The ActBlue Blog: Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist

Apr 07, 2008

We've got big plans. We need your help.

If you think what we're doing is important, please help us bring ActBlue to every Democrat in the country. I_support_actblue

ActBlue is at the forefront of the movement to build a strategic advantage—infrastructure—for Democrats.

Our numbers speak for themselves: $40 million raised since 2004 for more than 2,557 Democratic candidates and committees from more than 326,000 contributors.

That's your work. It makes you powerful. And it's already changed the balance of power in executive offices and legislatures across the country.

We've got big plans for this year: we're going to raise $100 million for Democrats, bring ActBlue's best-in-class platform to 25 more states, and continue to train and support volunteers and campaigns in all fifty states.

But we're not going to get there without your help.

To reach our goals, we need a fourth political coordinator here at ActBlue. That's one more salary, and one more desk, and one more computer--and five dollars a month from you for the next year will make it possible.

Please make a recurring contribution of five dollars a month today.

From all of us here at ActBlue, thanks.

Jonathan Zucker
Executive Director, ActBlue

p.s. Check out our great news from Tuesday! 

Jan 25, 2008

ActBlue 2007 Stats Week: Friday

Miss a day of Stats Week?  Check out the previous posts:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday

Comparing the 2005-2006 election cycle to the 2007-2008 election
cycle.

Number of Contributors in 2007: 144,151
Number of Contributors in 2005: 22,067

Pages Created in 2007: 2600
Pages created in 2005: 1112

Number of Contributors Leaving Tips in 2007: 59,346
Number of Contributors Leaving Tips in 2005: 10,977

Top Ten Pages with the Highest Number of Tippers: (pages with 100+ contributors)

Page % of Tippers
Eschaton '08 Challengers 77%
Freeze Out Fox News 77%
Not One Red Cent 74%
Burn Bush for Burner 71%
Blue Majority 70%
BlogPac Heroes 69%
AMERICAblog Supports Tom Allen 69%
Blue America '08 68%
Help Skinner Finish the Job 68%
BlogPac 67%
Steve Beshear 67%

In 2007 ActBlue Democrats raised ten times more funds than in 2005.  Because of ActBlue's phenomenal growth there are thousands more participants in the Democratic process and we fully expect their accumulated activity to reach $100 million by the time ballots are cast in November.  That's $100 million raised for Democrats across the country on ActBlue. It's clear that 2008 is going to be a watershed year for Democrats up and down the ballot.  ActBlue Democrats are at the forefront of that success.

We rely on the tens of thousands of people who support us through tipping (59,346 in 2007).  That support keeps us afloat so we can empower more people to support campaigns and influence the political process.  Tips allow ActBlue to add more staff to provide hands-on customer service and train activists nationwide.  Tips allow us to deliver more enhanced features on our website.  Tips are the fuel that keeps ActBlue burning.

It's only fitting that we end stats week by recognizing the extraordinary action and escalating growth of ActBlue with a humble thank you to all those who left us a tip in 2007 making all of this possible.

 

Jan 24, 2008

ActBlue 2007 Stats Week: Thursday

Top Ten ActBlue Pages 2007

by number of contributors:

Candidate # of Contributors
John Edwards 51,366
Blue America '08 3413
Blue Majority 2643
People's Email Network 2478
Burn Bush for Burner 2469
Courage Campaign 1645
Welcome Back, Tim 1576
Roadblock Republicans 1482
Mark Warner for Senate 1409
Bill Richardson 1344

by amount raised:

Page Amount Raised
John Edwards $3,937,373.26
Mark Warner for Senate $556,405.19
Blue America '08 $232,604.31
Dan Seals for Congress $210,140.00
Netroots for Noriega $189,837.75
Blue Majority $174,287.55
Bill Richardson $172,690.46
Support Jeanne Shaheen $137,561.00
Novick for Senate $123,100.16
People's Email Network $120,611.56

