When Stand Up Michigan began it was clear we needed two things: A website and an email marketing platform. We were able to put those two components together with tools from Big Tech in the early days with no budget and lots of helping hands. It ignited the rocket but right away the constraints were felt; disaster was clearly on the horizen. Big Tech spared no expense or effort to shut us down and shut us up. That looming disaster failed because of round the clock security auditing, monitoring, and prevention.

The constraints we felt and the dangers we avoided taught us essential lessons that are taking us to new heights. First, data ownership became an essential foundation of all decisions going forward. Stand Up Michigan now owns an enourmous amount of data that we not only do not trust in third part hands but that in conscious we cannot risk; our mission to serve We the People is sacrosanct. We will not betray their trust. Whether it is a form submission for contact, a donation, a county membership signup, a link clicked, etc... the privacy of patriots is a non negotiable principle.

Our Present and Future

To meet these challenges we have employed state of the art technologies that include an open source and self hosted Application Programming Interface (API) that serves as the nerve center for Stand Up Michigan. This highly optimized, ultra secure, data center is locked down with festidiously thought through permissions, role management, and security measures like two factor authentication, encryption certificates, and security headers. This data is accessible with API calls and hashed security tokens that give specific data for the website, the admin interface for state leadership, and county leaders.

The above drives our brand new website that is built and cached when the API is changed and delivered via a global content delivery network (CDN) that mitigates against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks - a favorite of bad actors to attempt to bring us down.  All of this creates an ultra fast experience for Patriots no matter the device or the speed of their network. Coupling these technologies is not trivial or cheap but it puts Stand Up Michigan back in the driver's seat for years and years to come.

Lastly, via an open source email marketing interface, Stand Up Michigan makes use of the above API to drive millions of monthly emails with no risk of losing data or deplatforming. All of the data is served and managed via the API which drives the email marketing such that Stand Up Michigan has data ownership which means freedom and automony without threats from Big Tech, the Deep State, or any other third parties.

This work is the fruit of enormous efforts, financial generosity, and prayer. It will not be cheap to maintain but our trust is in the Lord and our mission is clear. Stand Up Michigan!