Mel Pruett is a Virginian with local, state, and national experience.

After five consecutive cycles with the Democratic Party of Virginia, I launched my own digital consulting firm — Pruett Consulting. In the past year since it’s launch, I have worked with clients ranging from advocacy organizations to political candidates and everything in between. In 2023 alone, I have sent out over two million peer-to-peer texts.

Gillibrand 2020
National Mobilization Strategist

I came back to be the peninsula region of Virginia’s Political Organizing Director. While there, I managed 8 organizers in 3 field offices across the entire Peninsula that knocked over 99,000 doors from September until November. I also coordinated efforts with 3 competitive House of Delegate campaigns, successfully elected all three including two red-to-blue flips.

Soon after Mike Bloomberg dropped, I joined Senator Mark Warner’s campaign as their Digital Director which shortly after turned into Biden-Harris’ Virginia Online Communities Digital Director. While on staff, my biggest accomplishment was building and managing Online Communities for Virginia to elect Joe Biden, Senator Mark Warner and congressional candidates. That included crafting an online virtual field office Slack community that sent over 50,000 messages amongst over 5k in-state volunteers to build community, share content, and empower supporters to volunteer. The infrastructure for this would be used in other battleground states. I also wrote and sent social media on behalf of the campaign that had over 288k impressions, and oversaw 20+ captains in a social media volunteer captains program. Due to Virginia being a battleground state, I had access to tools and resources others did not to be able to organize online. One of these tools was a relational organizing app, Outvote, that resulted in 271k impressions. Another app for relational organizing, Soapboxx, was my responsibility as well. Soapboxx was a revoluntionary tool to post videos from supporters to capture the importance of voting. While having the tool, I collected, edited, and posted 145+ Soapboxx videos such as activist personal stories to highlight campaign moments. One of my biggest projects was creating Soapboxx videos as soon as early voting kicked off with social media pushes. While being on staff in Virginia, I also collaborated with other departments and elected officials, including the second gentleman, to create and push social content.

In 2021, I developed and implemented the peer-to-peer texting program for Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial primary campaign that resulted in 1.7 million total texts sent and 13k supporters identified over text, with texts accounting for 75% of supportive IDs collected. I was responsible for coordinating daily texting shifts, writing scripts, and conducting weekly trainings. While there I also collaborated and worked with campaign consultants, senior leadership, and other departments in decision making and strategy. I then joined the Democratic Party of Virginia’s coordinated campaign overseeing our digital organizing efforts. While maintaining my same responsibilities I also recruited and managed a diverse digital fellows program of 43 fellows, including weekly professional development trainings and led weekly organizing calls.

This year alone, I have written and created social media content, graphics, and ads for over 30 candidates, campaigns, and organizations. Additionally, I have collaborated with numerous organizations and campaigns on virtual events helping to make their events more accessible and successful. I have overseen C3 and C4 SMS and P2P text campaigns in multiple states on a daily basis. This year I have surpassed 2 million SMS texts sent.

On my off time, I have been passionate about the fight for accesibile, affordable, and equitable health care. At 16, I developed POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome). I am fortunate that unlike most, I got diagnosed quickly a few years following and was able to get treatment. Now, millions of Americans have POTS. In 2018, I worked with former Governor Ralph Northam’s office to create Dysauotonomia Awareness Month here in Virginia. Following that, I began working with former Delegate Mark Keam to write the bill(s) for POTS Awareness Month which passed by chambers with bi-partisan support. Last year I organized a virtual roundtable and social media storm to uplift Virginians with POTS, the content brought in over 100k impressions the first day. This year, I ran a POTS lobby day were POTS patients were able to meet with their legislators. Amongst those we met with were: Senator Mark Warner, Senator Tim Kaine, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Congresswoman McClellan, Congressman Wittman, Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton, and more. I have also consulted and assisted on a hand full of health care advocacy events and issues this year.

I have a passion for digital organizing and the progress that can be made implementing it in meaningful ways. You can read more about my clients HERE, my past projects HERE, follow me on Twitter HERE, add me on Linkedin HERE, or shoot me an email at Mel@MelPruett.com.

In 2019, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced her presidential campaign with a moving, heartfelt ad. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to work for her. For weeks, I interviewed to be her Iowa Digital Director but, ended up not getting the job. A few weeks later, a role was made for me as National Mobilization Strategist, and I moved up to her headquarters in New York. While there, I lead day-to-day national organizing efforts out of HQ, organized, coordinated, and executed online-to-offline volunteer experiences outside of the traditional early primary states, and managed national digital volunteer capacity; identifying and developing over 100 digital volunteer leaders. The night she dropped out of the campaign, I knew I had to come back to Virginia to keep working on keeping Virginia blue.

Democratic Party of Virginia
Political Organizing Director

Bloomberg for President
Digital Director

Democratic Party of Virginia &
Biden for President
Digital Director &
Online Communities Digital Director

Terry McAuliffe for Governor &
Democratic Party of Virginia
Digital Coordinator

Pruett Consulting
Founder

In 2020, I was Mike Bloomberg’s Virginia Digital Director. While there I worked alongside the national digital team to execute digital imperatives for the campaign. I wrote and executed mass SMS scripts for field and event recruitment in state. Additionally, I wrote and designed content for all social media platforms in state as well. During my time I would attend events to capture organic content, including staffing the ‘End Gun Violence’ bus tour across Virginia with national surrogates. Lastly for the Bloomberg campaign, I managed rapid response during national events and debates.