Q1 Top Five ActBlue Pages 2007

by number of contributors

Page # of Contributors
John Edwards 24,913
Bill Richardson 1112
Hold the Senate 654
Christine Jennings Recount Fund 513
Born Fighting PAC 332

by amount raised

 
Page Amount Raised
John Edwards $2,165,357.24
Bill Richardson $163,090.74
Obama for America $29,134.41
Hold the Senate $28,820.06
Born Fighting PAC $26442.06

Q2 Top Five ActBlue Pages 2007

by number of contributors

Page # of Contributors
John Edwards 12661
Roadblock Republicans 1017
Kerry for Johnson 842
Blue America '08 482
People's Email Network 373

by amount raised

 
Page Amount Raised
John Edwards $857,391.54
Roadblock Republicans $857,391.54
Dan Seals for Congress $65,528.00
Kerry for Johnson $33,663.55
Blue America '08 $30,601.88

Q3 Top Five ActBlue Pages 2007

by number of contributors

Page Amount Raised
John Edwards 9698
Burn Bush for Burner 2446
Welcome Back, Tim 1526
Blue America '08 995
Blue Majority 962

by amount raised

 
Page # of Contributors
John Edwards $713,600.37
Mark Warner for Senate $402,647.19
Netroots for Noriega $141,675.66
Burn Bush for Burner $88,185.55
Welcome Back, Tim $71,124.67

Q4 Top Five ActBlue Pages 2007

by number of contributors

Page # of Contributors
John Edwards 4094
Blue America '08 1735
Blue Majority 1313
Courage Campaign 1172
People's Email Network 1167

by amount raised

Page Amount Raised
John Edwards $201,024.11
Mark Warner for Senate $153,758.00
Blue America '08 $118,837.90
Blue Majority $85,751.89
People's Email Network $69,032.40

Jan 23, 2008

ActBlue 2007 Stats Week: Wednesday

Total money raised for State elections on ActBlue in 2007: $1,661,599.74

Compared to the total money raised for State elections on ActBlue in 2006: $631,631

Total number of contributors for State elections in 2007: 12,474

Compared to the total number of contributors for State elections in 2006: 5506

Top Five States in 2007

By Number of Contributors

State # of Contributors
Virgina 3481
California 1426
Illinois 1152
Missouri 331
Pennsylvania 324

By Amount Raised

State Amount Raised
Virgina $624,686
California $393,081
Illinois $87,298
Montana $35,212
Pennsylvania $33,943

Top Five State Entities in 2007

By Number of Contributors

Entity District # of Contributors
Courage Campaign Issues Committee CA State PAC 2104
Daniel Biss IL-HD-017 950
George Barker VA-SD-039 388
Joe Alioto Veronese CA-SD-03 372
Karen Schultz VA-SD-27 358

By Amount Raised

Entity District Amount Raised
Mark Leno CA-AD-013 $121,206
Karen Schultz VA-SD-27 $117,593
Courage Campaign Issues Committee CA State PAC $82,933
Joe Alioto Veronese CA-SD-03 $82,673
Daniel Biss IL-HD-017 $61,996

Jan 22, 2008

ActBlue 2007 Stats Week: Tuesday

Total Amount Raised for Federal Races on ActBlue in 2007: $15,418,243.86

Total Number of Contributors for Federal Races in 2007: 136,322

Top 5 Senate Candidate Recipients in 2007

by number of contributors:

Candidate Race # of Contributors
Tim Johnson SD-Sen 5583
Rick Noriega TX-Sen 3081
Mark Warner VA-Sen 1587
Tom Allen ME-Sen 1424
Tom Harkin IA-Sen 1011

by amount raised

Candidate Race Amount Raised
Mark Warner VA-Sen $579,706.04
Rick Noriega TX-Sen $342,554.50
Tim Johnson SD-Sen $323,192.06
Steve Novick OR-Sen $277,048.82
John Kerry MA-Sen $231,732.67

Top 5 House Candidate Recipients in 2007

by number of contributors:

