In the high-stakes mating dance of political fundraising, Andy Spahn is Hollywood’s matchmaker extraordinaire.
That star-studded dinner in 2012, catered by Wolfgang Puck at George Clooney’s Studio City manse that raised a then-record-setting $15 million for then-President Obama? Spahn did that. The series of virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic featuring Hollywood screenwriters and a performance by Carole King that raised $20 million for now-President Biden? Spahn. And, with the Hollywood strikes resolved, the president is again counting on Spahn to boost his reelection coffers.
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Spahn, the founder of the Gonring Lin Spahn strategic consulting firm, sits squarely at the crossroads where political aspirations meet the deep Hollywood pockets needed to turn those ambitions into votes. If you’re a Democrat running for president or some other high-ticket office, you’re desperate to tap Spahn’s fundraising prowess. And if you’re in the upper crust of Los Angeles’ left-leaning entertainment elite, you’re probably asking him for advice on how best to spread your largesse.
On the donor side, the roster of people he’s advised reads like the guest list at Vanity Fair’s Oscar party: Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Clooney, to name a few. Other clients included NBC Universal and the foundations for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Screen Actors Guild.
Spahn’s 2024 efforts will be critical to Biden’s reelection campaign as well as Democrats’ efforts to hold onto their razor-thin control of the U.S. Senate and to retake the U.S. House of Representatives.
The roster of people he’s advised reads like the guest list at Vanity Fair’s Oscar party.
The 70-year-old’s political activism dates back to his youth: Spahn left Beloit College in Wisconsin to protest the Vietnam War and then, as a UC Berkeley student, led opposition to university and corporate investments in South Africa because of apartheid. Arrested twice because of his activism, Spahn graduated with a political science degree in 1980.
His first foray into political campaigns was antiwar activist Tom Hayden’s unsuccessful 1976 run for the U.S. Senate. The campaign gave Spahn an entry into Democratic politics and Hollywood, given that Hayden’s then-wife was Jane Fonda.
After a stint in Washington, Spahn returned to Los Angeles and worked with Norman Lear to weave environmental plots into popular television shows, such as “thirtysomething.” He then joined Geffen’s company to advise his political and charitable donations, a role he continued when Geffen formed DreamWorks SKG with Spielberg and Katzenberg.
Once DreamWorks was sold to Paramount in 2006, Spahn continued to advise the trio as he set up his own firm that he told Variety would “provide a unique combination of access to Hollywood, Washington, D.C., and all levels of government and the expertise to navigate those worlds with purpose and impact.”
