Online Fundraising 101: Notes from a Kennedy School Presentation

Hi folks, I’m back from a fasinating fascinating time in Boston, where I stood in for Nicco Mele in front of his digital politics class at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. This class session covered online fundraising, and we crammed *a lot* of information into 80 minutes, along with plenty of questions and some good back-and-forth. Want to know what we talked about? I didn’t have slides (I tend to run classes as an interaction with the students rather than a lecture), but I did have a detailed outline — check it out below.

Want to know more about any topic in the presentation? Particularly if you’re interested in talking about how I can help with YOUR online fundraising strategy and tactics, let’s talk.

Intro and Overview

Why are we talking about online fundraising?

• online fundraising powerful here because of quirks in the U.S. political funding system (individual donations, individual campaigns, money = speech, campaigns are driven by need to raise money)
• every country will be different
• also fundraising for advocacy/charity groups

Short history of online fundraising

• early days/adoption of online commerce
• Dean/Kerry demonstrate efficacy
• ActBlue spreads down-ballot
• Obama

Why does someone donate money?

• because they want to
• if you’re a professional fundraiser, your job is to make them want to
• persuasion and motivation
• relationship management on a large scale
• get ’em excited, then give ’em something to do about it

Where fundraising fits into the communications world

• ladder of engagement = tiers of acts of support
• tension between advocacy & fundraising
• tension between long term and short term

How Online Fundraising Works

Where do donors come from?

• sometimes they find you
• more often you have to hunt them down
• lists and databases = key political & fundraising tools

How does online fundraising work?

• key tools: email and a website
• send someone an email with an explicit fundraising ask
• CRMs and what they track
• don’t miss a donation — optimize website, run Google Ads to catch drive-by interest

Using email to motivate donors

• every communication affects their propensity to act
• key: content feeds relationships
• narrative arc (example: typical year-end sequence)
• striking while iron is hot (Sarah Palin & the biggest day of online fundraising)
• moving them up the ladder of engagement
• targeted asks based on interests or behavior
• social media and ongoing engagement (social primes the list to act)

Other online fundraising channels

• social media
• peer to peer

List-building

• organic growth
• signing people up at real-world events
• social media transfers (ActionSprout)
• paid acquisition
• partnerships

What can go wrong?

• cutting through the clutter (information overload)
• list burnout!!!
• technical problems

Power of analytics to avoid problems

• unsubscribe rates
• open/action rates
• donation amounts
• testing, testing, testing — A/B and more

Big-Picture Questions

How does online fundraising change politics?

• democratizing effect
• counter to big money
• gets more people involved in politics (they’re invested, literally)

Rise of independent groups

• Sheldon Adelson & Newt Gingrich

Disintermediation & current Republican situation

• trad big donors freed from Establishment
• small donors and the Tea Party

Obama campaign

• would it have been possible w/o online fundraising?
• did need to raise money drive people-powered politics?

Future

• mobile?
• email decline?

– cpd