GOV. PAT BROWN (GRANDPA OF RALLY.ORG’S HILARY ARMSTRONG) AND SON JERRY BROWN IN 1981
We love the inspiring, deeply moving, and even humorous stories behind the individuals and organizations using Rally.org to change their world—as well as similar stories from within our ranks. So we want to congratulate Rally.org’s own Hilary Armstrong for getting an Emmy nomination this week for California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown.
In January of 1776, a pamphlet titled “Common Sense” became a viral hit in the American colonies. The American Revolution had just begun, and the pamphlet presented colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when many were undecided. As popular as it was incendiary, the book – written by Thomas Paine – holds the record to this day for the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history as a percentage of the population at the time of publication.
Paine argued that it was absurd for a distant island to rule a continent, and that British rule was not in the best interest of the colonists. His arguments made a deep and lasting impression in the emerging revolutionary movement. His conclusion – “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” drew many to the cause of revolution and independence.
And so today we adopt it as our rally cry. Tremendous shifts are underway in society. The relics of large organizations (governmental, commercial, societal) left from the industrial age still grasp for control, while true innovation arrises in the hearts and minds of geographically distributed, socially connected, values aligned technology empowered rebels like you.
We believe Rally.org and the crowd funding movement is the platform on which we can remake society. Join Us. It’s time to begin the world over again.
We’re super excited to welcome Alex Volkovitsky to the Rally technology team.
New(ish) to San Francisco, this Russian born, DC raised, Pittsburg educated, programming wiz joins us after the Peace Corps in Namibia where he worked for the Ministry of Education establishing computer labs and training teachers in the Kavango region.
A fan of riding his motorcycle, practicing karate, and afterwork visits to the SF MoMa, Alex brings his humor, adventurous spirit, and diverse background to Rally.org where he is excited to help nonprofits better manage their fundraising.
Welcome, Alex!
We’re super excited to have Nathan Wilson on board. Here’s a sneak peak on Nathan…
What was Nathan doing before Rally? “Picking up pennies in front of a steam-roller!”
Nathan comes from a world of algorithmic research, trading, and development work for a high frequency trading group focused on some of the most liquid futures markets in the world.
Want to know more? Alright…
Nathan grew up in San Francisco and is a Giants fan (ofcourse!)
He lived in Rio De Janeiro for a year and worked in technology for a web-based export business. Nathan also learned Portugese and volunteered in the community!
Huge fan of:
Açai berries, surfing and Warren Buffett
At Rally, Nathan will be diving in to strategy and nurturing a culture of data at Rally!
Welcome Nathan!
Say Hello to Sachi Doctor and Valentine Mary Chamoin!
Sachi will be helping out with the RallyPad community,managing events and mentorship programs. Prior to Rally, Sachi was an audience insight and community engagement specialist at Guardian.co.uk and BBC World Service. After spending nearly seven years in London, Michigan born Sachi is new to SF. You’ll find this urban explorer wherever it’s sunniest; While a pro at rambling in the rain, she’s happiest ambling in the sun.
Valentine joins the marketing team at Rally as a summer intern! Before Rally, Val used to work as a communication director for the French Government and specialized in media, PR and crisis communication in politics. She is currently pursuing graduate studies at Harvard in online marketing and online media. A social media addict and white chocolate chip cookie junkie, on her free time she enjoys writing, shopping for colorful jewelry, daydreaming and learning sign language.
Welcome ladies! We look forward to spending this summer with you!
At Rally, we’ve developed ways to identify how successful fundraising and storytelling happens. Today we’re rolling out a set of tools to help cause owners monitor and optimize their storytelling campaigns.
Your Dashboard Data is a Powerhouse!
The new tools on your Dashboard help answer these questions:
Track your progress with each update you post
Every time you post news on your Rally Home Page—reaching your supporter list through email updates and sharing to Facebook and Twitter—you want to understand your impact. Learn who is listening to you and what drives donations. With these new analytic tools, your Rally Home Page now displays data about each update posted on Rally. Discover what happens after sharing your story:
FYI: All these great analytics are visible to cause owners, when signed in to your Rally account. They do not appear on your public Rally Page (and are at this time are not visible to Fan Fundraisers).
We welcome feedback and look forward to sharing more improvements in the coming weeks. Happy Fundraising! Go out there and share your story!
—Team Rally
A warm welcome to Clay Woolam and Tarik Ansari to the Rally team!
Clay joins us as our in-house data scientist. He is an accomplished researcher and computer programmer with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering and Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Dallas.Clay moved from Dallas to the Bay Area to join the fast paced world of Silicon Valley startups. When Clay’s not working his magic at Rally, you’ll find him enjoying San Francisco wearing a Member’s Only jacket with Charlie by his side.
