Small Donors Rising

Before heading out for the weekend (and in the midst of ActBlue's move to new offices) I wanted to briefly touch on some presidential fundraising numbers compiled this week by OpenSecrets.org and the Center for Responsive Politics.

From April through June, donors who gave $200 or less [to presidential campaigns] accounted for 26 percent of the contributions the candidates collected from individuals. Compared to the first three months of this 2008 election cycle, small donors increased their giving to the candidates 84 percent and just about doubled their share of the money raised from individuals. In January through March, donors contributing $200 or less accounted for 14 percent of individual money.

The trend from Q1 to Q2 fundraising in 2007 has clearly been in favor of small donors. I see two factors at work here. The first is the natural pattern of presidential fundraising, where the first fundraising period consists of a high number of $2300 checks, the maximum contribution level. This 'big money' is tapped first to jump start campaigns but of course, results in an inability to re-solicit donors as they have already given the max amount. The second pattern is an actual increase in small dollar contributions resulting in increased total Q2 fundraising numbers (compared to the percentages shifting just because one area of revenue has declined). Clearly, those who have given small contributions before are giving again in addition to the new small donors being added to the pool of givers.

In our training materials and fundraising calls, we at ActBlue point out this benefit to campaigns. Small donors (often correlated to online donors) can be re-solicited throughout a campaign. Having a strong small donor base is equally important to contacting those who can give the maximum amount as it can sustain a campaign longterm. It distributes power to more individuals and diversifies the audience to whom campaigns are accountable. The following section from the aforementioned press release puts this in context.

Among corporate contributors in all industries based on contributions from employees, their families and political action committees, no company has invested more in these candidates than Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm. Goldman's executives and employees have donated about $930,000 in the last six months. Investment firms Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase round out the overall top donors.        

But the biggest "contributor" of all at this point is the progressive group ActBlue, which facilitates individual donors pooling their money to finance Democratic candidates. By collecting mostly donations of $200 or less, ActBlue has directed more than $1.5 million to the presidential candidates, the bulk of it to Edwards.

In this case the aggregate of contributions through ActBlue represent no specific industry or collection of people other than an aggregate of donors to presidential candidates. Still, this expresses the shift in the distribution of giving from Q1 to Q2. (To note, the $1.5 million is figured from donations $200 or more- a couple million more exists in contributions less than $200 which are not required to be itemized.)
      

Democrats Building Lead in Fundraising

The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday that validated something we've been predicting would happen for a number of months now. According to their research, Democratic campaign in aggregate are now enjoying a $100 million advantage in fundraising.

With more than a year to go before the 2008 elections, Democratic candidates have raised $100 million more in campaign contributions than Republicans, putting them on track to win the money race for the White House and Congress for the first time since the government began detailed accounting of campaign fund raising three decades ago.

The total raised to date is quite astounding, with the leading financial contenders for president on the Democratic side raising more funds already than all of the Democratic primary candidates did combined for the totality of the race in 2003-2004. Not only could 2008 be a billion dollar election but quite possibly double or triple that. But where will all that increase in funds come from?

If their fund-raising advantage continues -- so far, Democrats have been pulling in about 58% of overall donations to federal-office seekers -- they will have more resources for pricey advertising, organization building and voter outreach next November to buttress their edge in the polls. Moreover, Democrats' focus on small donors leaves them room to raise more cash over the next year, since many contributors have yet to hit the legal limit of $2,300 per candidate per election, and could potentially keep giving.

While this cycle will see more donors that give the maximum allowed to federal campaigns, we are seeing an explosion of new donors buying into the political process at smaller levels- each with the capacity to give more throughout the cycle. During the last fundraising quarter, we reported that the average contribution size to all candidates through ActBlue was right at $100 and that the median size was $45. We'll see those lower end donors continue to give through the cycle. The WSJ highlights this very point with their own research.

Only half of Mr. Obama's donors have hit the giving limit for the primaries; about a quarter have given him less than $200, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that analyzes campaign contributions.

By contrast, about two-thirds of those contributing to the campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have already hit their maximum; just 8% have given less than $200.

