In the high-stakes courtship dance of political fundraising, Andy Spahn is Hollywood’s matchmaker par excellence.
Spahn also organized the star-studded dinner catered by Wolfgang Puck at George Clooney’s Studio City mansion in 2012 that donated a then-record $15 million to President Obama. He also organized a series of virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic featuring performances from Hollywood screenwriters and Carole King, who donated $20 million to Biden. And with the Hollywood strike resolved, the president is turning to Spahn again to boost his reelection coffers.
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Spahn, founder of the Gongling Lin Spahn strategic consulting firm, sits squarely at the crossroads of political ambition and the deep Hollywood pockets needed to translate that ambition into votes. Democrats running for president or other high-ranking office would love to tap into Spahn’s fundraising prowess, and Los Angeles’ left-leaning entertainment elite would likely look to him for advice on how to distribute their generosity most effectively.
On the donor side, the roster of people he’s advised reads like the guest list for Vanity Fair’s Oscar party: Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Clooney, to name just a few. Other clients include NBCUniversal, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.
Spahn’s 2024 efforts will be crucial to Biden’s reelection campaign and to Democrats’ efforts to maintain their narrow control of the U.S. Senate and retake the U.S. House of Representatives.
The roster of people he’s advised reads like the guest list for Vanity Fair’s Oscar party.
Spahn, 70, began his political activism at a young age. He dropped out of Beloit College in Wisconsin to protest the Vietnam War, and then, as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, led a campaign against university and corporate investment in South Africa on the grounds of apartheid. Arrested twice for his activism, he graduated in 1980 with a degree in political science.
Spahn’s first foray into politics was supporting anti-war activist Tom Hayden’s unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in 1976. Hayden’s then-wife was Jane Fonda, and the campaign marked Spahn’s entry into Democratic politics and Hollywood.
After a stint in Washington, Spahn returned to Los Angeles and worked with Norman Lear to weave environmental issues into hit TV shows like “Thirtysomething,” before joining Geffen’s company as an adviser on political and charitable giving, a role he continued in after Geffen founded DreamWorks SKG with Spielberg and Katzenberg.
After DreamWorks was sold to Paramount in 2006, Spahn started his own company and continued to advise the trio. He told Variety that his firm “offers a unique combination of access to Hollywood, Washington, D.C. and all levels of government, along with the expertise to navigate those worlds with purpose and impact.”