Tarik joins us as a Rails Developer. Tarik grew up in France and has studied in London, Mexico and China. A world traveller, he decided to make San Francisco his home (and we’re glad he did!). With dreams of changing the world one keystroke at a time, Tarik is passionate about startups, renewable energy and individual civil liberties. With a love for the outdoors and a sweet-tooth, Tarik can’t live without his bicycle and the local bakery’s semi-sweet cookies!
We’re very happy to have both Clay and Tarik (and Charlie) at Rally! Welcome guys!
Rally is excited to be the fundraising platform of choice right in it’s own backyard in San Francisco. In a city where you can’t walk a block without running into someone starting a company or sharing their idea to change the world, a number of startups are participating in some unique competitive fundraising events. We recently caught up with Dan Murphy a team member at Udemy and one of the co-founders of PushupCharity.org along with Max Altschuler and Holly Mac.
Rally: What is PushUpCharity.Org?
Dan: It all began about a month ago—we started doing pushups in the office as a way to keep fit and re-energize at work. We loved what we started and had this brilliant idea to get more companies involved and have a pushup challenge for charity! We told a few of our startup friends about our cool idea and everyone was pumped to do it. Thus, PushUpCharity.Org was born! Rally.Org is the online fundraising platform for this event and each participating startup also has Fan Fundraising page on Rally. Don’t forget to show us some love at https://rally.org/pushupcharity
We’ve got some badass DJ’s, free drinks and promise you an event that will keep you begging for more! Bring your friends, grab some tickets and come on over to cheer for your favorite startup! We want this event to kick-start a series of similar fun-filled evenings that benefit charitable organizations. So you never know, you could be up on stage the next time showing off some of your cool skills!
Rally: Who’s participating and how can I attend?
At this inaugural event GitHub, Udemy, 99designs, HotelTonight and Zaarly will get up on stage IN COSTUMES and compete in this push up challenge – the first team to finish 100 push ups wins!
Our goal is to raise $12,500 in donations for organizations like Muttville.org, livestrong.org, charitywater.org, kiva-zip.org and donorschoose.org. We want to build a community of people who have fun and support charitable organizations in the Bay Area.
Get your spectator tickets at PushUp Charity. See you there!
Jesse Taggert joins us as Product Marketing Manager for Rally and Program Manager for RallyPad. She has over 15 years experience in communication and design. Jesse has helped organizations — startups, professional associations, art museums, universities, and even the U.S. Navy — strengthen their market position, tell their story, and inspire their audience.
Born and bred in New England, Jesse worked in Boston for over 10 years and earned a master’s degree in graphic design from Rhode Island School of Design. A few years later—craving warmer winters and the “can do anything” culture of the Bay Area—she moved to San Francisco. She’s taught design and design history, run a coworking space, and currently volunteers as “Dean” of the Awesome Foundation, San Francisco.
Causes Jesse cares about include: funding art projects, ending child sex trafficking and increasing women’s educational and economic opportunities worldwide.
Teresa joins Rally as our indispensible Operations Manager. She worked with us for several months on a contract basis, and we’re now thrilled to have her aboard full time to support the Rally team and the RallyPadders as we all work towards building a stronger community.
She is finishing up her MA thesis and is in her third year of a “service learning teaching pipeline,” Pin@y Educational Partnerships, where they voluntarily teach Critical Filipina/o American Studies at SFUSD and City College of San Francisco to address issues of recruitment, retention, and research, amongst others. In her chill time, she likes to eat good food, be with friends, and go to sunny places.
Photo: Brant Ward / The Chronicle
A few weeks ago, Carolyn Said sat down with Rally’s CEO to learn more about the company’s evolution. We love the way her cover-article in the San Francisco Chronicle tells the Rally story:
Serres, now 30, was volunteering for a local candidate running for judge in 2004 while studying Chinese and accounting at the University of Texas at Austin.
Surprised that the campaign lacked an online presence, he helped build a website and raise money via e-mails and online newsletters.
During the next year and a half, that consulting business evolved into a online fundraising platform. After a key turning point involving Rep. Joe Wilson’s famous “you lie” outburst during President Obama’s health care speech to congress, the platform took off.
To the founding team’s surprise, it wasn’t just politicians who needed an easy online fundraising tool. Everyone from schools to churches to nonprofits started signing up:
[Rally] is now home to more than 10,000 cause-based groups worldwide, “from Bangladesh to Iceland,” Serres said.
“We quickly evolved beyond political organizations to advocacy groups, churches, things like nature conservancies, missionary groups, you name it,” he said.
The article goes on to describe Rally’s current client-base, as well as our social venture incubator, RallyPad.
You can read the full story here.
