Tag: ActBlue

From the ActBlue Blog…

Fundraising pages are the most important component of ActBlue: the vast majority of visitors to the site arrive directly on a fundraising page because a friend, an organization, or a campaign has channeled them there.  We pride ourselves on these pages’ simplicity: donors can show up, immediately understand what’s going on, and contribute with no distracting bells and whistles. 

But we harbor a dirty secret (or, not-so-secret if you’ve been with us a while).

Over the past three years, $22 million raised, and 200,000+ donors, these pages haven’t actually changed all that much.  For a bit of nostalgia, check out the DailyKos dozen page as it looked back at the end of 2004 (compare to the same page with today’s look).  Yeah, the site framework has changed a little, but the makeup of the fundraising pages is remarkably similar.

Next week, all that is about to change.

Motivated by a strong sense that we could do better (and by a desire to burn down HTML code approaching its second anniversary), a few weeks ago we got to work putting together a new design with the help of the excellent Steve Ofner of Liberal Art.  The result is the new design that that you see at right.  (Click the image for a full-size mockup.)

In putting the new design together we had several aims:

• A sharper, more dynamic look & feel
• A simpler user experience
• A clearer presentation of the dollar and donor numbers
• A more attention-grabbing "contribute" button at the top

The result is an improved page design that looks good with long candidate blurbs, short candidate blurbs, no candidate blurbs, or all of the above.

We’ll be rolling out this design next week, and will continue to refine it in the coming months — so please let us know what you think!

cross-posted from the new ActBlue Blog

On Monday I posted a tip for spicing up ActBlue fundraising pages by embedding video into ‘asks’. This is a very powerful fundraising tactic–especially when the asker and audience have an existing relationship.

Over at Calitics, a great community blog in California, they’ve taken that suggestion and run with it. I’ve included a screenshot of their pitch to the right (click on it to view a bigger version in a new window). Besides the video, Calitics? blogger Brian uses several of the principles of fundraising to make a really compelling plea for his candidates.  Some of the successful elements they have included:

1. Create Urgency- The pitch is for end-of-quarter donations.  Brian clearly states that there?s a deadline before which donors need to fundraise.  And he timed his pitch just a couple of days away from the end of quarter.
2. Be Specific- Rather than overloading their page with a dozen candidates, Brian stuck with three candidates that have a common theme.  The majority of ActBlue donors give to an entire page’s slate of candidates?remember that when choosing your slate of candidates.
3. Make it Personal- Brian, a Calitics blogger, is asking his own blog readers to donate. They have an existing relationship and a degree of trust built up. Potential donors are more likely to give when asked by someone they know and the pitch is personal.  They?re less likely to donate when spammed by someone they don?t know.
4. Think Longterm- The Calitics? ask offers the option of giveing once or of setting up a recurring contribution. Recurring donations are growing in popularity on ActBlue, with over 1000 users having chosen that option for a variety of candidates.   If a donor can?t contribute a lump sum amount at once, recurring contributions allow them to invest in the page in installments.

Most of these elements are included in their Calitics ActBlue fundraising page as well. To improve the impact, some ideas might be to include the text from the Calitics post next to the video on their ActBlue fundraising page itself or add the recurring contribution buttons below the embedded video. If that happened, their ActBlue fundraising page could be e-mailed around to additional friends or registered users of the Calitics blog extending the end-of-Quarter ask into a new medium.

One other thing that might help the effort is to set a goal, similar to what the bloggers at Raising Kaine have done (screen shot at left again, click to enlarge). They are shooting for $20,000 to all their endorsed candidates by the end of the state quarter on Saturday, giving a real sense of momentum to their efforts. Adding some text about that immediate goal on their fundraising page would be perfect to tie it together with their blog posts.

While it is early in the cycle, bloggers can build upon their early adopters to make effective asks in creative ways that fit their audience. What ideas might you add?

(It seems almost funny to say this to one of the most influential bulwarks of the netroots, but welcome to the blogosphere, ActBlue! – promoted by DavidNYC)

cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD

With as many friends as ActBlue has in the Democratic blogging community, it’s about time we joined the party with a blog of our own. So today we are launching our official ActBlue Blog where we look forward to bringing our donors, candidates, campaigns, fundraisiers, and bloggers interesting resources, analysis, tips, and other information to more effectively raise funds to elect Democrats!

Here’s just a sampling of things you can expect to see-

• Case Studies on some of the most creative ways ActBlue has been used
• Analysis on how and why people donate
• State Reports that highlight successful state level campaigns
• Tips & Tricks about ways to use ActBlue you may not have known about
• Page of the Week where we will highlight our favorite fundraising strategies
• Monthly ActBlue Zeitgeist to explore trends, patterns, and other cool stuff
• Major Series where we will explore how we are most relevant to your efforts in fundraising

This week I’ll be cross-posting some content from our blog as a way to introduce it to our friends in the online community. Tomorrow we’ll be releasing our version of a case study on the Secretary of State Project (which I was a blogger for last year before being hired by ActBlue). Later in the week I’ll introduce you to successful state level fundraising efforts by blogging communities and local organizations.

