In the News
Press Release — March 6th, 2012
JUMPTAP PARTNERS WITH CATALIST TO BRING POLITICAL DATA AND TARGETING TO MOBILE
Exclusive Partnership Delivers Improved Campaign Results for Advertisers
CAMBRIDGE, MA. March 6, 2011 - Jumptap, the leader in targeted mobile advertising, today announced an exclusive partnership with political data services company, Catalist. The relationship will help political, advocacy, nonprofit, academic, and consultancy clients reach voting age Americans with increased relevancy and targeting.
Jumptap began partnering with third-party data providers in early 2011, and participating advertisers across all industries have already seen significant impact. The goals for political campaigns are slightly different than those for brand. Advertisers running political campaigns are looking for impact on persuasion, donor and volunteer recruitment, and voter turnout. The Jumptap-Catalist partnership offers advertisers the data and targeting to achieve those goals. In addition to third-party data, Jumptap offers targeting at the zip-code level, ensuring advertisers reach the right audience, with the right message at the right time.
“From the first televised presidential debate of 1960 to the use of social media in 2008, new media has had a significant impact on political campaigns throughout the years,” said Jorey Ramer, Founder and VP of Corporate Development, Jumptap. “2012 is the year mobile will have a real impact on voters, giving presidential candidates the chance to connect with Americans on a personal level. Our exclusive partnership with Catalist offers progressive organizations the means to best convey their message across the mobile medium.”
Based in Washington, D.C., Catalist maintains and constantly updates a complete national database of over 265 million persons in the U.S. representing 358 TB of data, and provides a high volume matching service operating at over 1 billion matches per month. Catalist brings easy to use web based tools and a high quality voter database of all voting-age individuals in the United States to progressive, not-for-profit organizations, advocacy groups and campaigns. Catalist combines standard demographic and high-quality political information with commercial data that allows advertisers to get their message, ideas and requests to large groups or targeted individuals with unprecedented precision and effectiveness.
“You can’t ignore the numbers; nearly 100 million people in the US own a smartphone. Mobile is a huge, and until recently, often untapped opportunity for reaching American voters,” said Laura Quinn, CEO, Catalist. “There is no better time than in an election year to leverage the power of political data and targeting.”
National Journal — February 16th, 2012
New Tool for Pollsters and Researchers
Press Release — February 15th, 2012
Statement on Chairman of the Board of Catalist Stepping Down Replaced by Co-Chairs Bauman and Podhorzer
(Washington, DC)—Catalist, the premier data provider to the progressive movement, today announced that after seven years, founding Chairman of the Board, Albert Dwoskin, President and CEO of A.J. Dwoskin & Associates, is stepping down from the Board to focus his attention on his many other business and philanthropic endeavors. New co-chairs of the Board, Patricia Bauman, President of the Bauman Foundation, and Mike Podhorzer, Political Director of the AFL-CIO, will replace Dwoskin. Bauman and Podhorzer are current Board members. Dwoskin has led the board since the inception of Catalist in 2006.
“We want to thank Al for his service to this board and to the progressive community. His leadership as one of the founders of Catalist was instrumental in not only getting it off the ground, but also in steering it to the success it has achieved today,” said Bauman.
“Al was there when Catalist was still an idea, and he’s been a tremendous leader ever since,” said Podhorzer. “Catalist has become the premier data provider to the progressive community, changing the way voter outreach is conducted today. Al’s guidance was pivotal to that success.”
Dwoskin will continue to advise the Catalist Board of Managers and will remain head of the Catalist Virginia PAC.
“It was a difficult decision to step down from my formal position with Catalist because I truly believe we have changed the way voter communication is conducted,” said Dwoskin. “It has been a privilege to serve this board and I look forward to continuing to advise the Catalist family as they continue to innovate and lead the way in data technology.”
“While we will very much miss Al’s guiding hand, we have no doubt that his exceptional contributions to the progressive community will continue,” said Harold
Ickes, President of Catalist. “Catalist’s successes speak to Al’s contributions. We are fortunate to have Patricia Bauman and Mike Podhorzer to step in, and under their leadership, we are confident Catalist will continue to be the leading data provider and constantly on the cutting edge of new data technologies.”
Press Release — October 6th, 2011
Catalist Takes Second Place in MITRE Multi-Cultural Name Matching Challenge
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Catalist is proud to announce that it has placed second in the 2011 MITRE Multi-Cultural Name Matching Challenge, competing against some of the largest and most respected data companies in the country. This competition creates the standard by which the federal government measures innovation and awards major contracts. The only one of its kind, the MITRE Challenge is an independent and objective competition that is well respected throughout the data and technology community. This year, there were more than 3,000 submissions and 40 teams in contention. Catalist finished ahead of technology giants like IBM, and industry specialists like Basis and WCC, global technology companies who service the intelligence community and the defense department. The first placed winner was SRA, a 30-year-old technology company with more than 7,000 people in 50 locations around the world.
