e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Learning from Obama’s Financial Steamroller: How to Raise Money Online

Part Five of a six-part series

Obama’s platform may have envisioned a grand reform of the political system, but the primary change he brought to political fundraising was to do more of it than anyone in history:

3 million donors made a total of 6.5 million donations online adding up to more than $500 million. Of those 6.5 million donations, 6 million were in increments of $100 or less. The average online donation was $80, and the average Obama donor gave more than once…Obama also raised millions from traditional campaign bundlers — rich, well-connected fundraisers — but the bulk of the more than $600 million that Obama raised throughout the campaign was through the Internet, aides said. (Some of those bundlers, of course, also arranged for donations to be made online, so there is some overlap.)

“Obama Raised Half a Billion Online,” Jose Antonio Vargas, Washington Post, 11/20/2008

(more…)

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A Free Year of Democracy In Action Tools for a Lucky Environmental Group

Whew, this whole earning-a-living thing has proven to be surprisingly time-consuming the past couple of weeks (how you people with “jobs” manage I’ll never know), but at least someone in DC appreciates the value of a free lunch: the folks at Democracy In Action are giving away a year of their constituent-relations-management software service at no charge to a worthy environmental group. Oh the fun you could have! Free mass emailing/action alerts, online donations, event-management…why, it makes ME want to start an enviro group right down here in the e.politics bunker.

Details are available on the DIA site (the deadline’s May 22nd), and don’t forget that a mere few hours spent with an expert consultant might just help you get the most out of any new communications tools that happen to come your way….

– cpd

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