Crimson History
Since 1981, CMDI has provided innovative fundraising platforms, compliance solutions, and data management for Republican political campaigns and organizations. Throughout our history, we developed a unique capacity to handle high-volume, fast-paced operations in contribution processing, compliance management, and fundraising support for more than 22 presidential committees, 171 U.S. House, and 68 U.S. Senate campaigns. At the core of CMDI’s reputation are custom software applications, such as Crimson and CrimsonFiler, which were developed and crafted using our decades of political and fundraising experience. During the 2020 election cycle, CMDI managed a combined $4.32 billion in funds raised from 12.25 million donors contributing to our 260 clients.
1980-1989
1981
CMDI launches a PC-based Iowa caucus tracking system, the first of its kind.
CMDI puts the national voter database “online” allowing National Committees and Reagan for President to access automated mailing list order fulfillment services.
1984
CMDI creates the 1st database with demographic information to target voter clusters with personalized, programmatically-generated messaging utilizing xerographic technology.
1984
1990-1999
1993-1996
1st FEC electronic filing submitted by CMDI on behalf of the Dole campaign.
1996
Donor Management System, based on MS-DOS, is created. The version used by the RNC contains 19 tables. By 1996, CMDI updates dMS with a version based on Windows.
CMDI’s Donor/Member Management System is specifically designed for fundraising & membership organizations. The network is online and accessible at all times. By 2001, dMS 4.2 can be accessed in real-time over CMDI's network and the web.
1991-2001
2000-2009
2003
CMDI's software guides users, step-by-step, through creating an FEC report, compiled donations and expenditures, formatted reports, and submitted them electronically.
2006
CMDI launches Dexter and provides the first online database that makes all information accessible to all campaign staff in a central location.
2008
DexFile, the companion filing software for CMDI's Dexter, is launched and makes filing reports with the FEC easy.
2004
CMDI develops the 1st online program to manage the Pioneer & Ranger bundler programs.
2008
2006
The McCain for President Victory Fund finance team uses DexTeam to manage volunteer fundraisers.
The first web-based enterprise campaign software is launched to manage campaign fundraising, data management, and compliance.
2010-Present
2011
New Crimson features are released including the Expenditure Module, Wealth Engine Integration, and the Crimson Events Wizard.
2015
Native mobile apps for Crimson are released for Android and iOS and include major dashboards, donor records, Google maps, call sheets, and other features.
2019
A stand-alone version of Crimson for PACs is released.
A web-based platform for managing political multi-level, volunteer fundraising platform is released for presidential campaigns.
2014
The new version of Crimson is moved to Azure and includes new dashboards, enhanced analytics, gift batch entry, bundler tracking, FEC lookup, Google Map Address Lookup, and increased security.
2012
2012
After 15 years of working with clients to file FEC reports, CMDI released CrimsonFiler, a more efficient, flexible, and easier way to file federal and state reports.
2016-2017
Crimson rolls out updates including Export by Channel, tooltips, faster searches, ID tokens, chat support, suppression flag enhancements, and new task features. In 2017, CMDI makes major security investments to enhance PCI Standards, releases a new Mass-Deduping Feature, and makes enhancements to multiple dashboards.
2022
New Crimson dashboards are rolled out along with new features including Moves Management, Fundraiser Portfolio, updated Giving History, responsive design, and dark mode.
2018
A new, responsive version of Crimson is released including two-factor authorization, expanded dashboards and search features, a new Event section, and a redesigned People Profile.