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How Code Nation scales progressive campaigns with NationBuilder

Code Nation supports grassroots movements across Australia and the globe by building the digital infrastructure organizers need to grow, mobilize, and win.

January 15, 2026

7 min read

Award-winning digital agency tailors websites and community organizing tools to grow movements.

In 2013, Corey McCann was working with progressive campaigns and civil society organizations in Colombia when he noticed a pattern: groups had powerful ideas but lacked digital infrastructure. Organizations would seek strategic advice, and then ask: "But do you know how to build a website?"

Seeing the need, McCann, a former school teacher, taught himself to code and started building campaign websites for organizations in Colombia and Australia. More than a decade later, that scrappy beginning has evolved into Code Nation—one of the most highly rated NationBuilder agencies worldwide, with multiple Reed Awards supporting Australia's most successful progressive campaigns.

Based on the east coast of Australia, Code Nation addresses a critical problem for advocacy organizations and political campaigns: how to build world-class digital infrastructure with clients of varying skill levels and budgets, and limited time to make a difference.

Key stats at a glance:

metrics

70%+
Australian clients

18
Reed Award wins since 2020

55k
volunteers helped mobilize for Yes23

From startup to scale: The Code Nation model

Managing Director Rhys Forsyth joined the agency in 2018 and shared his favorite examples that prove that with the Code Nation model, fast deployment and quality can coexist.

Creating an environment for change with Parents for Climate

Parents for Climate grew from a small startup to a nationally recognized climate advocacy group. They have achieved countless practical wins since then, and most recently their advocacy forced EnergyAustralia, one of the country's largest energy providers, to publicly admit that carbon offsets do not prevent or undo the harms caused by burning fossil fuels. This led to the company apologising to over 400,000 customers for their "Go Neutral" product and discontinuing the associated marketing claims.

"Parents for Climate started in 2020, first launched with a theme that we initially created in a few weeks,” Forsyth says, “and they were soon able to mobilize over 25,000 parents and unlock $71 million AUD from government grants to fit schools with solar panels."

This kind of growth and community empowerment is what NationBuilder’s mission and pricing structure are built on. The pay-as-you-grow model is designed to increase access for small organizations, providing proportionate value as more supporters join the cause.

Screenshot of the Parents for Climate website showing a campaign banner reading “2035 Target Fails Our Kids’ Safety,” calls to action to join, donate, and take action, current climate campaigns, and a map of local action groups.

David Pocock’s historic victory

When David Pocock, former captain of the Australian rugby team, announced his run for Federal Senate in 2022, Code Nation spun up his NationBuilder database and website in only a few days. The team helped clean up scattered data from spreadsheets, deployed SupporterBase for distributed volunteer management and broadcast SMS, and provided intensive support throughout the campaign. Pocock made history by becoming the first ever non-Liberal or Labor Senator for the Australian Capital Territory.

Code Nation continued working closely with Senator Pocock's team throughout his first term, providing ongoing website and database support and helping launch new campaigns. In the lead-up to the 2025 election, they refreshed the Senator's website and expanded SupporterBase to handle the mammoth task of rostering volunteers onto hundreds of shifts at election booths across the ACT. "Since 2022, he's doubled his support and even placed higher than the Labor Party in the ACT," says Forsyth.

Screenshot of the David Pocock website showing campaign messaging for an independent senator, impact statistics, a “Senate Campaign 2025” video, and policy sections on cost of living, housing, and health care.

The SupporterBase advantage: Turning volunteers into leaders

Purpose-built for distributed organizing

Australian advocacy organizations GetUp and the Australian Conservation Foundation were Code Nation clients when they expressed an organizing challenge. These groups needed to empower volunteer leaders to do sophisticated organizing work like sending SMS blasts, managing events, and recruiting members, but couldn't give hundreds of people access to their central NationBuilder database. The solution had to partition data while maintaining seamless sync, letting volunteers lead without compromising security.

In response to this need, CodeNation developed SupporterBase. Launched in 2019, SupporterBase is an app for community organizing and campaigns. It’s designed to empower volunteers to lead local activities and manage groups, with communication tools and event management features that sync data easily with NationBuilder to enable grassroots campaigns at scale.

The client list includes organizations leading climate change activism, human rights, and progressive political campaigns. Tom Grindrod of Australian Conservation Foundation writes, “Volunteers have reported they love its simple and clean interface, and that it allows them to share the workload between several group members. SupporterBase and Code Nation… care about the product they put into the world and the people that use it."

