H F-XC A N GE H F-XC A N GE N O y bu lic k ac .c om to .c tr . . k e r- s o ft w e ar C lic k C CONFIDENTIAL PROTECTED BY THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT AND WORK PRODUCT PRIVILEGES w w ac ww ww tr om to bu y N O W ! PD W ! PD k e r- s o ft w a re Notes on 5/7/18 (3:00 pm) telephone conversation between Marcus Brown and Adam Swart, Founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand I spoke today with Adam Swart, Founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand (CoD) regarding CoD’s arrangement with The Hawthorn Group (Hawthorn) in relation to the New Orleans Power Station Council approval process. Mr. Swart confirmed that he spoke with Hawthorn late last week (likely Sunday 5/6). He confirmed that Hawthorn hired CoD to assist with getting grassroots support for the power plant. He stated that he only worked with Hawthorn and CoD did not interact directly with anyone at Entergy and does not believe that Entergy was even aware that CoD was working with Hawthorn on this project. He said that he had Entergy email messages forwarded to him from Hawthorn but no direct emails between CoD and Entergy. (Mr. Swart provided Entergy with a copy of the emails following our call). He stated that he worked primarily with Suzanne Hammelman at Hawthorn. He recall meeting with John Ashford of Hawthorn on at least one occasion. He stated that there is a written contract between Hawthorn and CoD. He said that he had worked with Hawthorn on other occasion(s) but nothing involving Entergy—other than this NOPS project. He stated that CoD is a company based California and it does not have a business presence in Louisiana. When asked how his business model worked, he stated that CoD only seeks out people who actually support the cause, but, he said it’s possible that some people simply sign up and say they support a cause so they can get paid to attend or speak. However, he said that they try to make sure the people who sign up and show up are true supporters. They provide compensation to supporters to recognize the opportunity cost of their time, i.e., that they take time out of their day to support a cause. He noted that they do the same type of thing for environmental groups and other groups, i.e., payment to supporters for participation. The amount of payment to any supporter is typically proportional to the amount of work required, such that speakers who might prepare and practice a speech get more than those just attending. Additionally, depending on the engagement, they might pay for Uber costs or other travel costs, but there was no indication that that had happened here. For the NOPS project, Mr. Swart stated that, to the best of his recollection, CoD paid in the neighborhood of $100 to $200 to people they recruited to participate in the public meetings. Typically, they pay either in gift cards or cash. He said that Garrett Wilkerson and Daniel Taylor are employed by him and that they were his primary contacts on the ground for this engagement. Any payments to supporters engaged by CoD would have been made through theseWilkerson and Taylor. He confirmed that CoD often asks supporters to sign non-disclosure agreements, though it depends somewhat on the nature of the engagement. He indicated that he did not approve of the manner in which Wilkerson and Taylor apparently recruited people on Facebook (if the Facebook screenshots in the article are to be believed) because they seemed to make the payment the focus of their recruitment efforts rather than support for the cause. When asked if they are still employed by him, he said that was currently under review. He said that Wilkerson and Taylor may have used someone on the ground in New Orleans to distribute payments to attendees and speakers. He stated that CoD supplied the t-shirts and that he believes Yolanda ENO-NOPS000696 H F-XC A N GE H F-XC A N GE N O y bu lic k ac .c om to .c tr . . k e r- s o ft w e ar C lic k C CONFIDENTIAL PROTECTED BY THE ATTORNEY-CLIENT AND WORK PRODUCT PRIVILEGES w w ac ww ww tr om to bu y N O W ! PD W ! PD k e r- s o ft w a re Pollard with Entergy approved the design. He did not recall CoD having and direct interact with Yolanda but rather through Hawthorn. He said they ordered quite a few t-shirts and that some were sent to Yolanda Pollard directly from the t-shirt company. He stated that CoD does not typically respond to media requests and that although he had received some requests regarding this matter, he had not responded and did not plan to do so. I informed him that whether he responded to such requests was completely up to him, but that if he chose to respond, I only expected him to tell the truth about what happened and that I expected that whatever was said would be consistent with what he had told me today. I reiterated with him that if he finds any email or other evidence of direct contact with anyone at Entergy that I would appreciate it if he would provide it to me immediately. ENO-NOPS000697