Right now, it’s almost impossible to vote informed on the entire ballot - as a result, most voters guess, leave blanks, or stay home altogether. We believe that it’s critical to our democracy to help every voter cast an informed vote on every race, every election. That’s why we started BallotReady - a startup that creates digital nonpartisan voter guides and builds tools to help advocacy groups, nonprofits, and companies inform and mobilize voters, powered by the most comprehensive database to every level of government. Founded in 2015 with funding from the National Science Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and the University of Chicago, BallotReady is an award-winning Chicago startup available nationwide. In 2020, we worked with organizations and brands, including Snapchat, Tiktok, Spotify, and the Miami Heat to inform and turn out over 35 million voters. Now, we’re focused on upcoming elections in 2021 as well as thinking about how we empower communities to take effective action year-round on the issues they care about.
BallotReady is a totally remote workspace for the foreseeable future. Despite that, we still have random one-on-ones via Donut to help get to know each other and monthly all-hands meetings with a fun activity. We're voter-first and all our decision-making processes revolve around that. Since the American electorate is diverse, we have to be too in order to serve all voters the best we can.