Our greatest strength lies not only within the greatness of the technology we produce, but within the greatness of our people. Seriously. We pride ourselves on our team of talented, driven, entrepreneurial individuals -- each of whom is deeply committed to the organizations which we serve and advancing our progressive ideals. We also genuinely like each other, have a workplace that values work/life balance, creativity and innovation. That combination is the key to our success and makes Salsa Labs not only an excellent place to work, but a highly efficient and productive company.
Not long after April and Chris met at a bar in DC, they realized they were about to embark on a journey that would end up taking on a life of its own.
Both dogged in their belief that technology and, in particular, software-as-a-service could be a force for good in the world, mere months after meeting they set out on a mission: create an integrated solution that cause-based organizations need. Integrated, affordable, flexible software for organizing, communications, advocacy, and fundraising. And make it easy enough for anyone to use. And extensible, too.
April and Chris were both veterans of the dot-com boom/bust and the entrepreneurial spirit came naturally. April's background in the online political space (SpeakOut.com, Policy.com - both defunct) and as a nonprofit advocacy professional and Chris' background in the software development space (commercially and for the Library of Congress) made them a natural fit to embark on such an endeavor.
April is the co-founder and President of Salsa Labs, the provider of the popular online organizing platform, Salsa. Its formation was preceded by DemocracyInAction.org, a nonprofit organization April co-founded in 2004 to make organizing, fundraising, and advocacy technology accessible to small and mid-sized nonprofits to advance social, political, and environmental causes. She currently serves as DIA's Executive Director. Under April's leadership, the organization has grown to be a key player in the online engagement service industry and is confirming in practice that the resources leveraged in its operations are capable of bringing decisive force to the social movements they support. Prior to founding DIA and Salsa Labs, April worked in the technology start-up and nonprofit sectors as an online campaign strategist, writer, organizer, and social entrepreneur for 12 years. She started her career at the intersection of technology and civic engagement at Policy.com, VoxCap.com, IntellectualCapital.com, and then SpeakOut.com (all now defunct). She launched several new innovative projects for organizing online, created vibrant online communities, and managed online communications and grassroots lobbying for a coalition of 20 national environmental advocacy organizations. April is a devoted human rights and social justice advocate. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of CIVIC, an organization that seeks to mitigate the impact of the war and its aftermath by ensuring that timely and effective assistance is provided to victims of conflict. April is a graduate of Friends World/Global College of Long Island University and has lived and worked in several countries in Latin America and Morocco.
Chris is the co-founder and CEO of Salsa Labs and the chief creator and architect behind the online organizing platform, Salsa. Prior to founding Salsa Labs, Chris served as the CTO of DemocracyInAction.org, a nonprofit he helped create in 2004. Since then, he has been chiefly responsible for the technical direction and management of Salsa, bringing visionary thinking to software development, creating SalsaScript, and keeping the SaaS platform far ahead of the curve. Prior to his first stint in entrepreneurship, he spent nearly a decade in the software industry. Chris has managed teams developing software for the Library of Congress, worked with the Department of the Navy to develop satellite communications software, and consulted for Accenture developing telecom Internet solutions. Prior to that, he produced internet solutions for the financial and entertainment sectors as Director of Applications at Opion, Inc. He speaks regularly on technical innovation in the nonprofit and political space. A strong open source advocate, Lundberg is pretty sure that access to organizing technology is the only thing keeping the winged monkeys at bay. He sits on the board of Open Source for America and holds degrees in Mathematics and Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Bill brings more than 20 years experience building successful software companies, including Vocus, CareerBuilder, and Best Software, Inc. He is leading the effort on Salsa Labs' continued growth and expansion, while providing the industry's most innovative on-demand software solutions at the lowest price to all organizations, large and small.