For comparison, I ran the numbers for a sample of about 40 major federal campaigns that used ActBlue to collect their online contributions in Q2 and found that on average, 22% of the funds raise in the quarter were online contributions. In a couple of cases the online percentage went over 50%.

Another important point is the increasing percentage of online giving as a share of campaign fundraising.

Democrats have also benefited because of their comparative strength with Internet activists. While Republican voters tend to gravitate toward traditional media like talk radio, Democratic voters with strong opinions are more likely to go online to read blogs. That, in turn, has led to an explosion in online giving to Democrats, who are building lists of thousands of small-dollar donors for a fraction of the cost of traditional direct mail.

Many Democrats give by clicking links to candidates on the Web site ActBlue, a clearinghouse for small donors. ActBlue has raised $5.6 million for Democratic House, Senate and presidential candidates, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a Web site that tracks donations. It was the single biggest source of contributions to the party's presidential candidates during the first six months of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In a report last week, the center said ActBlue donors gave more in aggregate than the total from employees of heavy corporate contributors like Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

ActBlue Stats Week: Friday

Over the past week we've looked at a number of statistics from ActBlue.com, everything from some raw numbers, top candidates, and top fundraising pages. To finish out our series we're going to take a look at one of the most important areas of ActBlue- state level fundraising.

It's true that federal activity made up the majority of 2nd Quarter fundraising at ActBlue- 90% in fact. That's no surprise as federal races have always made up the bulk of ActBlue activity and tend to get started sooner than state legislative races.

That said, state level fundraising at ActBlue has huge potential for 2008 and is already showing enormous growth. In the 2nd Quarter, $323,638 was raised for state candidates in 15 states. (To note- in Q2 2005, just under $100,000 was raised across ActBlue for *all* candidates federal and non-federal.)

The charts below break out the numbers by state and detail the cluster of activity in Virginia (which has 2007 elections) and California.

Q2 $ Raised by State			Q2 Donors by State			# of Recipient Campaigns
$ Received	State		# of Donors	State		# of Campaigns	State
148,856	CA		650	VA		40	VA
120,308	VA		551	CA		15	CA
23,774	IL		145	IL		6	TX
16,990	MT		122	MT		5	PA
6,877	MO		43	PA		4	MT
2,705	PA		35	MO		4	NM
1,840	WI		17	WI		4	WI
1,210	MS		16	OH		3	NH/OH

In addition, the following table is of the Top 10 state candidates by $ raised on ActBlue in the 2nd Quarter.

$ Raised in Q2	Candidate	Office
74,254	Mark Leno	CA-SD-03
31,136	Joe Alioto Veronese	CA-SD-03
28,267	Karen Schultz	VA-SD-27
23,739	Daniel Biss	IL-HD-17
15,540	Carlos Del Toro	VA-HD-88
12,295	Donald McEachin	VA-SD-09
11,745	Steve Bullock	MT-Atty Gen
11,325	Jay Donahue	VA-HD-86
8,668	Rick Gonzales	CA-HD-80
8,175	Connie Brennan	VA-HD-59

We're looking forward to helping more candidates in the 23 states where we are active. If you are a campaign in the following states, (Alabama, Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming) contact us at info@actblue.com to get set up with ActBlue and start fundraising today!

That concludes our Q2 Stats Week with ActBlue. If seeing more if this type of data is something you find valuable on an ongoing basis, leave a note and we'll see about developing a more automated system to present select data.

Stats Week: Thursday

Yesterday we looked at the top candidates on ActBlue for the last quarter. Today we'll look at our ActBlue fundraising pages which any individual or campaign can create to support the candidates and causes of their choice.

Before we look at the individual pages here are some big picture numbers. Since ActBlue started three years ago, 4,263 different fundraising pages have been created, 43% of which have raised funds. In the 2nd Quarter of 2007, 606 fundraising pages were created, of which 71% raised funds. We're very excited to see that above average number of successful pages. Users are becoming more savvy in reaching out to their friends and supporters which is beneficial to the campaigns receiving those contributions.

And now, the Top 10 lists of ActBlue fundraising pages by number of donors and dollars broken down by lifetime totals and those for the recently completed Q2.

