'Have a real problem': Jim Gilliam on Silicon Valley culture

In this clip from Kevin Rose's Foundation video series, NationBuilder CEO Jim Gilliam answers a question from the audience about how to foster big world-changing ideas in Silicon Valley instead of Instagram and Pinterest clones.

Watch the full video of the interview at http://foundation.kr.

Nonprofit organizers

We are looking for organizers with at least two years of experience in the nonprofit world to help build the NationBuilder nonprofit community.

The primary qualities we are looking for in this new member of our growing team are:

• You are happiest when interacting with people, and people love being around you.
• You hate asking "quick questions" and would rather just figure things out yourself.
• You are invigorated by technology, not afraid of it.
• You think clearly under pressure and are comfortable talking on the phone or emailing all day.
• You are fearless and ready to take on the establishment.
• You are interesting -- maybe you know another language, have a crazy life story, or are a struggling comedian, just something different.
• You live (or want to live) in Los Angeles.

You will be working with non-profits and advocacy groups from around the world, representing a range of causes. We are a well-funded startup, and the job includes stock options and health care benefits. Salary is $55k. If you're passionate about how organizing can change the world and want to do it on a massive scale, this is for you. 

To apply, send an email to the "jobs" address you see in the footer of this page. It should include:

1. Tell us why we should talk to you in 140 characters or less. (like a tweet, but you don't have to actually tweet it)
2. Your website or resume

Data Organizer

We are looking for someone to help with acquiring and processing voter data from states and counties for the NationBuilder Election Center. The right candidate for this position will have experience working with complex data sets in SQL, Access and Excel.

NationBuilder is the toolkit for leaders - social media, supporter outreach, online donations, events management, email, a contact database and an easy-to-use website, all in one affordable package. 

The primary qualities we are looking for in this new member of our growing team are:

• You love politics and can handle government bureaucracy.
• You find investigating and solving customer issues rewarding.
• You hate asking "quick questions" and would rather just figure things out yourself.
• You excel at time management skills, and have a fun time managing Excel.
• You are invigorated by technology, not afraid of it.
• You think clearly under pressure and are comfortable talking on the phone or emailing all day.
• You are fearless and ready to take on the establishment.
• You are interesting -- maybe you know another language, have a crazy life story, or are a struggling comedian, just something different.
• You live (or want to live) in Los Angeles.

If you're passionate about how organizing can change the world and want to do it on a massive scale, this is for you. 

To apply, send an email to the "jobs" address you see in the footer of this page. It should include:

1. Tell us why we should talk to you in 140 characters or less. (like a tweet, but you don't have to actually tweet it
2. Your resume and references
3. Link to your website or blog if you have one

Embed pages into other sites

This is probably the most requested featured at the moment to make it easy to integrate with existing WordPress/Drupal/Joomla CMSes.  We are working on it.

New email notification settings

We've upgraded how email notifications work to provide more flexibility, and help you keep up to date with the people who matter most to you.  For instance, you now have the ability to get email notifications whenever someone assigned to you donates. 

Specifically, each control panel user can now specify whether they want email notifications for a particular activity (like donations or rsvps) for everyone, just people assigned to them, or just for people/pages they are following.  NationBuilder defaults to sending you email notifications just for people assigned to you or people/pages you are following. Your settings can be changed under Settings > Your Account > Email notifications.  And you can change the settings for someone else by going to their profile page and clicking on Notifications. 

On pages, we've removed the "Who to notify when someone does [x]" concept entirely.  Getting email notifications for a page is now based on whether you are following that page.  Anyone who was previously set to get email notifications on that page was automatically converted to be a follower so they would continue to receive the notifications.

Also, we've replaced the concept of event types with tags.  Event types were an old concept from before we had page tags, so this just makes it more consistent with how every other page type works.  All of the existing functionality with calendars being able to just show certain event types have been upgraded to just show certain tags, and any existing event types were automatically converted to page tags.

Major investment

The power of organizing people online has had a deep personal impact in my own life. I was determined to figure out a way to bring that power to everyone, but I quickly learned that the only way to make that happen was to build a really big company. It wasn’t enough to just write the code, I had to become a leader. Oh crap. That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.  

Admittedly, it is a bit strange to make a toolkit for leaders, to build an entire company with the mission of making everyone a leader, and be hesitant to take that role myself. Let me step back a minute.

I met Joe Green, founder and CEO of Causes, a couple years ago when I first started working on NationBuilder. We immediately connected due to our shared passion, and he’s been involved quietly ever since. When it came time to raise money, we talked about who I wanted to pitch, and there was just one person on the top of my list. Ben Horowitz. He’s widely considered one of the best CEOs in the world, and his firm Andreessen Horowitz, has a reputation for believing in technical founders like me and helping them become great CEOs. 

In organizing, you learn that what matters most isn’t actually the tools, it’s the story. So before we went in to pitch, Joe sent my personal story to Ben, my testimony of how people came together online to save my life. The story of why NationBuilder matters.  

Today we’re announcing that Andreessen Horowitz led a $6.25 million investment in NationBuilder. 

Read more