Candidate Race # of Contributors
Donna Edwards MD-04 5582
Darcy Burner WA-08 4189
Eric Massa NY-29 2577
Mark Pera IL-03 2290
Charlie Brown CA-04 2251

by amount raised

Candidate Race Amount Raised
Joseph Sestak Jr PA-07 $387,316.13
Niki Tsongas MA-05 $320,298.28
Jared Polis CO-02 $308,584.03
Donna Edwards MD-04 $268,569.68
Chellie Pinegree ME-01 $260,985.34

Jan 21, 2008

ActBlue 2007 Stats Week: Monday

Comparing the 2005-2006 election cycle to the 2007-2008 election
cycle.

Total Amount Raised on ActBlue in 2007: $16,872,127.06
Total Amount Raised on ActBlue in 2005: $1,684,797.22

Total Number of Contributors in 2007: 169,287
Total Number of Contributors in 2005: 23,816

Average Contribution in 2007: $119.00
Average Contribution in 2005: $78.28

Top Ten Candidates in 2007

by # of contributors:

Candidate Race Contributors
John Edwards President 53,433
Tim Johnson SD-Sen 5583
Donna Edwards MD-04 5582
Darcy Burner WA-08 4189
Dennis Kucinich President 3126
Rick Noriega TX-Sen 3081
Eric Massa NY-29 2577
Mark Pera IL-03 2290
Charlie Brown CA-04 2067
Joseph Sestak Jr PA-07 2067

By amount raised:

Candidate Race Amount Raised
John Edwards President $4,096,830.41
Mark Warner VA-Sen $579,706.04
Joseph Sestak Jr PA-07 $387,316.13
Rick Noriega TX-Sen $342,554.50
Tim Johnson SD-Sen $323,192.06
Niki Tsongas MA-05 $320,298.28
Bill Richardson President $310,262.50
Jared Polis CO-02 $308,584.03
Steve Novick OR-Sen $277,048.82
Donna Edwards MD-04 $268,569.68

Oct 22, 2007

Activity Report: October 1st-20th, 2007

This is our latest installment of our Weekly ActBlue Activity Reports. This is a special 3 week edition to cover what's happened in October since our last set of reports.

Total Amount Contributed: $1,005,545.02
Total # of Contributions: 11,117
Avg. Contribution size: $90.45

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 438

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue by number of donors.

Rank Name District Donors
1 DraftGore.com PAC 2875
2 John Edwards President 1452
3 Niki Tsongas MA-05 547
4 Blue America PAC PAC 383
5 Chris Dodd President 354

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue by total amount raised.

Rank Name District Raised
1 DraftGore.com PAC $156,794.66
2 John Edwards President $109,261.50
3 Niki Tsongas MA-05 $55,452.28
4 Iowa Democratic Party Party $26,505.00 
5 Mark Warner VA-Sen $23,295.00 

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages by number of donors.

Rank Name Donors Raised Average
1 Eschaton- Candidate Good Behavior 288 $15,218.36   
$31.63
2 Don't Hurt Sick Kids
252 $7,440.06
$17.71
3 Blue America '08 226 $31,985.68   
$23.12
4 People's Email Network 141 $4,760.00
$23.21
5 Draft Udall
79 $1,000.08
$7.57

It's been a busy few weeks for the start of a new fundraising quarter. Over $1 million has flowed through to Democratic campaigns. Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize caused lots of excitement among donors putting one of the draft committees urging him to run atop of the lists. Niki Tsongas recently won her special election to the MA-05 seat bringing her activity up to the top of our lists as well.

Oct 04, 2007

ActBlue Q3 Stats Week: Thursday

Yesterday we looked at the top candidates on ActBlue for the third quarter.  Today we'll look at our ActBlue fundraising pages, where any individual, organization or campaign can 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, 5,011 different fundraising pages have been created. In the 3rd Quarter of 2007, 757 new fundraising pages were created.

