Act Blue and the Democratic Party small donor advantage

[eridani]

Small Donors Are Clicking More With Democrats Than Republicans

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us/politics/small-donors-are-clicking-more-with-democrats-than-republicans.html

In an office here with the trappings of a Silicon Valley tech firm, a band of politically engaged twentysomethings has built a formidable Democratic fund-raising machine that is fueling the insurgent presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders against Hillary Rodham Clinton and leaving even Republican rivals envious.

The success of the Boston-area outfit, a nonprofit called ActBlue, can be seen most starkly in the latest fund-raising report filed by Mr. Sanders, its most prominent political client at the moment. A whopping 74 percent of the $26 million that Mr. Sanders raised came through ActBlue, an online platform that lets people donate a few dollars at a time to Democrats — and Democrats only — with just a few clicks. Eighty-eight percent of contributions to Mr. Sanders came from donations of $200 or less.

“They’ve obviously found a successful formula that works with their base,” Benjamin Ginsberg, a prominent Republican campaign lawyer in Washington, said. “We don’t have something like ActBlue. We wish we did.”


Inside the PAC Republicans Fear Most

http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/2015/02/25/inside-pac-republicans-fear-most

Republicans generally scoff at Tom Steyer and other big-money Democrats’ efforts to swing elec­tions against them. When it comes, however, to one group—a group that marshals millions of small-dollar donors against their candidates—they don’t hide their concern.

“The power that Act­Blue has is very real, and that is something that is quickly coming to the realization of not just us but members of Congress,” Tom Newhouse, the National Republican Congressional Committee’s digital director, said at a recent panel. “When we talk to large gatherings of some of our most hotly contested seat, these members get up and say, ‘My opponent raised $800,000 from Act­Blue. What are we doing about this?”

Three-quar­ters of Demo­crat­ic Sen­ate cam­paigns, more than half of Demo­crat­ic House cam­paigns, and both caucuses’ of­fi­cial cam­paign com­mit­tees use Act­Blue, a non­profit vendor, to pro­cess their on­line dona­tions. And the data Act­Blue gen­er­ates in the pro­cess has helped form an ever-grow­ing, di­git­al fun­drais­ing feed­back loop push­ing Demo­crats’ on­line money-gath­er­ing to new heights—and spur­ring Re­pub­lic­an ef­forts to catch up or be swamped.


ActBlue’s One-Click Donations Are Transforming the 2016 Race

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/actblues-one-click-donations-are-changing-the-2016-presidential-race/

There’s a long list of tech giants that are helping drive the presidential race this election season: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat, Instagram, Periscope, even Yik Yak.

Amazon, on the other hand, is not at the top of the list, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t made difference, at least indirectly. By taking a page from the e-commerce giant’s playbook, a non-profit called ActBlue is driving small donor dollars to Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with a single click.

The tool, called ActBlue Express, has been around since 2008, but it’s having an outsized impact this election season, now accounting for nearly 70 percent of the millions of donations ActBlue has processed this election season alone.

“Small dollar donors are a strategic advantage for us on the left,” says Erin Hill, ActBlue’s executive director. “Being able to provide tools that we all work on and share together helps increase participation, which we think is better for the Democratic party, makes for stronger campaigns, makes for more lucrative campaigns, but also makes for better democracy.”

It’s true that small donors are, quite literally, giving billionaire-backed Super PACs a run for their money this election season, boosting candidates like Ben Carson on the right and Sanders on the left. Since it was founded in 2004, ActBlue has been working to bring more of these donors into the Democratic fold. In that time, the non-profit, which is backed by donations and gives its software tools to campaigns for free, has processed more than $850 million in donations for 11,000 Democratic candidates and committees.

But ActBlue’s impact has ballooned this year, thanks, in large part, to ActBlue Express. It’s not that it’s the only political donation tool on the market. There are plenty. But more often than not, they’re either dedicated to a single candidate or cost campaigns a lot of money. The key to ActBlue Express’s popularity—and its success—is the fact that aside from the fees credit cards companies charge, it’s free for campaigns and has been used for everything from the presidential elections to local school board races.

[eridani]

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