Case Study: Randy Rowse wins Santa Barbara mayoral race with NationBuilder

Randy Rowse wins 39% of the vote to become Santa Barbara’s new Mayor

Randy Rowse, a long-time community member and former city councilmember, sought to run a grassroots campaign for mayor of Santa Barbara. His challenge was to launch a successful mayoral bid with a small team, requiring a way to efficiently manage fundraising, supporter outreach, and volunteer coordination. To accomplish this, his campaign used the NationBuilder platform to unify all of these operations.

Using NationBuilder, the campaign centralized its efforts, launching donation pages that automatically captured supporter data and streamlining email communication. The platform’s features, like custom filtering and tags, helped them organize their growing base of volunteers and target event invitations effectively. As a result, the Randy Rowse campaign raised over $300,000—the most of any candidate—and successfully won the election with 39% of the vote, nearly double that of the next closest candidate. NationBuilder was crucial to managing the campaign's operations and securing this victory.

Randy Rowse

Nathaniel Grotenhuis

Campaign Manager