A new Chicago nonprofit startup is working to get millennials more involved in politics and provide progressive politicians with more donations.
GoodWerk, founded last year by Jake Mikva, a graduate of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, creates and distributes social media content aimed at getting millennials and those who support progressive policy to donate to progressive candidates.
The startup, which was a finalist in UChicago’s Social New Venture Challenge last year, describes itself as a PAC, or political action committee.
“Our primary mode of work is to produce digital and social media content that connects young people to the progressive movement, specifically candidates in elections,” Mikva said.
When people encounter GoodWerk content on their Facebook or Twitter feeds, they can click on it and be redirected to GoodWerk’s platform, where they could make a donation to a candidate. The topics GoodWerk typically covers center around education, healthcare, environmental policy and gun safety.
“That content would attempt to be engaging, funny and clever and insightful, and what that content is meant to do is drive issue and candidate awareness to a young person,” Mikva said. “Ultimately, the goal is to drive their engagement in the electoral process and to have them pull traditional levers of political impact, like voting, giving and engaging in the process.”
Since launching, GoodWerk’s content has reached more than 4.5 million people and raised $10,000 in grassroots donations for progressive candidates in Virginia and Illinois, Mikva said. In the democratic primaries this year, 73 percent of GoodWerk's donors were under the age of 44.
GoodWerk shares their content onto their own social media platforms, and is primarily distributed organically through shares and retweets, Mikva said. Users can donate any amount to candidates on GoodWerk’s platform, and if they opt to, can leave a “tip” for GoodWerk, which is how the startup makes some of its money.
Locally, GoodWerk has supported candidates like Daniel Biss, who ran this winter in the Illinois’ gubernatorial democratic primaries, and Lauren Underwood, a democratic candidate in Illinois’ 14th district.
“We really vet candidates deeply and holistically, like where they are running, who’s supporting them and what do they stand for,” Mikva said.
GoodWerk’s team is made up of former campaign staffers and policy wonks, and they work out of 270 Strategies, a political consulting firm in Chicago.
For the upcoming elections, both at the local and state level, Mikva said GoodWerk is ramping up content to support candidates.
"There's no shortage of work out there," Mikva said. "For my team, it's to continue to scale, produce good content to reach more young people and become a center of gravity for progressive political giving online."