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 # of donors (Q3-2007)

   donors | page name
  -------+----------------------
   9,698 | johnedwards
   2,446 | burnbush
   1,526 | welcomebacktim
      995 | blueamerica08
      962 | bluemajority
      938 | thepen
      905 | warner
      811 | netrootsfornoriega
      473 | couragecampaign
      448 | roadblockrepublicans

Top 10 fundraising pages by # donors (Lifetime)

donors   | page name
---------+---------------------
49,518 | johnedwards
14,444 | netrootscandidates
  8,994 | hackett
  6,157 | blueamerica
  5,526 | pacforachange
  3,555 | eschaton
  3,421 | takebackthecongress
  2,758 | dnc
  2,450 | republicanfirewall
  2,446 | burnbush


Top 10 fundraising pages by $ (Q3-2007)

$ amount | page name
------------+---------------------
  $713,600 | johnedwards
  $402,647 | warner
  $141,675 | netrootsfornoriega
    $88,185 | burnbush
    $85,189 | dansealsforcongress
    $75,169 | welcomebacktim
    $71,124 | bluemajority
    $70,909 | blueamerica08
    $49,444 | donfornewmexico
    $40,425 | novick4senate

Top 10 fundraising pages by $ (Lifetime)

$ amount  |  page name
------------+--------------------
$4,035,098 | johnedwards
$1,544,139 | netrootscandidates
   $612,749 | dansealsforcongress.com
   $545,300 | blueamerica
   $463,889 | hackett
   $402,647 | warner
   $366,947 | dkos
   $320,100 | sos-all
   $282,485 | pacforachange
   $276,557 | christine
   $249,582 | republicanfirewall

As you can see, a mix of different approaches are represented on these lists. Some are dedicated pages for particular candidates, like Dan Seals or Mark Warner, who use ActBlue for their online campaign contribution. Others are being used by current officeholders to raise on behalf of their colleagues (and challengers), such as the effort by 12 Senators for for Sen. Tim Johnson.  And still others, like the various netroots pages, represent the collective voice of online communities in their efforts to support a wide range of candidates.

Oct 03, 2007

ActBlue Q3 Stats Week: Wednesday

On Monday 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 3rd Quarter and for ActBlue's history. For the lifetime Top 10's we've had some 08 candidates break into the list for the first time (outside of John Edwards of course) so I've started noting those candidates with the year these numbers represent. It is likely that some of the current Top 10 Lifetime candidates will be replaced by themselves if their 2008 totals exceed those from 2006.

Top 10 entities by # donors (Q3-2007)

Campaign Race # Donors
John Edwards President 10399
Darcy Burner WA-08 3421
Tim Johnson SD-Sen 2418
Eric Massa NY-29 1310
Rick Noriega TX-Sen 1156
Dennis Kucinich President 1100
Keeping America's Promise PAC 990
Charlie Brown CA-04 968
BlogPAC PAC 928
Mark Warner VA-Sen 919

Top 10 entities by # donors (Lifetime)

Candidate Race # Donors
John Edwards (08) President 51239
James Webb (06) VA-Sen 16363
Ned Lamont (06) CT-Sen 12420
Claire McCaskill (06) MO-Sen 11090
Jon Tester (06) MT-Sen 10709
Paul Hackett (05) OH-02 10627
Joseph Sestak Jr (06) PA-07 9300
Harold Ford, Jr. (06) TN-Sen 7378
Eric Massa (06) NY-29 7187
Darcy Burner (06) WA-08 6584

 

Top 10 candidates by $ raised (Q3-2007)

Candidate Race Total Raised
John Edwards President $762,101.39
Mark Warner VA-Sen $412,823.19
Rick Noriega TX-Sen $159,201.92
Niki Tsongas MA-05 $149,263.00
Tom Harkin IA-Sen $143,429.27
Tim Johnson SD-Sen $126,405.55
Darcy Burner WA-08 $116,819.06
Dan Seals IL-10 $108,924.84
Linda Stender NJ-07 $101,545.08
Joseph Sestak Jr PA-07 $98,111.99


