Michael Crawford

Vice President

Michael Crawford, a vice president at Spitfire, has worked at the intersections of storytelling, culture, and social change to build the movements that won marriage equality, defeated Donald Trump and showed young people that their votes are power. At Spitfire, he worked to launch Campaign for Size Freedom with Dove, NAAFA and The FLARE Project to end discrimination based on body size, which resulted in the passage of landmark legislation in New York City. He helped Hip Hop Caucus bring hip hop back to the center of its work through a media relations and cultural strategy that leveraged hip hop as a creative vehicle for building community and moving young people to action. He led development of The South’s Got Now/Decidimos, a bilingual campaign for the Southern Poverty Law Center to turn out young people of color to vote in the Deep South.

As director of marketing at MoveOn, he created cultural strategies to engage new and diverse audiences; built creative partnerships with celebrities, influencers and advocates; and crafted messaging for top-tier advocacy campaigns. At Freedom to Marry, he led the digital and creative team, which oversaw the organization’s brand, websites, social media, online fundraising and digital content. He played a central role in shaping the narrative around same-sex couples and digital strategy to win marriage nationwide. After the 2015 victory making marriage legal across America, BuzzFeed referred to him as one of the “happiest unemployed people in America.” 

He believes that if purpose-driven organizations thought more like brands, we’d have a better shot of transforming America into something that it’s never been: a truly multiracial democracy. In a bid to become the Black Don Draper in-the-making, he also studied advertising at Miami Ad School.

His writing on race, identity and culture has appeared in national publications including Wired, NBC News THINK, Teen Vogue, Newsweek, The Independent, New York Daily News, and The Hill. He believes that if we tell better stories, we can change the world. Michael got his start in activism and communications in his hometown of Houston.

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