Prior to joining Salsa Labs, Donnelly served as President and COO of Fishbowl, a leading provider of web-based software solutions to the Restaurant Industry. He has served as a senior vice president for Vocus, a SaaS provider that launched its successful initial public offering (IPO) in 2005. Prior to Vocus, he was vice president of Sales and Customer Care at CareerBuilder, where he led a team of 275 and helped direct the company to an industry leading position as the fastest growing internet-based recruiting service. Before CareerBuilder, he was senior vice president of sales and business development for Best Software, where he helped guide the company through several years of sustained sales growth, a successful IPO in 1997, and its acquisition in 2000 by Sage Group.
This Jersey girl graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, moved to Washington DC upon discovering the vibrant, accessible theater community that was developing here. After many happy years working for a number of theater companies designing, painting, constructing sets, Jordana learned the hard way that her body needed her to move on to less taxing work. Since then she has wandered aimlessly through the job market gaining experience, knowledge but not much satisfaction. She is thrilled to be welcomed as part of the Salsa family and looks forward to adding to their success.
Julia is an advocate for progressive politics and social justice. Originally from Ann Arbor, MI, Julia graduated from Rice University with a B.A. in political science and history. Before coming to Salsa Labs, she worked at the political communications firm Mack | Crounse Group and staffed crisis intervention hotlines at both the Houston Area Women's Center and Texas Protective Services. In addition to her work as a Sales Associate at Salsa Labs, Julia loves exploring DC and rooting for the Michigan Wolverines.
Hilary is a DC native though was thisclose to becoming a full-fledged west-coaster after graduating from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. (Go Geoducks!) She decided to trade 9 months of rain for 12 months of being closer to her family and is pretty sure she made the right call. In her free time Hilary enjoys consuming very strong black coffee, reading, trying new restaurants, DIY house projects, and writing letters that require actual postage. Hilary cheers for the Yankees, adores very high heels, her friends, traveling and her hilarious husband.
Chelsea has a couple degrees in Music and Sociology from Viterbo University of La Crosse, Wisconsin. With a stated ambition to become a rock star and the President, her interests in nonprofits and progressive causes led her to DIA as an intern in 2004, where she answered many a phone call and "transferred calls to the marketing department" by throwing the phone across the room to Jason. Chelsea then worked at an Alzheimer's home and completed her senior project on the evils of technology before DIA hired her in 2006. After a crash course on the point of the internet, Chelsea dove into tech support and has learned at least one new thing every day since. She's supported Salsa since it was a funny little Tomato, and Salsa has supported her, from baby showers to cross-country moves. Chelsea now lives at the end of a dead end dirt road in rural Wisconsin with her husband and her tiny and awesome son.
Nick was born in Minnesota and has moved so many times people assume his parents were in the Military (which is not the case). Working in the support industry for around 8 years, he has worked both sides of the spectrum - for a video game company and also for an online Army surplus store. Recently back to Austin - and here to stay - Nick has joined the Salsa Labs team as a Support Specialist. In his free time you can find him working on film shorts or out being social at one of the many local Austin eateries/bars.
Silona created the grid.org open source community where she developed novel concepts to handle bugtracking issues across FOSS platforms and created a trail-blazing user agreement, both of which she presented on at OSCON and GRID computing conference. She also helped the U.S. Federal CIO define the open data standard liaison position.
She ran one of the first codeathons in '05-'06, the purpose of which was to create open source software for nonprofit organizations. She has since run many codeathons, barcamp.orgs, and transparency camps, including the first crisiscommons.org. She attended the second-ever barcamp.org, as well as foocamp in 2008.
Silona has been on the Board of Directors for EFF-Austin and the Texas Association of Non-Profit Organizations (TANO.org). She helped create a certification course for nonprofit executive directors in Texas that has been copied by other states. She also founded a nonprofit called Assistorg.org to help guide other nonprofits in the use of open-source technology to reach their goals. In a short period of time, Assistorg.org helped six nonprofits design and launch their technology and community platforms.