Top 10 candidates by $ raised (Lifetime)

Candidate Race Total Raised
John Edwards (08) President $4,170,250.41
James Webb (06) VA-Sen $894,042.36
Joseph Sestak Jr (06) PA-07 $868,287.01
Dan Seals (06) IL-10 $538,659.87
Paul Hackett (05) OH-02 $528,664.33
Tim Mahoney (06) FL-16 $507,553.44
Ned Lamont (06) CT-Sen $453,027.51
Eric Massa (06) NY-29 $415,751.68
Mark Warner (08) VA-Sen $408,158.19
John Morrison (06) MT-Sen $395,795.56


 

Oct 01, 2007

ActBlue Q3 Stats Week: Monday

The federal end-of-quarter (Q3) has come and gone! So let's spend some time looking at our ActBlue totals, donors, and contributions. I'll be breaking these apart for the 3rd Quarter and comparable periods as well as the lifetime of ActBlue. This is just day one of a whole week of interesting stats and data here on the ActBlue blog.

Total Contributions
Lifetime:        $29,027,471.89
2007 to date:  $11,377,358.58 (+ 48% from same period 2006)
Q3 of 2007:      $4,814,059.61 (+ 39% from Q2 of 2007)

The 3rd Quarter of 2007 represents 42% of all contributions so far in 2007 and nearly 17% of all contributions made on ActBlue over the least 3 years. To put this in perspective, the amount raised in this past quarter is about as much as was raised in ActBlue's first 2 years. The totals raised so far in 2007, an off-election year, are outpacing those of the same period in 2006, an election year. And if you want to compare 2007 to the same period in 2005 (both off-years) then the increase is a staggering 1,015%. Wow.

Total Number of donors
Lifetime:        260,795
2007 to date:  102,523 (+45% from same period 2006)
Q3 of 2007:      40,551 (+ 40% from Q2 of 2007)

The 3rd Quarter of 2007 contains 40% of all donors to candidates through ActBlue so far in 2007 and nearly 16% of the number of individual donors on ActBlue since its inception. An interesting note, the average donor gives to 1.74 candidates per donation through ActBlue (because of donors' ability to give through multi-candidates pages at ActBlue).

Average contribution size to all entities
Lifetime:        $64.13
2007 to date:  $94.95 (+ 49% from same period 2006)
Q3 of 2007:     $93.35   (- 6% from Q2 of 2007)

At the end of last quarter I made the prediction that "as individual fundraisers and grassroots communities grow we expect the average contribution size to naturally fall later in the cycle." It looks as if in the short term this is turning out to be true. The average contributions size in Q3 is down nearly 6% from that of Q2 this year and while still higher than the lifetime average, is trending back towards the lifetime average of $64.13 per contribution. (Just to note, the average contribution size is not calculated using the number of "donors" but rather the number of "contributions"- the reason being that one donor can make multiple contributions in one transaction by giving through a multi-candidate fundraising page.)

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

Sep 24, 2007

Activity Report: September 16th-23rd, 2007

This is our latest installment of our Weekly ActBlue Activity Reports. The last posted report is here. (Week over week changes in parentheses)

Total Amount Contributed last week: $558,860.97 (+ $180,451)
Total # of Contributions: 3,441 (+ 506)
Avg. Contribution size: $162.41 (+ $33.48)

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 268 (+ 2)
Total # New Campaigns & Committees receiving funds : 18

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue last week by number of donors.

      
Rank Name District Donors
      
1 John Edwards President 643
      
2 Mark Warner VA-Sen 229
      
3 BlogPAC PAC 216
      
4 Andrew Rice OK-Sen 113
      
5 Chellie Pingree ME-01 80

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue last week by total amount raised.

