David D. Burstein
Founder and Executive Director of 18in08
David D. Burstein, 20, is the Founder and Executive Director of 18 in ‘08. The nation’s largest youth run nonpartisan not-for-profit young voter engagement organization. The organization is based on the documentary film of the same name which David directed and produced. In 2008, 18 in ‘08 lead a major national campaign to register, engage, and mobilize young voters for the 2008 election registering over 25,000 new voters, hosting over 1000 events at high schools, colleges, and in communities in 35 states, including a 23 state film tour, youth policy forums with Senatorial and Congressional candidates, a young celebrity get out the vote PSA series featuring Olivia Wilde and Maggie Gyllenhaal among others. David has devoted much of his time, efforts, and energy throughout his life to youth empowerment and political involvement. In 2003, David worked with a group of fellow students to create the highly successful Westport Youth Film Festival. The festival has since become the world’s premiere film festival run by high school students for high school students, for which David served as Director until leaving high school. In May of 2005, David was appointed to serve on the Weston Commission for Children and Youth, responsible for advising his home town on issues and activities related to students and children. He advises many youth oriented not-for-profits and serves on the advisory boards of the Westport Youth Film Festival, the Youth Entitlement Summit and Presidential Classroom. He is a sophomore at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. David has appeared as a commentator on youth and politics for a range of publications and media outlets including: CNN, FOX News, ABC Evening News, NPR, C-SPAN, The New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, and The Politico among others, he is also a contributor to the Huffington Post. He lives in Weston, Connecticut. He is currently at work on a book about the Millennial Generation.
Nancy Bocskor
Professional Fundraiser and Political Consultant
Nancy Bocskor helps individuals and organizations raise money and win campaigns – without losing their souls, savings or sanity. Her mission, in the United States and internationally, is to teach citizens how to communicate with passion to affect change in their communities.
Her current projects include working with CLIME (the Center for Liberty in the Middle East) to launch a Women’s Online Activism Institute in North Africa and the Middle East, and setting up a young women’s leadership program for the Navajo Nation called the “Window of Hope” Foundation.
She is an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management where she teaches both an online and a “live” fundraising course.
Nancy started her political career in the office of then-freshman Congressman Newt Gingrich. She has served as a chief of staff on Capitol Hill, as a campaign manager, as a fundraiser and as a political educator. In 1990, Nancy started The Nancy Bocskor Company, a political consulting firm specializing in training for officeholders, candidates and campaign workers, and fundraising for Members of Congress.
Nancy has taught campaign schools in all 50 states and a dozen foreign countries, and consistently receives top marks for her innovative techniques and her humorous anecdotes.
Nancy was selected by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as a “mentor” to women candidates from the Middle East, where she spent a week in Turkey training more than a dozen candidates from Jordan, Morocco and Algeria. One of her candidates was the top woman vote getter in Jordan and is now a member of the Parliament. She conducted a three-day leadership conference for women from Belarus in late 2007, and taught 100 attendees from 30 countries at an International School of Fundraising held in England.
Nancy is a Vice President of the Women’s Campaign School at Yale, where she chairs the school’s Curriculum Committee. She is on the board for Running Start, an organization that encourages young women to run for office, and Food for Thought, an organization promoting education in Liberia and Zambia. Nancy’s work on behalf of her clients has been highlighted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and on National Public Radio. Named a “Rising Star in Politics” by Campaigns & Elections magazine, she was featured in the PBS documentary, “Vote for Me: Politics in America.” She has served as a political analyst for CNN, and has appeared on C-SPAN.