The challenge involves matching individual person names against a large database of possible names in an index file. Teams were scored based on rigorous statistical measures of precision and coverage. Catalist’s algorithms proved extremely precise, leading to its high overall score. Strong matching technologies and algorithms are essential for national security and intelligence applications, and for building high-quality data repositories gathered from disparate sources and communications channels into a single picture of people of all kinds: customers, members, donors and voters. Catalist’s powerful matching advantages underpin our ability to rapidly and accurately match data from structured databases as well as from unstructured online and social network sources. Taking second place in this nationally recognized contest is a testament to the high quality of Catalist data and matching technology.
“Competing against some of the most well respected and largest data technology companies and institutions in the country, we could not be more pleased by our performance,” said Al Dwoskin, Chairman of Catalist. “We have always believed in the quality of our data and our tools, and placing second in this challenge lets us show it to the rest of our industry.”
Catalist, a data services company based in Washington, DC, serving the progressive community. It maintains and constantly updates a complete national database of over 265 million persons in the U.S. representing 358 TB of data and provides a high volume matching service operating at over 1 billion matches per month. Catalist brings easy to use web based tools and a high quality voter database of all voting-age individuals in the United States to progressive, not-for-profit organizations, advocacy groups and campaigns.
The MITRE Challenge, run by the not-for-profit MITRE Corporation, is an annual competition open to data companies willing to participate. It is an open competition helping to encourage “innovation in technologies of interest to the federal government.” This year participants were asked to “Match a query file and an index file, each containing a list of names, against one another and produce a list of scored matches for each query name.” Multicultural name matching is a technology that is a key component of identity matching, which involves measuring the similarity of database records referring to people.
The winning participants presented their findings to at a MITRE Challenge conference in McLean, Virginia today before senior government and industry technologists. This is the first MITRE Challenge for Catalist.
Press Release — June 6th, 2011
Catalist CEO Laura Quinn on Bill Redding being named C&E Rising Star.
Washington, DC -- Catalist, a data services company serving the progressive community, today congratulates Account Executive Bill Redding, on being named a 2011 Rising Star by Campaigns and Elections magazine. Redding was honored for his years of running political programs around the country, including six months as statewide coordinated field director for the Arizona Democratic Party in 2010.
“We know what a star Bill Redding is, so it’s very exciting that the rest of the political community recognizes his work as well,” said Laura Quinn, Catalist CEO. “Bill is not only talented, he’s passionate about his work. Catalist is dedicated to serving the progressive community and Bill goes above and beyond to make sure the customers he serves, get the tools and data they need to succeed. We could not be more proud of Bill.”
As account executive, Bill works with clients including the AFL-CIO, SEIU, NEA and the Teamsters.
Bill’s political experience dates back to 2001 when he served as a Deputy Field Director to Steve Grossman’s Governor’s race. Since then he has served various capacities including AARP’s Divided We Fail Campaign, as the New Hampshire Field Director, Director of Grassroots Advocacy for the Truck Safety Coalition and Account Executive for MSHC Partners serving clients around the country.
“To be recognized by my peers for doing what I love to do, is a real honor,” said Redding. “I believe in working with the progressive community and I look forward to a long career of political activism.”
A campaigns and Elections Magazine Rising Stars award is a prestigious honor in the political world. It is awarded to political operatives age 35 and under who have a track record of achievement and the potential for greatness. Previous winners have included David Axelrod, Donna Brazile, James Carville, Alex Castellanos, and Mike Murphy.
###
Catalist maintains and constantly updates a complete national (50 States, plus the District of Columbia) database of over 265 million persons (more than 180 million registered voters and 85 million unregistered adults). Serving the progressive community, Catalist brings easy to use web based tools and a high quality voter database of all voting-age individuals in the United States to progressive organizations and campaigns.
Campaigns & Elections — June 6th, 2011
Catalist's Bill Redding named C&E Rising Star!
RollCall.com, Stuart Rothenberg — March 29th, 2011
GOP Struggles to Figure Out Voter File Future
Daily Agenda, Catalist — March 24th, 2011
Catalist Gears Up Updated Voter Files
Politico.com, Kenneth P. Vogel and Simmi Aujla — January 27th, 2011
Koch Conference Under Scrutiny
TheAtlantic.com, Marc Ambinder — October 5th, 2009
How Democrats Won the Data War in 2008
Tech President, Nancy Scola — October 6th, 2009
The Fine Art of Data Husbandry: A Look at What Catalist is Teaching Democrats
Washingtonian Magazine, Garrett M. Graff — October 2008
They Have Your Number
New York Times, Leslie Wayne — October 31st, 2008
Democrats Take Page From Their Rival’s Playbook
Bloomberg News, Chris Stern — September 18th 2008
Democrats Take Republican Database Model to Target Swing Voters
Washington Post, Chris Cillizza — August 17th 2008
Aug. 28 Has Room for Another Milestone
