Strategies by Students Consulting, a political consulting student organization at Northwestern, was founded in fall 2022 by Medill sophomore Sammy Dubin and Weinberg sophomore Oliver Goldman to create opportunities for students to build experience in political consulting.

“The central mission of the organization is to fill capacity and resource gaps for local campaigns while offering our members the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in political consulting,” Dubin said.

Dubin and Goldman noticed a lack of on-campus student groups that focused specifically on political consulting. They saw starting SBSC as a way to bridge the gap between consulting and political advocacy groups, Goldman said. 

Although SBSC is not yet officially a student organization, it hopes to apply and receive recognition by Spring Quarter to recruit more students with an interest in politics, according to its founders. 

Members collaborate to offer pro bono services to political candidates and create individualized partnerships with local campaigns in Evanston and the greater Chicago area, including races for aldermanships, mayorships, city council seats and school board seats. 

“We want to help meet the needs of campaigns, whatever they are, and elevate the campaign to the community,” Goldman said. 

SBSC also helps students without political consulting experience by facilitating educational conversations and skill-oriented workshops with professionals across the political landscape. 

Currently, the organization is working with two Chicago City Council candidates to help broaden their public presences: the first is Angela Clay, running in the 46th Ward, and the second is Oscar Sanchez, running in the 10th Ward. 

SBSC’s work with the campaigns focuses on strategic communications consisting of digital fundraising campaigns, graphic design for social media and email campaigns. 

Members of SBSC hold regular meetings with Clay’s campaign team and have organized two digital fundraising campaigns. According to Goldman, it has raised a total of $24,000, including a matching pledge of $10,000. They have also managed social media and email communications for Clay. 

“I’ve always been a fan of watching good speeches, and being able to write a speech and then have a candidate present it has been really cool for me,” said Medill sophomore Gideon Pardo, vice president of client development. “Working with candidates and seeing how a campaign is run has been my biggest takeaway from SBSC, and collaborating with people on a team to build experience has also been very valuable.”

SBSC hopes that both clients will move on from the municipal elections Feb. 28 to the runoff elections April 4. 

Goldman said that after seeing its initial partnerships through and recruiting more members, the group will assess its work. The leadership team plans to deliver a structured educational programming sequence, including a series where professional political consultants will describe their past projects. Eventually, SBSC aims to get involved with a higher volume of candidates and increase the potential of its impact on behalf of those campaigns, according to Goldman.

“As a student organization, we want to build skills and create a growing community of students at Northwestern who not only have an interest in the political consulting space but also have hard skills they can take into internship opportunities or even into their careers,” Goldman said. 

Email: [email protected]

Related Stories: 

— Reif: Students are burnt out. NU must embrace a culture of less

— The Daily Explains: The Organization of Women faculty letter

— Northwestern students get involved in upcoming midterm elections