Raising Political Donations Online

Running a successful political campaign costs money. A candidate needs to raise funds throughout the entire campaign. Over the last decade, the web has become a popular and powerful tool for political fundraising. As technical barriers have dropped, more and more local campaigns are raising money online.

Putting together the right resources at the start will make your online fund-raising process more successful. As technical barriers have dropped in recent years, more and more local campaigns are successfully raising money online.

Of course, the most effective way for local campaigns to raise money is still the “old-fashioned” way—by making calls and holding events. Personal contacts and solicitation are still integral parts of the fundraising process.

A short aside…

About 20 years ago (before we started Online Candidate), we were working on a local campaign. We offered to set up a PayPal donation system for the candidate. She refused, basically on the grounds that it didn’t make sense to have another service take a “cut” of the donations through transaction fees. Checks would be fine, thank you.

Of course, we informed her that she would probably miss out on potential donations if there was not an online fundraising system in place.

It didn’t happen. The candidate lost, but it wasn’t because of a lack of funds.

The internet can and should be a major component of your fundraising efforts. Here are the basic steps for raising political donations online:

Create a campaign website to accept contributions

A campaign website is the hub of a candidate‘s online presence. Your site should be created as early as possible. It should contain plenty of information about the candidate, the campaign, and the issues. Your site should be an inviting place where voters can visit often for campaign news and updates.

Set up an online fundraising processor

There are a number of services that allow campaigns to do online fundraising. They typically charge transaction fees (typically between 3 and 8%) that are deducted from the top of any payment. Most services do not charge setup or recurring fees. Political donation processors are the best method for taking payments online. Some vendors offer different features, such as taking donations through social media accounts and running different fundraising campaigns at the same time.

Build a donor prospect list and work it

A crucial step to online fundraising is your prospect list. You may have access to some contacts through your local political party. Create a sign-up form for visitors to subscribe to campaign updates and alerts. You can get email addresses offline by asking for them at events. Your campaign should have a solid privacy policy that promises to keep subscriber and donor information private. Many political campaigns today turn to data segmenting to better target fundraising and issue messaging.

Pull it together and get to work

Once you have a website, prospects, and a payment processor in place, the real work begins.

Add a “Donate Now” link and/or button to your website. Be sure that it appears on every page, as you never know on what page a visitor might arrive at your site.

You should include your website URL in all your email updates, your social media profiles, and all of your direct mail pieces and signage.

Send regular updates to your email list and social media subscribers. Your interactions should not only be solicitations for donations. More often than not, your updates should be of an informative nature. By engaging supporters, you are getting people to know, like, and trust you.

As a connection is built with your campaign, individuals will be more likely to donate money, invest time, help spread the word, and, ultimately, vote for you.

Regardless of how you raise money, your campaign is responsible for complying with the law. Check your local laws and seek legal advice if necessary. Good luck!

Any political payment processor can be used with the Online Candidate website system.