Featured Young Alumni
Kelly Barnes '10
Kelly is the co-founder of Voters Act, LLC, an online bi-partisan donation platform for political candidates in the United States. Voters Act started as a new way to think about politics and an easier way for the voter to find and support candidates.
Kelly and his co-founder, Hudson Baird, started talking in December of 2010 about fundraising for political candidates and the difficulties people encounter when trying to decide who to vote for. After a little research, they found a few companies that were using the same concept of online fundraising, but none that were designed with the voter in mind, and none that were bipartisan. Thus, the idea for Voters Act was born—a donation platform for every candidate in every race in the United States. It would be the one place you could go and find every candidate, see what they stand for, decide who to endorse, and help spread the word about the candidates you support. Seizing upon the enormous potential of online and small dollar donations seen in the last election cycles, Voters Act not only allows people to easily find a candidate they support, but also makes it easy to donate, organize friends and neighbors to donate, and receive deserved recognition from the candidate. After a few calls to the Texas Ethics Commission and the Federal Election Commission, Voters Act was under way. The innovative and effective concept quickly attracted numerous candidates who recognized the opportunities that Voters Act presented and wanted to get on board as quickly as possible.
Kelly is looking forward to the exciting future for Voters Act and the next elections cycle, and he attributes his recent success to his time at TCU and the hard work ethic installed in him by both of his grandfathers. In his free time, Kelly enjoys attending every TCU sporting event he can and flying, as he is currently pursuing his pilots license.