John serves as our Business Development Executive with Salsa, connecting progressive nonprofits, political campaigns and other organizations with the Salsa toolset. John's been working with technology and communications for years, and has a passion for progressive politics, new media, and online strategy. Previously working as New Media Communications Manager for the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), John has served as a speaker for conferences and panels and has hosted and emceed numerous events. John is currently a Partner with the Truman National Security Project, assisting with communications and training, and the Finance Director of the DC Chapter of the New Leaders Council.
Jonathan, nicknamed 'J5' after either Johnny 5 from the movie Short Circuit, the band Jurassic 5 or his skills in Java5script, comes to Salsa most recently from the interactive agency space. Passionate about progressive values on the interpersonal level as well as his programming craft, J5 is now finally able to combine these drives in service of organizations and people seeking to connect with each other on a broader and deeper level. The ultimate goal for him is to provide tools and processes that work with the user, helping them achieve higher objectives and expand the horizon from which they operate.
James grew up in the wilds of rural Ozark, Alabama. But he's now pretty good at eating with utensils. After a brief year exploring China, he decided to put his somewhat sketchy Chinese skills to use as a translator for the U.S. Air Force. Having persevered through some tough assignments in Hawaii and NorCal, he left the military and later moved into the non-profit world working with injured veterans. Along the way he re-discovered a long buried interest in technology, which led him into the warm and loving arms of Salsa Labs.
Sam has moved around a lot but is more or less a Californian at heart, though over the last five years the DC metro area has grown on him. He's been programming since the age of 5, and obsessed with politics for almost that long. When not working on making Salsa a stable, cutting-edge platform for organizing, he is moving forward on his goal of becoming good at everything and moving to Australia, and raising his new (adorable) baby.
Jessica is from Rockville, Maryland. Prior to working at Salsa, Jessica has traveled around the country working in various different campaigns for the past 6 years. Most recently she worked in Washington State helping to re-elect Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Rick Larsen. In her spare time she plays in punk band, and is training for a marathon.
Yonathan has 10+ year of experience building tools for nonprofits. Prior to joining Salsa Labs, he worked with Greenpeace USA as the lead application/web developer. He has worked with Greenpeace International as part of the system development team that has underscored today's globally distributed working environment. Prior to that, he worked with Essential Information building affordable database driven tools for nonprofits.
Hailing from the great state of New York, Molly found her way home to Austin with a brief stint in Philadelphia along the way. She graduated from Iona College with a BBA and an MBA and began working with Salsa after consulting with nonprofits on their events, email and fundraising campaigns. She enjoys yoga, traveling, and practicing her rad-ass Tina Turner impression.
Dave's team is responsible for all client-facing support of Salsa Labs products, including phone and email support, hourly services, setup, webinars, training, documentation, community, and communications.
Dave has extensive experience with online communities and project development as well as a wide-ranging technical background. He was formerly the Director of Training and Community at Blue State Digital. There, he started the Analytics Department, and before that he was BSD's liaison and main support channel to Obama for America during the 2008 presidential campaign. Previously, he was vice president of a Web consulting firm that helped universities and small cities create online communities. He has also served as an assistant to the Vice President for IT at the University of Oklahoma, and as director of online communities there and at William & Mary.
Dave is an active Northern Virginia Democrat and is very active in Virginia politics. He was a head volunteer organizer for the Webb for Senate campaign, is the Tech Director for Arlington Democrats and a communications and tech advisor to several local and state campaigns, and continues to spearhead volunteer organization efforts in Virginia. He holds a B.S. in physics, computer science, and mathematics from William & Mary, and a M.S. in physics from the University of Washington.
Allen is a life-long resident of Texas, or "Heaven" as it is known there. After getting his degree from the University of Texas, Arlington (hook 'em Horns!), Allen worked for high-tech and early-stage startups as a technical resource, or "gofer" as it is known there. Allen spends his spare time riding his bike, chasing after the cutest granddaughter on the planet, or reading webcomics. Allen's bike is green, his granddaughter will get into Harvard as soon as she can talk, and his webcomic habit is about 200 a day.
