What do Marilu Henner, Ryan Zimmerman and the CCAH team have in common?

If you guessed that we will all be at the 2022 Changemakers Unite Bridge Conference at the Gaylord National Hotel & Conference Center happening between July 27 and 29… You’re right!

To celebrate returning to in person conferences and our new partnership with MissionWired, CCAH will have a booth in the Changemakers Unite Exhibit Hall. Please come by booth 113 and see us!

In addition, you can see Mia Mack of CCAH and Sarah Raffurty of the International African American Museum for their session at 8:15am on Thursday. They’ll share the rare experience of building a diverse museum membership program from the ground up (literally and figuratively). Sarah and Mia will share strategies, tips, tricks and challenges they overcame to create a national, omnichannel direct response program with tens of thousands of newly acquired members generating millions of dollars in less than a year. From budgeting with minimal data, to new audience acquisition and messaging, to omnichannel fundraising, marketing and branding integration, attendees will come away with best practices and new insights to test out.

Then don’t miss Brenna Holmes (CCAH), Jennifer Ingram (Wiland) and Jen Walsh (WJC) presenting at 4pm on Thursday about successful Omni-Channel campaigns with co-op data. If how to meet your fundraising goals in light of privacy changes with iOS and the depreciation of third-party cookies has you losing sleep at night, don’t panic! First party data from cooperative databases can expand your fundraising beyond the mailbox into display, social, email, P2P and connected TV. It can also help diversify your donor file by finding new audiences you haven’t found before. They will share how WJC and other clients went from fundraising in different channels to a truly omnichannel, donor-centric program that increased revenue for ALL channels.

CCAH will have many staff attending the conference, and we are all excited to reconnect with our industry partners and share the new techniques and innovations we’ve been working on. Find us in various sessions and at Booth 113 in the Changemakers Unite Exhibit Hall throughout the conference.

The Inspirational Women of CCAH

The first Women’s History Month was established by Congress in March of 1987, and every year since, people have used this month to reflect on the invaluable contributions made by women. At CCAH, we are lucky to work with some incredible women who are leading the way in the direct response industry and helping our clients achieve their goals and make real and lasting impacts.

CCAH is woman-owned, and 66% of our partners and 57% of our employees identify as women. We have women in every department, and women are integral drivers of strategy and our company’s future. For Women’s History Month, we asked CCAHers to nominate the women who inspire them day in and day out to be the best that they can be. 

Kim Cubine, our president, is the fearless leader at CCAH. Before starting here, her work in the political sphere helped shape our country, and at CCAH, that passion has not lessened. With Kim Cubine at the helm, we helped raise more than $166 million for the Biden Harris campaign, more than $50 million dollars to retake the senate, and more than $15.6 million to elect more democrats (especially women and people of color) to the House of Representatives and state offices around the nation. Kim Cubine is a positive force in our office, inspiring everyone day in and out. As she explains, “When I graduated from college, in my state there were specific jobs for women, and politics weren’t one of them. But that’s what I was always really interested in, so I moved to DC to pursue that dream. And here I am today.”

Brenna Holmes, partner and Senior Vice President of Digital Services, is known for her ability to wear many hats at once, and all flawlessly. From managing our social media channels and representing us at conferences and in interviews to heading both digital services on the account side and the digital production side, Brenna is an all-around digital powerhouse! Brenna is always doing what she can to keep CCAH on the cutting edge, and as one employee said, she’s “helping our clients make history by looking to the future, all with a spirit that cannot be denied. With Brenna in your corner, you know you can take on the world and make it a better place.”

Meg Kross Lee

Meg K-L, or MKL to many, is a Vice President and a data crunching genius! Our Fundraising Analytics team is capable of delving into the nuances of even the most difficult to untangle data questions, and Meg is an integral part of their success. Her coworker says “Meg has a difficult to replicate way of thinking through all facets of a problem or question because before she transitioned to our analytics team she worked at nonprofits and on the client services side of things here at CCAH. That diversity of experience makes her such a valuable part of the CCAH team.”

Katie Seger

Katie S is a Vice President of Client Services, and she is able to run incredibly successful direct mail campaigns for her clients while also leading the team in charge of our socials and spirit week events! While she has planned many events, everyone loves her unique spin on trivia—where she finds any random trivia that interests her, and the answers on her paper are the only ones accepted. A coworker says, “Upon meeting her, it was immediately obvious how someone so young has done so well at the company. There is no one more organized, excitable, and down to earth. Every day she manages to bring energy, life, and zest to each meeting. She has the greatest sense of humor and I am consistently impressed at how she manages to add character and fun to our days all while maintaining the utmost professionalism.”