      
Rank Name District Raised
      
1 Mark Warner VA-Sen $77,955.01
      
2 John Edwards President $52,217.79
      
3 Tom Harkin IA-Sen $48,679.00
      
4 Chellie Pingree ME-01 $36,070.50
      
5 Rick Noriega TX-Sen $15,809.16

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages last week by number of donors.

      
Rank Name Donors Raised Average
      
1 Not One Red Cent 199 $6,156.13 
$30.93 
      
2 Netroots for Rick Noriega
66 $15,126.38 $229.18
      
3 Restore Habeas Corpus 47 $3,460.02 
$40.70
4 Kansas DemoFest 2007 44 $4,715.00 $107.15
      
5 Blue America '08
41 $4,753.57  $69.34

Last week's activity saw Maine congressional candidate Chellie Pingree join the Top 5 lists. Fundraising for BlogPAC also picked up as it was the beneficiary of this week's hottest fundraising page which was featured in a recommended diary at DailyKos.

Sep 17, 2007

Activity Report: September 9th-15th, 2007

This is our latest installment of our Weekly ActBlue Activity Reports. The last posted report is here. (Week over week changes in parentheses)

I've added a new statistic this week- the total number of campaigns/committees who received funds for the first time though ActBlue. These are often new campaigns that have filed and started raising money and will continue to do so into the future. Others are candidates or groups ActBlue has listed in our directory for some time and have only just now had their first contribution through us.

Total Amount Contributed last week: $378,409.86 (+ $59,418)
Total # of Contributions: 2,935 (- 2,457)
Avg. Contribution size: $128.93 (+ $69.77)

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 266 (+ 45)
Total # New Campaigns & Committees receiving funds : 27

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue last week by number of donors.

      
Rank Name District Donors
      
1 John Edwards President 628
      
2 Mark Warner VA-Sen 300
      
3 Tim Johnson SD-Sen 205
      
4 Tom Harkin IA-Sen 89
      
5 Rick Noriega TX-Sen 81

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue last week by total amount raised.

      
Rank Name District Raised
      
1 Mark Warner VA-Sen $74,071.08
      
2 John Edwards President $48,021.21
      
3 Tom Harkin IA-Sen $33,986.00
      
4 Mark Schauer MI-07 $15,064.00
      
5 Rick Noriega TX-Sen $14,938.01

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages last week by number of donors.

      
Rank Name Donors Raised Average
      
1 Welcome Back Tim Johnson 166 $8,483.00
$51.10
      
2 Netroots for Rick Noriega
66 $14,071.01
$213.19
      
3 The People's Email Network
63 $2,236.00
$35.49
      
4 Blue America '08
52 $3,807.03
$21.15
      
5 Happy Birthday Eric Massa 33 $1,582.05
$47.94

A quick glance at this activity shows a lot of money moving into campaigns for the U.S. Senate. Last week saw the entrance of Mark Warner into the Virginia Senate race which helped rocket him up the ActBlue charts. Tim Johnson's colleagues continued to raise funds in honor of his return to the Senate which we discussed in this post. Sen. Tom Harkin hosted his 30th Annual Steak Fry over the weekend boosting him into the top tier as well.

Sep 10, 2007

Activity Report: September 2nd-8th, 2007

This is our latest installment of our new Weekly ActBlue Activity Reports. The last posted report is here. (Week over week changes in parentheses).

Total Amount Contributed last week: $318,991.07 (+ $29,577)
Total # of Contributions: 5,392 (+ 1,107)
Avg. Contribution size: $59.16 (- $8.39)

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 221 (+ 9)

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue last week by number of donors.

Rank Name District Donors
1 Tim Johnson SD-Sen 1632
2 John Edwards President 737
3 Courage Campaign CA PAC 470
4 Keeping America's Promise Funds PAC 200+
5 Jim Himes CT-04 149

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue last week by total amount raised.