Prior to joining DemocracyInAction, Lacey was Media Partnerships Manager at Sunlight Foundation, Office Manager at the New Organizing Institute, a Staffing Manager at Robert Half International (Fortune 500, NYSE: RHI), Marketing Coordinator at Surgical Monitoring Associates, and served as the Assistant to the Communications Director/Press Secretary for the State of Florida's Attorney General. Currently Maffettone is also a Fellow in the DC Chapter of the New Leaders Council and a contributing writer for multiple online women's magazines. Lacey graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Social Science with an emphasis in Political Science and Sociology, and a minor in Communications and Event Management. Originally from Lake Jackson, TX - Lacey Maffettone currently resides in Washington, DC.
The least spoiled only child in history, Shannon is a born and raised Chicagoan (go White Sox!) who doesn’t get the hullabaloo about D.C. weather. Although she majored in Reading and Writing (Anthropology and History) in college, she fell in love with international relations while studying abroad in Italy and seeing the fallout of a friendly fire incident between the US and Italy in Afghanistan. Since then, she spent time at the European Parliament, World Policy Institute, and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. After incurring a lot of debt by getting her M.A. in Diplomacy and International Relations and unable to get a job, she got involved in the Illinois Senate race (which is where she taught herself how to use Salsa), eventually becoming the campaign's New Media Manager. She was also, briefly, the Communications Director for a city council race.
Chris Moore grew up in New Jersey where he became an avid Devils fan at an early age. He came to the DC area to study Computer Science at George Mason University. Chris began his political career at Catalist where he was the database administrator. In 2010, he packed his bags and moved to Denver, CO to manage data and targeting on Michael Bennet's election to the US Senate. In early 2011, Chris joined Salsa Labs as a Systems Administrator. In his free time, Chris enjoys watching (and occasionally playing) hockey and hanging out with his dog - Gus.
Russell has been programming computers since the tender age of 7, and has been interested in non-profit and public-sector work for about as long. A bit of a technomad during the 90s, he's called Austin home since 2002 and he's decided to stay put. He and his lovely wife have put down roots and are raising two fierce, hilarious children there.
As Chief Operating Officer, Justin is responsible for organizing, structuring, and aligning Salsa Labs for rapid and efficient scaling and to maximize efficiencies to increase margins. He also serves as a steward for Salsa's current as well as new markets. Justin has been involved in and working with founders Chris Lundberg and April Pedersen since the early days of DemocracyInAction.org by providing systems assistance. He went on to work at a Government agency, which prepared him for 6 years at Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading open source company. While serving in many different leadership positions, he helped rapidly grow the Government subscription and services businesses to levels that routinely surpassed expectations. At Red Hat, Justin was able to hone his technical skills while simultaneously gaining considerable expertise in various aspects of organizational efficiency, rapid growth culture and dynamics, finance, sales, and operations. He enthusiastically and officially joined Salsa Labs in April of 2010. In his spare time, Justin is an avid mountain biker, skier, and even occasionally runs when not chased. In the fall, there are few things that can pry him away from Hokie football.
With more than 15 years of experience in design, development and product strategy, Charles returns to DC after a lengthy stay in the Midwest. While there he worked for a private liberal arts college making the transition to web-based registration and academic support and helped education and creative arts non-profit groups find their voice in technology. Just prior to joining Salsa Labs he guided development of a suite of products serving media companies as Vice President of Products & User Experience at Broadcast Interactive Media.
Charles is also a co-founder of Jumptown, a non-profit created in 1999 to promote and preserve authentic swing dancing in the Great Lakes region. He is an voracious reader, loves useless trivia and trying to violate the exclusion principle and is a proud defender of gingers. He studied at the University of Wisconsin and has been known to be a "poor winner" during football season.
