A Florida law student has a lucrative side gig as a fundraising consultant. His firm takes 25 percent of the “profit” from donations, and after two special elections, he's starting to have some critics.
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“All the senior fundraising strategists at my firm, including me and Ryan, we're masters of our craft,” said Jackson McMillan, 23, of St. Petersburg, Fla.
After Democratic candidates in Florida's special elections this week spent millions and millions of dollars and suffered double-digit losses, some Democrats are wondering where the cash came from and where it all went.
The answer to both questions is a 23-year-old law student and a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master with a lucrative side hustle.
When he's not studying and playing fantasy sports, Jackson McMillan is also the CEO of Key Lime Strategies, a small Florida fundraising firm that hit the big time when its clients included two Democratic candidates for Florida Congress, Josh Weil and Gay Valimont. Together, Mr. McMillan said, they raised $25 million.
“We built a giant,” he said in an interview.
Along the way, Mr Macmillan has attracted criticism well beyond his years. Much of the focus has been on his unusual fee structure, which one senior party official criticised as “excessive” in a cease and desist letter. His firm took a 25 per cent cut of “true profits” – revenue after fundraising costs – for both by-elections.
Mr McMillan has no intention of apologizing.
“A lot of the people criticizing me online are angry that they didn't do it,” he said of raising so much money, which he said has spooked Republicans and pumped real money into long-forgotten corners of the right-leaning state.
Mr McMillan explained that one of the secret ingredients to his firm's success is Dungeons & Dragons.
“All the senior fundraising strategists at my firm — myself, Ryan — we’re dungeon masters,” he said of his college friend and the firm’s chief operating officer, Ryan Eliason. “We run Dungeons & Dragons games. So we weave stories and tales. It’s like our biggest hobby. Basically, we tell a really compelling story. And that’s what sets us apart — that and a lot of technical analysis — that’s what sets us apart from some of our competitors.”
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