Rank Name District Raised
1 Tim Johnson SD-SEN $77,982.05
2 John Edwards President $50,879.38
3 Tom Harkin IA-SEN $21,740.00
4 Courage Campaign CA PAC $13,180.71
5 Don Wiviott NM-Sen $11,520.00

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages last week by number of donors.

Rank Name Donors Raised Average
1 Welcome Back Tim Johnson 1620 $76,272.05 $47.08
2 No More Dirty Tricks
425 $11,884.51 $27.96
3 Blue America '08 183 $7,617.05 $15.80
4 San Diego County Clubs Convention 81 $1,921.00 $23.71
5 Where My Mouth Is 24 $775.03 $21.52

The most prominent effort last week is clearly the fundraising for Sen. Tim Johnson. For more on the effort, please read last Friday's post on the subject. In addition, you'll see the efforts of the Courage Campaign show up in this week's report. For more on that effort, read this post.

Sep 07, 2007

August ActBlue Activity Report

August is over so it's time for a monthly stats round-up of what's been happening in Democratic online fundraising over ActBlue.  Let's dive into some data- (change from prior month in parentheses).

Total Amount Contributed: $1,039,376.72 (+$396,938)
Total # of Contributions:       14,648 (+5,004)
Average Contribution Size: $70.96 (+$4.35)

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 419 (+ 67)

Here are the Top 10 Recipients by amounts received through ActBlue in August.

Name Amount Office
John Edwards $214,180.51 President
Darcy Burner $105,202.18 WA-08
Niki Tsongas $48,616.00 MA-05
Rick Noriega $39,696.13 TX-Sen
Jamie Eldridge $30,122.35 MA-05
Jeff Merkley $27,581.67 OR-Sen
Jared Polis $25,153.00 CO-02
Russ Warner $21,118.87 CA-26
San Diego Democratic Party $18,119.00 County
Joe Alioto Veronese $16,505.00 CA-SD-03


Here are the Top 10 Recipients by # of donors through ActBlue in August.

Name Donors Office
John Edwards 3,182 President
Darcy Burner 2,950 WA-08
Rick Noriega 539 TX-Sen
Daniel Biss 358 IL-HD-17
Dennis Kucinich 274 President
Jamie Eldridge 270 MA-05
San Diego Democratic Party 251 County
Jeff Merkley 245 OR-Sen
Al Franken 241 MN-Sen
BlogPAC 216 PAC

And here are the Top 5 fundraising pages by number of donors (excluding pages used by candidates solely to collect contributions directly from campaign websites).

Fundraising Page Raised Donors Avg.
Burn Bush for Burner $87,682.54 2429 $36.09
Blue America '08 $24,525.30 372 $20.00
Blue Majority $16,265.42 349 $23.07
Netroots for Rick Noriega for Senate $30,849.16 324 $95.21
Brotherhood 2.0 for Daniel Biss $1,673.00 210 $7.96

Aug 27, 2007

Activity Report: August 19th-25th, 2007

This is our second installment of our new Weekly ActBlue Activity Reports. Last week's is posted here. (Week over week changes in parentheses).

One note: I have recalculated the total # of contributions and average contribution size and corrected last week's entry to match. The new method counts each separate line-item as a contribution when one donor gives to multiple candidates on a page during a transaction. This will increase the total # of contributions and decrease the average contribution size compared to the old method but is more accurate.

Total Amount Contributed last week: $289,414.07 (+ $63,151.77)
Total # of Contributions: 4285 (+ 2,101)
Avg. Contribution size: $67.54 (- $36.06)

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 212 (+ 25)

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue last week by number of donors.

Rank Name District Donors
1 Darcy Burner WA-08 1627
2 John Edwards President 809
3 Al Franken MN-Sen 201
4 Rick Noriega TX-Sen 129
5 San Diego Democratic Party CA-County 126

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue last week by total amount raised.

Rank Name District Raised
1 Darcy Burner WA-08 $55,435.14
2 John Edwards President $54,678.07
3 Niki Tsongas MA-05 $18,297.00
4 Rick Noriega TX-Sen $16,464.30
5 Jared Polis CO-02 $12,410.00

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages last week by number of donors.

