Politics.
Communications.
Hiring & Recruitment.
We help nonprofit, political, government, and other values-aligned clients across the United States win campaigns, make policy change, and build thriving organizations at the local, state, and national level.
Services
Earned Media & Public Relations
We specialize in helping our clients tell their stories to the press and public. Our partners have secured coverage for clients in local and national outlets including ABC News, Axios, CBS News, CNN, Colorado Public Radio, The Colorado Springs Gazette, The Denver Post, FiveThirtyEight, Fox News, Forbes, MSNBC, NBC News, Newsweek, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and the Washington Post. Our services include press and PR strategy consulting, media pitching and placement, opinion writing and placement, and spokesperson training for interviews in all formats.
Communications & Message Development
We are firm believers in the power of communication to win hearts and minds and affect long term change for the better. We excel at helping clients communicate clearly and effectively in order to achieve their organizational goals and specialize in helping progressives get out of their own way and talk like normal people. Our services include communications strategy consulting, messaging and talking point development, and helping clients use public opinion research to develop data-informed strategies and winning long-term narratives.
Advocacy & Ballot Campaigns
With a combined 25 years of legislative, campaign, & communications experience, we know what it takes to tackle big issues and win. Our services include ballot initiative viability assessments, issue & legislative advocacy campaign planning, paid media campaign strategy & management, and ballot initiative general consulting to guide clients from day 1 through election night. We’ve also never lost one.
Organization Building
& Communications Training
Our partners bring extensive nonprofit sector experience and know what it takes to build a sustainable and effective organization. Our services include advising donors and alignment tables on how to start, grow, and maintain new organizations, assisting existing organizations in developing and executing programmatic work, and training staff on a variety of communications skills including communications strategy, working with the press, and communicating with elected officials.
Fundraising & PAC Management
We have a wide variety of fundraising experience across a spectrum of entities including nonprofit organizations, candidate campaigns, ballot initiatives, political parties, independent expenditure committees, 527 entities, 501(c)3 and (c)4 organizations, PACs, small donor committees, and other philanthropic endeavors. Our efforts have mobilized millions of dollars from a diverse pool of donors big and small to fuel campaigns and causes of all sizes. Our services include donor research, pitching large donors, nonprofit fundraising planning, grant writing, finance planning, budgeting, winning competitive grants, and, for truly outstanding candidates, campaign fundraising. Simply put, we’re good at raising money and we’d love to help you do the same if our values align.
Hiring & Recruitment
We know firsthand how difficult it can be to navigate the modern hiring landscape and identify top tier candidates. We pride ourselves on offering premium hiring services at more affordable rates than traditional headhunting services that often fall outside the price range of small and mid-sized organizations.
Our hiring services include targeting and maintaining digital job postings to ensure a steady stream of diverse and highly qualified applicants, identifying and recruiting top tier talent, and conducting screening interviews to narrow down the candidate pool so our clients can choose from the best of the best. We have assisted clients in the successful hiring of Executive Directors, Vice Presidents, Campaign Managers, Fundraising and Development Directors, Communications Directors, and other difficult to fill positions at all organizational levels.
Clients
Our Team
Ian Silverii
Partner
Over the course of his 15 years in politics, Ian Silverii has played many roles in shaping and advancing the progressive movement in Colorado.
Silverii proudly served as the Director of the Colorado House Majority Project and Chief of Staff to the Colorado House Democrats from 2014-2016, playing an instrumental role in building durable legislative majorities and securing the passage of key policy priorities including Colorado’s gold standard Vote by Mail and election laws.
He went on to run ProgressNow Colorado, the state's largest and most notorious progressive communications and advocacy organization.
After five years at the helm of ProgressNow Colorado, Silverii joined his partner Mansur Gidfar in forming The Bighorn Company which serves clients across the country.
Silverii also teaches at the Scrivner Institute of Public Policy at the University of Denver and co-hosts the weekly Colorado politics show, The Get More Smarter Podcast. His writing has appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette, Colorado Politics, The Denver Post (where he was a resident columnist for 3 years), The Colorado Times Recorder, and the Harvard Law & Policy Review and he has appeared on MSNBC, 9News, The Denver Channel, KGNU, Colorado Public Radio, City Cast Denver, Rocky Mountain PBS and KDNK.
Mansur Gidfar
Partner
Mansur Gidfar is a political professional with 10 years of experience. Gidfar previously served as Communications Director for the Colorado Senate Democrats, overhauling the caucus' branding and growing its digital presence by more than 1000%.
He went on to oversee an independent statewide digital advertising program in the 2018 election cycle, which saw Democrats win five key state senate races and major statewide contests to secure trifecta control of Colorado Government.
Gidfar began his career as Communications Director for Represent Us—a national democracy reform nonprofit known for its ballot initiative work—where content produced under his direction continues to accumulate millions of views on Facebook, YouTube, and, to his admitted amazement, TikTok. He has also served both national and local clients as a consultant, including MIT Media Lab, Represent Us, and Colorado Fiscal Institute.
Katie Farnan
Senior Strategist
A professionally trained librarian and grassroots activist, Katie Farnan’s political involvement began in college but blossomed in 2017, when she co-founded Colorado’s largest Indivisible group and became lead handler and strategist for the four-year Cardboard Cory campaign, whose central goal was to shine a light on Cory Gardner’s terrible record as a senator. She organized live events, town halls, civic actions, political theater, and protests, while managing Cardboard Cory’s popular digital presence.
Her work has been featured in state & national news media and in a documentary. Katie has worked as a core digital strategy team member on small ballot and local candidate campaigns in the Denver and Boulder area since 2021.
Professionally, she brings 15 years’ experience working in public libraries, the philanthropic sector, project management, and staff development. Her most recent role was senior director of marketing & operations for Candid.org, formerly GuideStar.