Top 10 fundraising pages by # donors (Lifetime)

count   | page name
---------+---------------------
40,026 | johnedwards
14,443 | netrootscandidates
  8,994 | hackett
  6,151 | blueamerica
  5,521 | pacforachange
  3,555 | eschaton
  3,421 | takebackthecongress
  2,752 | dnc
  2,450 | republicanfirewall
  2,235 | dkos

Top 10 fundraising pages by # of donors (Q2)

   count | page name
  -------+----------------------
12,661 | johnedwards
   1,017 | roadblockrepublicans
      842 | kerryforjohnson
      482 | blueamerica08
      373 | thepen
      346 | bluemajority
      318 | fightback
      310 | recount
      284 | infrastructure
      199 | eric

Top 10 fundraising pages by $ (Lifetime)

$ amount  |  page name
------------+--------------------
3,397,145 | johnedwards
1,601,968 | netrootscandidates
   568,009 | blueamerica
   532,998 | dansealsforcongress.com
   482,616 | hackett
   377,058 | dkos
   325,313 | sos-all
   292,829 | pacforachange
   278,821 | christine
   257,327 | republicanfirewall

Top 10 fundraising pages by $ (Q2)

$ amount | page name
------------+-------------------------
  876,230 | johnedwards
    73,206 | roadblockrepublicans
    66,067 | dansealsforcongress.com
    43,911 | markleno
    42,958 | mikesmith
    35,129 | kerryforjohnson
    33,600 | dougslist
    32,196 | blueamerica08
    28,513 | karenschultz
    23,824 | eric


As you can see, the list of fundraising pages is a mix of different approaches. Some are dedicated pages for particular candidates  like Eric Massa or Mark Leno who use it to collect their campaign contributions. Others are pages being used by current officeholders like John Kerry to raise on behalf of their colleagues. Others represent the collective voice of online communities like the various netroots pages in their efforts to support a wide range of candidates.

Join us tomorrow in our final installment of ActBlue stats week where we'll explore state level activity on the ActBlue fundraising platform.

Stats Week: Wednesday

Yesterday we looked at some of the big picture numbers at ActBlue. Today, we're going to take a look at candidates and campaigns behind those numbers, both for the 2nd Quarter and for ActBlue's history.

Top 10 entities by # donors (Lifetime)

count   |   candidate
---------+------------------
41,236 | John Edwards
16,363 | James Webb
12,420 | Ned Lamont
11,090 | Claire McCaskill
10,709 | Jon Tester
10,627 | Paul Hackett
  9,300 | Joseph Sestak Jr
  7,378 | Harold Ford, Jr 
  7,187 | Eric Massa
  6,584 | Darcy Burner

Top 10 entities by # donors (Q2)

count   |   candidate
---------+------------------
13,028 | John Edwards
  1,725 | Tim Johnson
     859 | Charlie Brown
     852 | KY-Sen Democratic Nominee Fund 2008
     830 | MN-Sen Democratic Nominee Fund 2008
     763 | NH-Sen Democratic Nominee Fund 2008
     755 | ME-Sen Democratic Nominee Fund 2008
     664 | Keeping America's Promise
     591 | Tom Allen
     548 | BlogPAC

Top candidates by $ raised (Lifetime)

amount     |  candidate
-------------+------------------
3,437,887 | John Edwards
   894,042 | James Webb
   868,287 | Joseph Sestak Jr
   538,659 | Dan Seals
   528,664 | Paul Hackett
   507,553 | Tim Mahoney
   453,027 | Ned Lamont
   415,751 | Eric Massa
   395,795 | John Morrison

Top candidates by $ raised (Q2)

amount  |  candidate
----------+------------------
883,656 | John Edwards
134,904 | John Kerry
128,215 | Jared Polis
107,483 | Joseph Sestak Jr
103,264 | Tim Johnson
101,689 | Steve Novick
  97,000 | Chellie Pingree
  77,677 | Niki Tsongas
  74,254 | Mark Leno
  70,377 | Jamie Eldridge

Join us tomorrow when we look at fundraising pages on ActBlue.

Stats Week: Tuesday

Let's spend some time looking at our ActBlue totals, donors, and contributions. I'll be breaking these apart for 2nd Quarter data compared to that for the lifetime of ActBlue.

