-founded New Organizing Institute. In 2008, Freeman worked as a digital field director for Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. ²

Zack Exley, NOI’s other co-founder, is a longtime radical political activist who previously worked with MoveOn.org and Britain’s Labour Party. Exley was NOI president from 2005 to 2010, when he left to become chief community officer (later chief revenue officer) for the Wikimedia Foundation. From 2009-2010 Exley was an Open Society Foundations fellow, receiving a grant from the George Soros-aligned foundation. ¹⁴ In 2016, he was an advisor on socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) failed presidential campaign; from its collapse he co-founded Middle Seat, a digital marketing firm catering to far-left politicians and causes. Exley co-founded the left-wing political committees Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, which aims to elect socialist and far-left Democrats. In 2018, he co-founded New Consensus, a nonprofit that promotes the extremist Green New Deal. ¹⁵

Exley co-authored the 2016 book Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything with former CREDO super PAC president Becky Bond, a board member of NOI Education Fund until its collapse in 2015. ^{16 15}

Executive Director

Starting in 2006, co-founder Judith Freeman served as executive director of NOIEF as well as the New Organizing Institute (NOI), until she stepped down in 2013. Freeman remained as president of NOI and chair of both organizations’ boards. ³⁴

In 2013, Ethan Roeder became the new executive director of NOI and the NOI Education Fund. Roeder previously worked as a voter file manager and the national data manager Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. He then worked at New Organizing Institute as director of data, technology, and election administration for three years until he returned to President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign as director of data for Obama for America (OFA; now Organizing for Action). ⁵

In September 2017, Roeder became director of campaigns for Forward Majority Action (not to be confused with Majority Forward), a major Democratic-aligned super PAC that spends heavily to flip Congressional and U.S. Senate seats to Democrats. ⁵

In 2015, NOI/NOI Education Fund’s final year of operations, Roeder earned $113,392 in total compensation from both organizations. ¹⁷

Board of Directors

In 2015, its final year of operation, NOI Education Fund’s board of directors included Robert “Biko” Baker, an associate lecturer on African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and left-wing activist involved in “data-driven voter turnout campaigns that dramatically increase the voter participation of young urban citizens”; and Becky Bond, co-founder of the far-left Real Justice PAC, which helps elect Democratic prosecutors, an advisor to Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Texas Senate campaign and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) 2016 presidential campaign, former president of the left-wing CREDO super PAC, and author of the 2016 book Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything. ^{16 18}

Funding

NOI Education Fund was incorporated in 2010 and ceased operations in 2015. In June 2018, its tax-exempt status was automatically revoked by the IRS for failing to file an annual Form 990 report for three years in a row. ¹⁹

Relationship with NOI

NOI was NOI Education Fund’s 501(c)(4) affiliate. The two organizations shared office space and staff, who were paid for by NOI Education Fund while working for NOI.

In 2014, NOI Education Fund paid NOI $647,285 in employee salaries, $803,021 in reimbursements for “expenses” (details are not provided), and $60,130 for the “sharing of facilities, equipment, mailing lists,” or other expenses. ²⁰

In 2013, NOI Education Fund paid NOI $783,766 in employee salaries, $351,170 in reimbursements for “expenses” (details are not provided), and $72,928 for the “sharing of facilities, equipment, mailing lists,” or other expenses. ²¹

Financial Overview

Between 2010 and January 2015, NOI Education Fund reported total revenues of nearly $26 million and total expenditures of nearly $26 million (including grants paid totaling $12 million): ²²

Donors to NOI Education Fund

Between 2008 and 2015, NOI Education Fund received over $16 million in grants, mostly from left-of-center foundations and pass-through funders: ²³

NOI Education Fund’s largest and most notable donors over this period included:

• Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program ($3,620,000), a donor-advised fund provider
• Ford Foundation ($3,419,371), one of the largest foundations in the United States and a prolific donor to left-of-center causes
• Tides Foundation and Tides Center ($1,694,545), major pass-through funders and fiscal sponsors of left-wing causes (see the Tides Nexus)
• Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($1,445,000), a donor-advised fund provider
• Foundation to Promote Open Society and Open Society Foundations ($900,000), the main private foundations funded by billionaire donor George Soros
• Unbound Philanthropy ($475,000), a donor affinity group that funds liberal immigration policy groups and is closely associated with George Soros
• Arca Foundation ($390,000), major liberal foundation associated with the R.J. Reynolds family tobacco fortune (formerly the Nancy Susan Reynolds Foundation)
• Hull Family Foundation ($367,500), left-wing foundation associated with millionaire investor Blair Hull
• Schmidt Family Foundation ($250,000), private foundation of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
• Wallace Global Fund ($215,000), major left-wing foundation controlled by the family of former U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace
• NoVo Foundation ($200,000), the private foundation of Peter Buffett, son of investor and left-of-center mega-donor Warren Buffett
• Joyce Foundation ($182,500), a Chicago-base foundation that finances advocacy for gun control, environmental causes, and liberal education policy