Jake Patoski is a native Austinite who wanted to expand his horizons by attending American University in Washington, DC. After graduating, he cut his teeth at the National Democractic Institute, implementing information and communications technology programs for democracy development, while working in the field in Jordan, Ghana, and Sudan. Three years later, he stayed in the online world but switched to fundraising and advocacy campaigns with M+R Strategic Services, where he first worked with the SalsaLabs software suite. But Texas came calling, and in late 2010, he nailed a "GTT" sign to his door and moved to Austin with his girlfriend Carley. SalsaLabs was right behind him and - having put in plenty of requests to Salsa support specialists at M+R - Jake decided to taste some of his own medicine and become a support specialist himself. (The medicine tastes like salsa, and it is yummy!) In his free time, Jake likes to cook great vegetarian and vegan meals, skip rocks, and obsess about University of Texas football.
Anupama grew up in Bel Air, Maryland and graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in computer science. She has been lucky so far to be able to work in technology for good causes at the DNC, Ben Cardin for Senate, and Catalist, and is thrilled to join Salsa. She hopes to increase her nerdliness at Salsa Labs and also to use the rest of the staff as a test-audience for stand-up comedy, which she performs at open mics (and the very occasional paid gig) all over DC and Northern VA. She has been a vocal Democrat since age four but delved into activism only after watching Howard Dean's stump speeches on CSPAN during a very unemployed and nocturnal time in her life. When she's not doing anything else, she's usually cooking, baking, practicing her Telugu, or playing with babies. Her top five movies are The Princess Bride, Ghostbusters, Star Trek IV, Bridget Jones's Diary, and High Fidelity.
With no apparent concern for the future, Lin graduated Coe College with degrees in Philosophy and Religion. This, despite secretly wanting to be a economist. He then did the graduate school thing for a short period at the University of Illinois in Political Science, despite not-so-secretly wanting to be a mathematician. Inspired by his roommate, who had moved out and gave away everything he owned to work in politics, Lin left Illinois with three bags and a belief that technology was his future. Fifteen months and four thousand miles later, Lin now resides in Washington, D.C., where he works as a Quality Assurance Engineer.
A Midwesterner at heart, Eric was born and raised in suburban Michigan. He received his BA at University of Michigan before departing for the East Coast. Before coming to DC, Eric spent three years working for the UN Refugee Agency in Central America managing economic development projects for Colombian refugees. He received his MA in International Development from American University. In addition to his work as an Account Manager with Salsa Labs, Eric is a performance artist, painter, and salsa dancer extraordinaire.
Jeanette (Jnet) has been a leader in the nonprofit field for the past 15 years and brings extensive knowledge of grassroots organizing, fundraising and non-profit management. Prior to DemocracyInAction, Jnet co-founded the National Forest Protection Alliance, where she organized thousands of activists to protect public lands. As pioneer for change, she formed a 501 Tech Club and serves as the Co-director to Montana's New Leadership Council where she's lives.
Brett Schenker has been involved with politics, technology, and databases since his first foray as an intern over a decade ago. Originally hailing from Buffalo, New York, he has served as a legislative staffer for the Erie County Legislature and eventually moved to Galesburg, Illinois where he helped coordinate state and local races in two counties as a field organizer. Brett moved to Arlington, Virginia in 2003 to serve as a Special Assistant to Senator John Kerry working on Capitol Hill. He joined Mark Warner's Forward Together PAC in June of 2005 as it's Database Administrator coordinating the use of corporate solutions to solve political database needs. He went on to found 5B Consulting which focuses on new media strategy, technology policy and database solutions. Brett was brought on board as part of the Chris Dodd for President technology and internet team as the Database Administrator and his role quickly expanded to managing the various social networks as well as introducing new technology to the campaign such as UStream.tv. He followed that up as the Internet/Database Director for Virginians for Brian Moran and acts as the Online Advocacy Manager for the Entertainment Consumers Association. Brett holds a degree in Political Science from the University at Buffalo. He is involved with the SUNY Washington Internship program, acting as a speaker and mentor to its students and has served on the Parature Inc. Technology Advisory Board.