Total Contributions
Life:   $24,790,988.32
Q2:      $3,460,609.75

The 2nd Quarter of 2007 represents 14% of all contributions made on ActBlue over the least 3 years. To put this in perspective, it took ActBlue over five fundraising quarters in '05-'06 to raise the same amount as was raised in this past quarter alone. By November of 2006, ActBlue had raised a lifetime total of about $17 million with 40% of that coming in during the last 6 weeks of the campaign cycle. When you consider that Q2 2007 is already outpacing Q2 2005 by a factor of 10 and that this is a Presidential Cycle...well, you get the picture. It's one of the reasons why investment in ActBlue is so critical- we'll need to expand our six member staff and move out of our 600 sq ft office sooner than later.

Total Number of donors
Life: 217,998
Q2:     28,925

The 2nd Quarter of 2007 represents 13.2% of the number of individual donors on ActBlue.

Average contribution size to all entities
Life:  $60.38
Q2:    $99.65

The 2nd Quarter of 2007 represents a 65% increase in the average contribution size to all candidates, committees, and organizations when compared to the ActBlue lifetime average. This is explained by the activity of campaigns. Monies raised earlier in an election cycle tend to be weighted more heavily by maxed out or large donors. In campaigns, these larger donations are often gathered to generate early momentum and viability as candidates reach out to their personal friends and most steadfast supporters. As individual fundraisers and grassroots communities grow we expect this average contribution size to naturally fall later in the cycle.

Average contribution size made to ActBlue Pages
Life:  $112.28
Q2:    $119.64

The 2nd Quarter of 2007 represents only a 6.5% increase in the average contribution size made to ActBlue fundraising pages. Overall, contributions to pages are higher than those to entities since pages often contain multiple candidates. The slight increase is within the normal parameters, although the use by some campaigns of single, one-candidates ActBlue pages to collect contributions for their sites has some effect in increasing the average. Compared to the rather large increase in average contributions to "entities" explained above, we can see that pages are less effected by the campaign cycle since they are more grassroots in nature.

Median contribution
Life: $50.00
Q2:   $45.00

The 2nd Quarter of 2007 represents a 10% decline in the median contribution size. While the average contribution size has increased, the decline in the median contribution is evidence that small dollar grassroots contributions are healthy and abundant on ActBlue. This means a cluster of high dollar donations is responsible for bringing up the site's average for the quarter rather than a more general trend of larger contribution sizes.

Join us again tomorrow when we explore the topic of top candidates on the ActBlue Blog.

Stats Week on the ActBlue Blog

With the end of the Federal 2nd Quarter fundraising period, we've taken some time to look through the data we've collected here at ActBlue. Each day this week we'll release some data regarding the activity across ActBlue, both for the quarter and how that compares to our lifetime statistics for the past 3 years. I'll be analyzing it for trends and patterns that may shed light into the giving habits of Democratic donors at the early phase of campaigns.

Here's the schedule for this week.

Tuesday
Totals, donors, and contributions- find out info on the raw numbers system wide.

Wednesday
Candidates- find out who's hot by the number of donors and dollars.

Thursday
Fundraising Pages- find out the top 10 pages on ActBlue by donors and dollars.

Friday
State Level Activity- find out what's up in non-federal races and who's leading.

The Pace of Fundraising

Political Insider points out a rather amazing statistic.

"Assuming the Dem WH field pulled in $70M over the past Q, that means they collectively raised cash at a rate of about $778K/day, $32K/hour, or $9.00/second."

Seeing as that collective number on the Dem side looks to be more like $75 million or more, that can be revised to $833K/day, $34.7K/hour, or $579/min, or $9.65/sec.

I went ahead and calculated this for ActBlue (between last Tuesday night when we hit $20 million through to end of the quarter on midnight Saturday). Inclusive of all candidates, from state house to President, fundraising online through ActBlue ran at an average clip of $311K/day, $13K/hour, $216/min, or $3.60/sec for that period.

I would do it for the entire quarter but it's not directly comparable because ActBlue serves so many candidates who are not doing intense presidential level fundraising.  The last week is a better measure since the bulk of it is presidential money.