P.S. To be clear, political orgs may also use NGP VAN for newsletters that are actually informative. It’s not all apocalyptic fundraising! (But it totally feels like it right now.)

New chapter just dropped in the intermittently updated 250k slow burn fic of our cats becoming friends

As Adam Carlson wrote on Twitter a couple of days ago, even a small number of people putting in a little bit of time to canvass or phonebank could shape this election dramatically when it comes down the margins.

Thank you for reading! I normally post politics stuff on my elected official account, @sarahbw.bsky.social, but I’m traveling and don’t have that account on my phone.

So, to anyone reading this, I would urge you: if you can comfortably afford to donate and aren’t doing so already, or can donate a little more, find one of those orgs or candidates and make a donation today.

That said—more likely than not, at least one organization or campaign that you believe in is using this annoying strategy right now because it seems to work, and there is so much to do and never enough money to pay for it.

IMO, if you (general “you”) despise these emails and will never donate based on an impersonal yet breathless email about how democracy dies TONIGHT unless you send $10 RIGHT NOW to Candidate You’ve Never Heard Of… …then it doesn’t hurt you or the campaigns to block them en masse.

We get deluged with emails because from campaigns’ point of view, it’s a numbers game: they contact a zillion people, a small % donate, and that’s how they hit their fundraising goals and fund their work. And no individual campaign has an incentive to scale back.

Downsides: 1) you can’t opt to just subscribe to some newsletters that use NGP VAN’s system, 2) if you use ActionID for volunteering, you may have to make a new one using a different email address.

PSA for anyone getting inundated: you can email support@ngpvan.com and ask them to put your email address on their blocklist. This will mass-block emails from any candidate, PAC, etc. that uses NGP VAN… many, not all, but you should see a big reduction within 24-48 hours.