Ana M was CCAH’s first female web developer! Ana joined the firm out of college, honing her skills first as an Account Representative, working alongside the web dev team to create exciting campaigns and innovative user experiences for clients. Her curiosity and eagerness to learn about the code that powers landing pages and emails made her a prime candidate to develop those skills and make a move to work on the production side. While no longer the only woman on this small but mighty team, Ana is known for her great work ethic and speedy turn times. One coworker says “She is intuitive and knows what questions to ask before we even do. She is a problem solver, finding solutions that work best for the production team, account teams, and the clients. She’s brilliant, incredibly talented, and is pretty much a jack of all trades after starting on the account side. Plus, she loves Gritty (the hockey mascot), which brings a lot of fun to calls when you see a photo in the background!”

If you’ve been following our social media channels, you won’t need an introduction to these two inspirational ladies! Jessica W, from our production department, and Mia M, an Account Executive in our Direct Mail department, were two of our first nominated women this month. Their infectious positive energy and team spirit ensures that everyone that comes into contact with them leaves with a smile on their face. Both ladies are incredible artists in their own right—Jessica’s art is in mixed media work, acrylic paints, rubber stamps, and mail art, and Mia is a crafting and party planning extraordinaire! If you missed it, check out @CCAHDirect to see some of their awesome work!

These incredible women only scratch the surface of the amazing women of CCAH. Accomplished women head our Print Production, Digital Advertising, and Fundraising Analytics departments, are Creative Directors, writers, account leads, coordinators, list planners, graphic designers, and so much more! We are so lucky to work with such dedicated people fighting to make the world a better place every day.

Brenna Holmes Selected for DMAW Board

We are very proud to announce our partner & SVP Brenna Holmes has been elected to the 2021-2022 DMAW Board of Directors. The Direct Marketing Association of Washington provides education, networking, and professional development programs to help foster a vibrant, growing, supportive, and informed direct response fundraising and marketing community.

At CCAH, Brenna became a partner this year, teaches in our “MBA” continuing education program for our staff members, and regularly speaks at conferences to help share what she’s learned with our larger direct response community.

In her eleven years here, she built our digital program from the ground up, and we know that with a position on the DMAW Board, she will bring the same energy and enthusiasm to helping shape the future of their educational programing.

Brenna is dedicated to bringing more multimedia, data savvy, and technical content to complement the already exceptional marketing and creative-based trainings that DMAW offers to its members. We could not be more proud and excited for Brenna in her newest endeavor in joining the DMAW Board, and we are excited to continue to have her expertise and dedication here at CCAH. Congratulations to Brenna Holmes!

Katie in front of our chalkboard that reads 'welcome to CCAH spirit week'

We’ve Got (Virtual) Spirit!

Each September we have CCAH’s annual spirit week, but this year, spirit week went virtual! This fun-filled employee appreciation week included a lunch hour at the Charlie Hides Funhouse, a team-vs.-team MadLib competition, and our annual award ceremony (this year held over Zoom).

Each day had its own treats and surprises in addition to our weeklong Guess Who game, where employees were challenged to match fun facts with new staff, and the correct answers were revealed at our Thursday happy hour … it was such a fun way to get to know our fellow coworkers!

Monday

CCAH was closed for Labor Day, but we could hardly wait to return to the (home) office to kick off the spirit week festivities.

Katie in front of our chalkboard that reads 'welcome to CCAH spirit week'

Tuesday

It was Mad Lib day! This fun team-vs.-team competition encouraged people to think outside the box as they completed a CCAH-themed MadLib! Teams worked together to come up with the zaniest nouns, adjectives, and verbs they could to impress the judges with their creativity. We also kicked off our New Staff Guess Who game, where everyone worked to match fun facts with the employee who has done it. With facts ranging from a fear of frogs to a world-class ranking on Pokémon Go, to speaking about fundraising on six continents; we’ve certainly hired some pretty interesting people during the pandemic!

Wednesday

For our lunch hour, we brought back Charlie Hides with a brand new gameshow: Charlie’s Funhouse! Staff members went head to head to win fun prizes in a variety of games: the Price is Right (but only with UK food items with interesting names), Name that Tune, and the Masked Celebrity, to name a few. Not everyone was a winner, but we all walked away with a smile after an hour in the funhouse!

Thursday

At happy hour, we kicked off the festivities with a scavenger hunt. Employees rans around their houses and apartments trying to be the first to find a particular item — from something red to something with a face — we had 15 seconds to find our items and run back to the screen before time was up!