Rank Name Donors Raised Average
1 Burn Bush for Burner 1449 $49,401.19 $34.09
2 John Edwards 768 $53,320.42 $68.12
3 Blue Majority 262 $11,994.31 $23.84
4 Netroots for Rick Noriega 117 $15,451.01 $132.05
5 The People's Email Network 62 $2,135.00 $34.43

For ActBlue, this past week's most notable activity is the Netroots effort to raise $100,000 for Darcy Burner in Washington's 8th Congressional District as a counter to a visit by President Bush to fundraise for the Republican Incumbent. That effort has been great example of blogs using referral codes to track which contributions they were responsible for driving towards the effort. That way, the campaign can see how much the DailyKos community, readers of Atrios, or other blogs have given towards the effort.

Aug 20, 2007

Activity Report: August 12th-18th, 2007

A new blog series that we're going to start up here is a weekly activity report each Monday. In it, we'll look to feature the most active campaigns and fundraising pages at ActBlue for the prior week. It's a scaled down version of our Monthly or Quarterly activity reports but if something neat or creative sticks out we'll try to highlight it here.

Total Contributions last week: $226,262.30
Total Donors: 1794 2184
Avg. Contribution size: $128.33 $103.60

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 187

Here are the Top 5 Recipients on ActBlue last week by number of donors.

Name District Raised Donors
John Edwards President $36,870.80 520
Rick Noriega TX-Sen $12,332.61 154
Steven L. Beshear KY-Gov $2,433.02 106
Democracy for America Organization $1,722.70 88
Tom Allen ME-Sen $2,601.03 84

Here are the Top 5 Candidate Recipients on ActBlue last week by total amount raised.

Name District Raised
John Edwards President $36,870.80
Rick Noriega TX-Sen $12,332.61
Gary Trauner WY-AL $11,200.00
Jamie Eldridge MA-05 $10,004.61
Russ Warner CA-26 $9,196.60

Here are the Top 5 ActBlue Fundraising Pages last week by number of donors.

Name Donors Raised Average
John Edwards 494 $36,031.66 $72.93
DFA for Steve Beshear 132 $4,135.65 $21.42
Blue America '08 127 $11,533.12 $32.30
Netroots for Rick Noriega 91 $10,444.00 $114.76
SoCal Grassroots 42 $1,095.00 $26.07

Aug 07, 2007

July ActBlue Activity Report

Given the success and interest in our end of quarter ActBlue Stats Week, I thought that I would do a July report on the activity on ActBlue. And if there is interest, I'll start doing a simplified weekly round up of what's been going on in the online fundraising world.

So let's dive into some July data as measured through ActBlue.com-

Total Contributions: $642,438.41
Number of Donors: 9,644
Average Contribution Size: $66.61
Median Contribution Size: $27.50

Total # of Recipient Campaigns & Committees: 352

Here are the Top 10 Candidates by amounts received through ActBlue in July.

John Edwards $168,898.95 President
Niki Tsongas $17,240.00 MA-05
Eric Massa $16,091.82 NY-29
Dennis Kucinich $15,673.30 President
John Kerry $14,664.01 MA-Sen
Steve Novick $12,157.30 OR-Sen
Tim Johnson $11,324.00 SD-Sen
Kay Barnes $10,940.00 MO-06
Tom Harkin $9,901.27 IA-Sen
Jamie Eldridge $9,534.10 MA-05

And here are the Top 5 fundraising pages by number of donors (excluding pages used by candidates to collect contributions directly from campaign websites).

The People's Email Network $15,319.30 420
Roadblock Republicans $25,010.01 416
Blogosphere Day $18,324.57 392
Support Eric Massa for Congress $16,607.20 272
Democracy for America List $8,182.93 184

Jul 06, 2007

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.

Jul 05, 2007

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.

Jul 04, 2007

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  |&n