After graduating from University of Nebraska -- Lincoln, Christopher briefly pursued a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Illinois, until he decided Aerospace Engineering would be more entertaining. Making what he described as a "lateral move off a cliff," he dropped out of grad school to pursue a B.S. in rocket science at UIUC. After a long night of ... let's call it "deliberation," he realized he'd rather be a campaign junkie. He packed his clothes in his trusty (and spacious!) Pontiac Vibe, told his roommate to give away everything he owned, and left in the middle of the night for Omaha, Nebraska. There he became a field organizer for then-Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign, helping win, by a margin of 3,325 votes, the split electoral vote of Nebraska's Second Congressional District. Christopher comes to Salsa Labs via a variety of other political campaigns and advocacy organizations. He is a field operative, a GOTV addict, and doesn't own anything he can't fit in his car.
When Alli was an undergraduate in the English department she worked part time in the university's computer lab. She had no idea this technology stuff would eventually become her career. In 2008, Alli co-founded the nonprofit organization HACDC, which seeks to "improve the world by creatively rethinking technology." Alli has worked for two colleges and most recently as a contractor for the House of Representatives. Alli still enjoys reading doorstop-sized books that were written over fifty years ago.
Chris Vaughn is a seasoned development pro with a knack for technology. Prior to joining Salsa Labs, Chris was associate development director for The Wetlands Initiative, a mid-sized environmental nonprofit in Chicago. There he helped secure over $1 million in grant funds for environmental restoration and research projects. Before The Wetlands Initiative, Chris managed grants for his native State of Texas. In addition to development, Chris let out some creative energy as a freelance web designer—building and maintaining websites for nonprofits. He holds an M.A. in social sciences from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in government and philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. He also is a diehard Longhorn, Hook 'Em!
Prior to joining Salsa Labs, Dawn was born and raised in Wisconsin (look out, the midwesterners are taking over!). She attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and received her B.A. in Graphic Design there. After fourteen+ years working at a large specialty printing company, Serigraph Inc., as well as freelance designing, Dawn and her family will be moving cross-country to northern Virginia for the next chapter in their lives. When she is not designing, Dawn is raising her 2 minions boys with her husband, as well as knitting, camping and reading.
Matt loves politics and technology. As the Accounts Director for Salsa Labs, Matt runs business development, sales, and account management. Previously, Matt led the nonprofit and political sector at Mobile Commons, where he directed the mobile marketing startup's early growth efforts. Prior to joining Mobile Commons, Matt built partner programs at Convio and GetActive Software that introduced innovative technologies and leading consulting firms into the companies' partner communities. After graduating from the University of Virginia with a BA in Classics, Matt worked throughout the country on four presidential campaigns. He now lives in San Francisco.
Perry's roughly split his life between Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Michigan (where he received his B.Sc.E in Computer Engineering and MSI specializing in Human-Computer Interaction and Information Economics, Management, & Policy). He's obsessed with usability, interaction design, and Michigan football. And sometimes he issues challenges with coworkers without conducting proper feasibility research.
Jason comes to Salsa Labs with, in his words, "the zeal of the converted." Working with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty - a Salsa client - he was able to see firsthand how much our services can mean to a nonprofit organization. He spent over five years with NCADP as Director of Development (with a five-month turn as Interim Executive Director), securing the largest grants in the organization's history while more than doubling its grassroots membership. He also created the Coalition's email newsletter and online advocacy programs. Jason is one of the lead writers for Salsa's blog and also owns the historical blog executedtoday.com. He holds a Political Science degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR.
Paxton joined the Salsa team in 2007 as the first office Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He's brought hours of endless enjoyment to the entire team. Peanut is the newest resident at the Salsa Labs office. Peanut came to us from PAWS rescue of Northern Virginia after having spent several of his early years locked up in a puppy mill. He thinks the office suits him much better. Click here to help put an end to puppy mills.
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