From there, employees were recognized — from plaques for those celebrating two years with the company to CCAH monogramed swag gifts for those working here for five, ten, twenty, and twenty-five years.

Quentin Patrick received the Bill Goldstein Legacy Award for his twenty years with the firm. This award recognizes excellence in service and a commitment to outstanding loyalty to CCAH, our clients, and their missions. Twenty years symbolizes a remarkable achievement in one’s career and demonstrates fortitude, grit, and perseverance. Over the years, Bill Goldstein’s work had profound impact on some of the most critical issues facing our country and people around the globe. We are proud to honor his legacy with this award. 

Katie Chambers received the coveted CCAH Spirit Award. This award goes to one individual, voted on by the management committee and partners, who we believe embodies dedication to clients and their fellow colleagues, always lending a helping hand and jumping in if someone doesn’t understand. Katie goes the extra mile for a client with a positive attitude and a smile in every situation.  As one person noted, her “positive attitude is actually infectious for everyone she works with.” Congratulations to Katie Chambers for this distinction!

The Spirit Committee judges also announced the answers to the Guess Who matching game! While only five CCAH employees were able to get a perfect score (congrats to Arwen, Kahla, Srikar, Julia, and me—Becca!), everyone was a winner when we got to learn more about our coworkers.

Friday

Spirit week was finally coming to a close, but not without one final announcement: we changed our name! Jenny Allen officially became a name partner, making our company now Chapman Cubine Allen + Hussey — you can read all about it here if you missed the announcement blog. With this exciting news top of everyone’s mind, it was easy to forget about the MadLib competition (even though that was also a very exciting moment in CCAH history). Team Mia took home the win, and all of the bragging rights that came with it. 

As a final surprise, everyone was excited to find goody bags at their door the week after spirit week. MJ, Katie, and Quentin had worked tirelessly to ensure a sweet snack for all of our employees even though we were far apart.

With that, we closed another wonderful week at CCAH. Now we are back to work, refreshed and ready to take on Q4 and another full year of doing great work for all our amazing clients! 

We Changed Our Name!

On behalf of Jim Hussey and Lon Chapman, it is with excitement and pride that we announce that Jenny Allen has been made a name partner and moving forward our firm will be called Chapman Cubine Allen + Hussey!

Jenny has been an integral part of the growth and success of CCAH these past several years.  She has helped drive the diversification of our client base as well as the expansion of our digital, analytical, and database services.  Jenny is known as a creative powerhouse. 

Jenny is as passionate a person as you will find.  She is devoted to the missions of the organizations that CCAH represents, and her clients consider her a friend in addition to a trusted counselor.  Her ethics are unimpeachable, and her sense of humor and salty vernacular make working with her fun.  

She is a true leader at our company and has earned her place on the masthead.

Please join me and the rest of the CCAH family in celebrating our newest name partner, Jenny Allen.

Chapman Cubine Allen and Hussey

AAPC Names Chrissy Hyre to 40 Under 40 List for 2020

Each year, the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) selects some of the best in our nation’s political business community to honor on their 40 Under 40 list, recognizing their leadership and innovation. This year CCAH is fortunate enough to have one of our own on that list – Ms. Chrissy Hyre.

Chrissy was nominated for the award by a fellow CCAH employee, Catherine Algieri. Chrissy and Catherine have been working together since 2018, when Chrissy was Catherine’s consultant for her work at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Catherine has since joined the CCAH team to head our new political digital program and, in her words, “realized I didn’t know the half of what Chrissy brings to the table.”

Chrissy’s work to expand the use of telemarketing programs in progressive political campaigns has helped her to make millions of voter contacts for candidates like Andrew Gillum for Governor and Kamala Harris for President, as well as for politically motivated organizations like Collective PAC and Citizen Action. She paved the way for peer-to-peer mobile platforms like Hustle and Get Thru to work with telemarketing firms and utilize live operators that would allow organizations and candidates to dramatically scale up their engagement efforts over SMS.

Chrissy wasn’t always planning on innovating the world of political fundraising; in college, she initially registered as a musical theatre major. The common thread between her aspirations as a thespian and her work now as a consultant? Vulnerability. According to Chrissy: “We ask our clients to put an incredible amount of trust in us … so we need to show up in a really authentic way to build those relationships.”

In that spirit, Chrissy’s work in the industry of political consulting has been nothing short of visionary. As an inventive team player, Chrissy has earned accolades from her clients, business contacts, and here at CCAH, where she was made a partner in March of this year. We are so glad that the AAPC has recognized her hard work by adding her to their 40 Under 40 list, and we look forward to honoring her future accomplishments. Congratulations, Chrissy!