SupporterBase features:

Two-way sync with NationBuilder
Volunteer leaders operate without NationBuilder access, protecting data
Auto-tagging routes supporters to local groups
Events created in SupporterBase publish automatically to NationBuilder sites
SMS, email, and phone banking tools for leaders
Multi-language support for inclusive organizing

Case studies

Large crowd gathered at a Yes23 campaign rally in Australia, with hundreds of people raising their hands in front of a historic civic building, advocating support for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum under a clear blue sky.

Yes23 campaign: Australia’s largest grassroots mobilization

The challenge: In 2023, a referendum on Indigenous constitutional recognition required digital infrastructure for nationwide volunteer coordination with minimal staff. Australia was holding a historic referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples, a defining moment for the nation. The Yes campaign needed to mobilize communities across an entire continent, enable local groups to self-organize, and coordinate tens of thousands of volunteers with minimal central staff.

The solution: Code Nation created a custom NationBuilder site with SupporterBase connected, enabling:

Map functionality for supporters to find local groups
Self-service group creation for new chapters
Volunteer leader tools for SMS/email blasts and event management
Automated RSVP tracking and attendance

The results:

276 local groups established within weeks
55,067 active volunteers recruited
Organizers “hit all of their field organizing goals”

Yes23 campaign website promoting a Yes vote for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, showing an Aboriginal woman and child alongside messages about constitutional recognition, listening to Indigenous communities, and better results.

Community-led independent “Voices”

Beginning in 2013 but gaining steam in recent years, frustrated Australian voters started "Voices of" movements: hosting kitchen table conversations, listening to community concerns, and lobbying MPs on climate, corruption, and gender equality. When MPs didn’t respond, they ran as independents. And they won.

What makes these candidates unique is that they aren't professional politicians—they're barristers, Olympians, small business owners, former rugby captains like David Pocock, and community volunteers who'd never been involved in politics before. They ran campaigns staffed entirely by volunteers, funded by small donations, and built on genuine community engagement rather than party machinery.

The results:

2013: Cathy McGowan pioneers approach and wins the seat
2019: Independent Zali Steggal wins blue ribbon Sydney seat from former Prime Minister
2022: Seven independents defeated incumbents
2025: Seats held and expanded
Democratic participation re-energized through civic engagement and systematic listening to constituents

"For me, the most encouraging thing about the independent movement,” says Forsyth, “is not about who wins what seat. It is the fact that so many everyday people have re-engaged with democracy, organised themselves and imposed a higher standard of political accountability, all while building stronger communities in the process.”

NationBuilder partnership advantage

Commercial and collaborative benefits

As an Alliance partner, Code Nation can act as a “reseller” of NationBuilder’s platform, reducing the end user’s overall cost and providing digital agency expertise in areas such as design, email deliverability, and audience segmentation. "That's obviously a real benefit to a lot of the not-for-profits that we work with," says Forsyth.

As a NationBuilder Alliance Partner, Code Nation provides:

Discounted bulk subscriptions
Local billing and support
Feature customization assistance
Fast problem resolution

Strengthening the ecosystem

Code Nation also:

Tests and develops new features
Provides insights into Australian progressive organizing
Solves technical challenges for the broader community
Creates themes and tools, expanding NationBuilder capabilities

Why partners choose Code Nation + NationBuilder

Proven track record: award-winning, 12+ years experience
Complete ecosystem: themes to custom solutions to volunteer management
Relevant backgrounds of Code Nation staff: government, civil society, political campaigns, design, and software development
Values alignment: progressive causes, climate action, democracy, social justice
Rapid response: launch campaigns in days, scale to thousands
Local + global: Australian base with international reach

Conclusion: Building infrastructure for lasting change

Code Nation demonstrates how technical expertise and strategic campaign understanding deliver impact:

Small orgs can grow fast (Parents for Climate)
Independents can compete with major parties (David Pocock)
Grassroots movements scale authentically (55,067 volunteers mobilized for Yes23 campaign)
Tech empowers, not constrains (SupporterBase enables volunteer leadership)

Strong NationBuilder partnerships drive measurable results, from awards to electoral wins to lasting social change.

"I just encourage [prospective partners] to get to know people across the NationBuilder team,” says Forsyth. “Whether it's account managers, salespeople, partnership managers like Oliver Wells…. because my experience has universally been that NationBuilder people are helpful and constructive, whether that's trying to get a minor technical support issue resolved or thinking about ways you can work better for each other and for clients."