January ’14: Just getting started featured image placeholder

January just ended, which means Election Day 2014 is right around the corner. At least it feels that way in the fundraising world, where early money is key for structure, momentum, and success in November.

2012 was a breakout year for online fundraising, and had presidential election year with presidential-level media attention, but as you can see below, 2014 is poised to be much, much bigger. And that’s because more campaigns have started using ActBlue as their main fundraising platform, got an early jump on fundraising, and harnessed the power of grassroots donors.

  Jan ’11 Jan ’12 Jan ’13 Jan ’14
Contributions 10,120 87,370 98,953 223,334
Volume ($) $636,711.13 $4,001,392.93 $3,341,964.67 $7,780,137.87
Mean Donation $62.92 $45.80 $33.77 $34.84
Committees 460 1,206 764 1,604

We helped raise $7.8 million in January ‘14, nearly double the $4 million in January ‘12. The money we raised this past month came from 223,334 donors, who gave an average of $34.84. So: we doubled the amount of money while shaving $11 off of our average contribution size in January ’14. That’s the kind of grassroots power that we love to see in action, because those donors will likely give several times and it’ll add up to a big impact come Election Day.

Because of optimization testing and development work we’ve done in the offseason, we’ve got a ton of new folks gearing up to work with us in 2014. We set up 214 new campaigns and organizations this past month alone! (If you work for a campaign or organization and are interested in trying out our tools, please get in touch.) The combination of higher conversion rates and more campaigns and organizations means rapid growth.

So, what else did January tell us about the year to come? We’ve been saying it for a while, but 2014 will be the year of mobile, and January’s numbers confirmed our mantra. 19.7% of all contributions on ActBlue were made via a mobile device, with some days seeing that number rise to 25%.

Mobile contributions are even more popular when it comes to Express users, who made 22.8% of their donations via mobile devices. That’s key because we now have over 720,000 Express users, and they accounted for 55.2% of all donations made on ActBlue in January. They’re our power users, and the biggest supporters of Democratic candidates and causes. As the number of Express users grows, and mobile phones become the go-to way to check email for supporters around the country, all eyes will be on mobile conversion rates.

Taking a look at the past few election cycles, we can make some predictions about 2014 fundraising.

election year giving

election_year_dollars

We brought in $35 million dollars in October ‘12, almost 9x the amount that we helped raise in January ‘12. The beginning of the year, while strong, will pale in comparison to those big months. Predictably, fundraising spikes in March and June for the end of quarter fundraising pushes. However, fundraising growth continues at about the same rate after September’s crucial end of quarter, which means you can bet that October 1st won’t be a day for recovery. From July on, it’s likely to be non-stop fundraising.

January is one of the biggest months for political contribution reporting (our compliance team worked overtime and then some to get it all done). We sent reports on 380,311 contributions to 16 different federal and state agencies. For us, that’s just as important as the $7.8 million we raised. Our mission is to help supporters elect Democrats and progressives, but those grassroots victories would be meaningless without transparency and accountability.

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