Ragtag is a group of left-of-center programmers and lawyers who volunteer to provide technical development and support for left-wing groups. As of 2018, the group has over 600 volunteers. ¹

Ragtag is structured as a nonprofit LLC. Its sister-group, the Ragtag Volunteers Community and Education Fund, can receive tax-deductible donations through ActBlue. ²

Ragtag is a member of the Open Supporter Data Interface (OSDI), a left-of-center coalition of tech experts organized by Netroots Nation.

Partners

Ragtag has built websites for numerous left-of-center groups involved in advocacy, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and elections. Organizations go through an evaluation process before Ragtag commits its resources for support. ³

Clients have included the National Democratic Training Committee, Swing Left, ACLU Massachusetts, New Left Accelerator, Fair Districts GA, March On, Fight for the Future, Planned Parenthood, Spread the Vote, Indivisible, Sister District Project, Run for Something, Lawyers for Good Government, March for Our Lives, Pot Cards to Voters, Action Together Network, The Arena, Resistance School, Progcode, Wall-of-Us, Resistance Manual, InsightUS, Empowered to Run, Alliance for Change, DigiDems, Rock the Congress, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. ^{4 5}

Leadership

Ragtag is run by a group of tech and legal experts with backgrounds in top technology companies and numerous left-of-center non-profits. Many individuals worked on President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. ⁶

Founders

In 2016, Ragtag was co-founded by Brady Kriss, an attorney and former Democratic campaigner. Kriss worked as director of support for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign where she primarily developed web tools for voter registration and early voting. In 2015, she worked at Democracy Works as a partner success lead developing voter engagement software. In 2016, she was a lead organizer at DevProgress, an open-source left-progressive programming group. ⁷

Co-founder and advisor Jill Huchital is a strategic advisor for Mobilize America and Grow Progress. She was previously the head of engineering at Qplay, and an engineering director at Google and YouTube. ⁸

Advisors

Kat Calvin is a Ragtag advisor. She is the executive director of Spread the Vote, and the co-founder and CEO of the Project ID Action Fund.” ⁹

Advisor Husani Oakley is the director of creative practices at Netflix. He was previously chief technology officer at Deutsch and Goldbean. ¹⁰

Advisor Sara Hudson is a democracy fellow at the Berggruen Institute. She was formerly a senior writer at the New America National Network. ¹¹

Advisor Andrew McLaughlin is president and COO of Assembly OSM, a New York City-based architecture company, and co-founder and partner of Higher Ground Labs, a left-of-center tech incubator. He is a board member of the Electric Coin Company, the developers of ZCash, a cryptocurrency based on anonymized transactions. He previously worked as director of global public policy at Google and as a counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives. ¹²

Advisor Aki Rose Braun is an engineering manager at PayPal and Braintree, and she previously worked at Venmo, Mozilla, Apple, and FedEx. In 2012, she worked as a developer on President Obama’s reelection campaign. ¹³

Advisor Cordelia Yu is a design supervisor at 18F, a developer of federal websites. She was previously a content strategist and information architect at Green America. ¹⁴

Advisor Harper Reed is the CEO of the General Galactic Corporation. He previously worked at PayPal, as the head of commerce at Braintree, and as chief technology officer for President Obama’s 2012 presidential reelection campaign.

Advisor Mera Granberg Paul is an advisor at New Left Accelerator, a left-wing tech incubator. ¹⁵

Advisor Sina Khanifar is the CEO of Waveform, a developer of antenna and small scales which has served Tesla, Space X, NASA, and Stanford University. He is also a technology fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ¹⁶

Advisor Seeyew Mo is a Congressional Innovation Fellow at TechCongress where he serves as a tech advisor to the U.S. Congress. He previously worked at Salesforce, Yahoo!, and for the Texas Democratic Party. He co-founded and ran Families for San Francisco, a group which introduces San Francisco politicians to families. Mo worked on the 2016 presidential campaign of former U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). In 2020, Mo ran for San Francisco’s County Democratic Central Committee. ¹⁷

1. “Press.” Ragtag. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://ragtag.org/press.
2. “Support Ragtag’s network.” Ragtag. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://ragtag.org/donate.
3. “How does Ragtag decide what projects to take on?” Ragtag. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://ragtag.org/project-evaluation.
4. “Partners.” Ragtag. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://ragtag.org/partners.
5. “Press.” Ragtag. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://ragtag.org/press.
6. “Leadership.” Ragtag. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://ragtag.org/leadership.
7. “Brady Kriss.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradykriss/.
8. “Jill Huchital.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillhuchital/.
9. “Kat Calvin.” Kat Calvin. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.katcalvin.com/.
10. “Husani Oakley.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/husani/.
11. “Sara H.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarakhudson/.
12. “Andrew McLaughlin.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmclaughlin/.
13.  “Aki Rose Braun.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/akibraun/.
14.  “Cordelia Yu.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebestsophist/.
15. “Mera Greenberg Paul.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebestsophist/.
16. “Sina Khanifar.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sinakhanifar/.
17. “Seeyew Mo.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 11, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/seeyewmo/.