With Online Fund Web Site, Alum Acts 'Blue'

Benjamin A. Rahn ’99, now a resident tutor in PfoHo, was one of those kids who didn’t trek out to weekly Dems’ meetings when he was a Harvard undergrad. Instead, he was involved in the politics of the campus, working for the Undergraduate Council and advocating for an undergraduate curriculum reform. The immediate issues that were prevalent and close to home were the ones that occupied his mind.

Now, though, Rahn is working full time for the political action committee that he started, ActBlue.com, an online fundraising website for the Democratic Party. He says that as he saw the political situation in the country deteriorate, he began to search for ways he could participate, but he felt like there were no political organizations that he could get involved in.

It was after talking to other discouraged people that he “started brainstorming ideas,” and with a friend of his, an MIT graduate, he came up with the idea for ActBlue. Since its inception in June 2004, Act-Blue has raised nearly 15 million dollars

Though Rahn’s own college years were not fraught with political protests and debates, he says that today’s students are much more plugged in.

“Undergraduate engagment in international politics has really been on the rise,” he says. “We don’t want to say that bad news is what gets people involved but when people see that something is wrong they want to get involved and make it right.”