The site was set up like a typical crowd-funding page as you would see on sites like Indiegogo or Kickstarter. It had an video explaining the campaign and gifts for certain donation levels.

When the clock hit zero and the site turned over to tweets instead of donations, it pointed out the frustrating reality of political fundraising: You can’t pay a politician to change their vote. But you can form a proper political lobbying organization so that you can collect unlimited cash in order to have a meaningful political conversation with elected officials where you strongly express your opinions.

As soon as we launched the site, it caught fire in the popular press. It also caught the attention of lawyers who said that bribing the U.S. Senate was illegal. Super-illegal.

And so, when the site’s countdown clock hit zero on July 26—100 days after the Senate voted to keep background checks from even being DISCUSSED—they did not start collecting donations. Instead the site directed Tweets to the six senators targeted by the site and ask them to revisit their stance on the issue, flooding their office with constituent feedback.