You might’ve seen Bradley Tusk’s monthly columns in the New York Daily News or his appearances on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” The political-strategist-turned-venture-capitalist was once brought in by Uber to help run the successful early 2010s campaign that legalized the rideshare platform across the U.S. through mass digital lobbying of politicians. And now, he’s out with a new book, “Vote with Your Phone: Why Mobile Voting is Our Final Shot at Saving Democracy.”
But Tusk isn’t just out there opining – he’s actually putting forward philanthropic cash. He has committed a total of $20 million to his Tusk Philanthropies’ Mobile Voting Project, tapping a team of cybersecurity experts to develop new technology with the aim of enabling all Americans to vote securely from their phones.
Tusk’s big bet is that mobile voting could dramatically increase turnout and reduce extremism in our politics. IP recently caught up with him to find out more about how he came to philanthropy after many years in politics, some of his early work in voting and hunger using both 501(c)(3) funding and other tools, and where he sees his philanthropic bets paying off.
Early days in politics
A New York native, Tusk graduated from UPenn and then received his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1999. He says he was attracted to politics and government because those avenues would give him the opportunity to affect people on the biggest possible scale. “I just never wanted to have a regular life,” Tusk said.
In college, he worked for the mayor of Philadelphia. By the aughts, he was the campaign manager for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s successful 2009 re-election bid, then communications director for U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, and deputy governor of Illinois.
As a 29-year old New York native punching above his weight in Illinois politics, he says he “didn’t really care who he made mad.” The naivety of youth, he said, opened up space for him to go after things that many told him couldn’t happen, like universal healthcare for children. “It didn’t occur to me that you couldn’t do it. So that was kind of my perspective, for better or worse,” Tusk said.
Tusk’s firm also worked with the Rockefeller Foundation, allowing him to gain some experience with a major grantmaker. “Philanthropy, to me, has the ability to operate without some of the politics and restrictions of government,” Tusk said.
A mix of for-profit, nonprofit and public-sector experiences led Tusk to the revelation that when you meld philanthropy and politics, that’s when you get the most tangible results. The question then became how he was going to take the best of both worlds and meld them together.
Getting Tusk Philanthropies off the ground and backing mobile voting
Tusk Holdings, based in Manhattan, is the umbrella organization for the many projects Tusk works on today, including Tusk Venture Partners, which invests in early-stage technology companies, and Tusk Strategies, which engages in the political strategy work Tusk has long been known for.
Tusk Philanthropies also works under the Tusk Holdings umbrella and got off the ground in 2017 when Tusk felt he actually had some real money to contribute to this next chapter. Like other hybrid philanthropic entities that are all the vogue these days among well-heeled movers and shakers in the sector, Tusk Philanthropies funds both in the 501(c)(3) bucket, handling mobilization and amplification, and 501(c)(4), to back lobbying activities. While it does offer grants, it also engages in other activities like directly paying for lobbyists, PR firms and advertisements.
Tusk Philanthropies is squarely focused in two areas: mobile voting and solving hunger. It launched the Mobile Voting Project to carry out its aim of ensuring all eligible voters in the U.S. can participate in the democratic process. “It really is about changing the entire system itself and taking everything I learned in politics and everything I learned in tech.” Tusk said. “When we live in the world of gerrymandering, the only elections that really matter are primaries. And primary turnouts – [it’s only] 10 to 15 percent – who’s that? That’s the far right. That’s the far left. That’s special interests.”
Channeling his Uber days, Tusk recalled when the burgeoning app took on the taxi industry, including the mighty Taxi & Limousine Commission in New York. What he learned is that he was able to get millions of his customers to advocate for an app they found value in, by tweeting, texting, emailing and calling their local elected officials. Tusk hopes to bring this same strategy to voting.
Initially, Tusk Philanthropies worked with various companies that created their own mobile voting platforms. These pilots were mostly limited to voters with disabilities or in the military community. The feedback from election officials was that pilots couldn’t be expanded to more voters unless new technology was developed — meaning it would need to be more secure, end-to-end verifiable, accessible, and open source. These companies couldn’t provide that tech, so Tusk committed $10 million to develop a new platform, VoteHub, which is not yet public and is currently undergoing user testing and security analysis.
This is the app that Tusk aims to share with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and release to election officials and the public next year. The plan is for it to be available for free and to be open-source so that any government or jurisdiction can use it.
Not everyone is as bullish as Tusk about mobile voting, however. Some critics, including computer scientist David Dill of Verified Voting Foundation, as well as some in the cybersecurity community, have expressed worries that any internet-based voting system would be vulnerable to manipulation, including by hackers.
But Tusk told me that his new technology addresses all of the concerns from the cybersecurity community. His hope is that within a span of a decade, mobile voting would become legal all around the country. That’s a tough ask, of course, considering the fact that politicians and officials in many states are actively seeking to make it harder, not easier, to vote. But Tusk is undeterred. “To me, that’s the only chance we have of moving our politics back to the middle and getting things done,” Tusk said.
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Tackling hunger and looking ahead
Mobile voting isn’t Tusk’s only funding interest — tackling hunger has always been a priority. He says he grew up humbly and didn’t make a lot of money during his early days in government. But when he launched his first company, he started writing checks for local food banks. Though impressed with their work and passion, he felt they were at a big disadvantage because they didn’t have the resources of an effective political campaign.
Tusk started to ask what might happen if a hunger campaign had the same resources as a McDonalds or Walmart campaign. “What if political professionals who worked for me and ran those campaigns, were running hunger campaigns? Could you succeed?” Tusk asked. “The answer is generally yes. We’re running at a 75% success rate.”
Tusk Philanthropies’ Solving Hunger has partnered with organizations including Hunger Free Vermont, Feeding New York State, End Hunger Connecticut, and the North Carolina Alliance for Health.
Tusk himself also likes to work hands-on, and says he has the ability to do what most nonprofits can’t because he’s not afraid of upsetting the political powers that be. He recalled a recent battle in New York with Governor Kathy Hochul to unlock more money for public school meals. Initially, the state government offered to provide $20 million more in meals, according to Tusk. But Tusk’s team was looking for quite a bit more — $280 million. So he posted mobile billboards all around Albany until, according to him, eventually the government came back with a new offer.
“They got so sick of it, we settled at about $140 million and about 300,000 kids got school breakfast and lunch who hadn’t gotten it the year before,” Tusk said.
Occasionally, Tusk will find another cause outside voting and hunger that catches his eye — he spoke about a recent foray to pass legislation to end broker fees for rental apartments. But ultimately, hunger and voting are his wheelhouse. He eventually wants to help pass universal school meals in all 50 states.
“I think it’s just insane to live in a civilized world where children go hungry. We are the richest society in the history of the world,” Tusk said. “We have the most abundance of any society ever, and yet still, kids don’t have enough food to eat. I don’t understand how we live like that.”