Our posts will strive to be informative and useful while maintaining the Democratic grassroots values which have driven us for the last two and a half years. We encourage you to subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up to receive new posts via e-mail to keep up with our latest posts (both available at http://blog.actblue.com).

Much of the growth for ActBlue and the netroots in the next 2 years will be at the state level. Hopefully I’ll be able to work with you to enable more successes in the statehouse while we work to expand our DC majority. If you have thoughts or questions, please leave me a comment!

John Breaux may run, even if Blanco decides to remain in the race.  Visit this website for more details, especially if you want Breaux to run:

http://www.johnbreau…

The Louisiana Democratic Party now has an account with ActBlue for their state legislative races.  Visit their fundraising page at this website:

https://secure.actbl…

Bobby Jindal, who plans to run for Governor in 2007, is ranked 432 out of 435 in terms of effectiveness in Congress.  Visit this website for more details:

http://www.congress….

Progressive reformer and grassroots activist Deborah Langhoff, who missed the runoff in the special election on 10 March by 89 votes, plans to run for LA-HD 94 this November.  Here is an excerpt from New Orleans City Business:

LCRM race role

In the March 10 legislative election in District 94, four pieces of mail attacking leading Democratic candidate Deborah Langhoff arrived the day before Election Day.

The mail was produced by the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, a new organization dedicated to electing a Republican majority in the Louisiana Legislature this fall. LCRM is heavily funded by GOP donors Boysie Bollinger and Joe Canizaro and supported by Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie.

The mailers “exposed” Langhoff’s liberalism and quoted her as saying “I loathe Bobby Jindal.” Langhoff said the “hit pieces” hurt her vote total and kept her out of the runoff. For that reason, Langhoff will not endorse marketing representative Jeb Bruneau nor attorney Nick Lorusso, the two Republican runoff candidates. She plans to run in the fall against whoever wins the general election March 31.

UPDATE: BLANCO OUT

WWL TV New Orleans writes the following:

Governor Kathleen Blanco has requested television time tonight for a gubernatorial address that will be carried live on Eyewitness News at 6 p.m.. Sources tell Eyewitness News that Blanco will announce she is not seeking re-election.

Karl-Thomas works for Actblue. X-posted to dKos and MyDD

Most Swing State readers have at least some familiarity with ActBlue.  You may be among the 15,000 who contributed via the 2006 Netroots fundraising page, or among the 110,000+ contributors who have used ActBlue to send $18 million (and counting) to over 1200 Democratic campaigns and committees since we launched in 2004.  And as a SSP reader you certainly know why Democratic dollars are crucial to the political future of the country.

But in recent conversation one prominent blogosphere denizen made an eye-opening comment. To paraphrase: “I know ActBlue is the place where I go to contribute to the netroots candidates…but is that the big idea?” Well…yes and no.  The netroots fundraising page is a big idea — $1.5 million raised on that one page alone sure made a lot of people take notice.  But there’s a bigger picture here, a bigger idea about changing politics.

Rather than spewing off a bunch of talking points, though, we’re going to take a different approach: in the coming days and weeks, as part of the BlogPac/ActBlue fundraising drive we’re going to tell you some stories, do some analysis, and use those pieces to build up a 30,000-foot view of ActBlue and how it’s shifting the terrain on which our political battles are fought.

Seeing as I’ve just recently joined ActBlue after having graduated from UT-Austin, I wanted to start by just taking you through some of the highlights that jumped out at me when I was thinking about jumping on board full-time, and then tell you a bit about where we’re going.

What is ActBlue?- ActBlue is a Federal PAC and series of State PACs active in 22 states that empowers anyone — individuals, local groups, and national organizations — to fundraise for the Democratic candidates of their choice. To date, that’s $18,953,791 worth of empowerment. Our goal is to help Democrats get elected by putting ActBlue’s powerful fundraising tools in the hands of every local blogger, Democratic committee, and progressive grassroots group around the country.  We’re going make sure every eligible state legislative campaign and executive campaign knows that with ActBlue can accept online contributions from day one. And we’re going encourage every federal campaign to leverage ActBlue’s community fundraising platform — and thereby encourage them to engage in a more democratic politics.

ActBlue Facts and Stats- ActBlue is now being used for Presidential level fundraising with our 2008 candidate and draft funds. But to set up the framework for how we got here let me begin by pointing out some interesting historical data.

• ActBlue was there for candidates like Richard Morrison in 2004, Paul Hackett in 2005, and Ned Lamont & Ciro Rodriguez in 2006. In each case, impressive candidates and their supporters organized to raise unexpected online funds that changed the electoral dynamic and media perception of races across the country. The power of small donors was realized.
• In the 05-06 cycle, the top 5 recipients benefiting from ActBlue were Freshman Sen. Jim Webb ($890k), Freshman Rep. Joe Sestak ($870k), IL-10 challenger Dan Seals ($540k), OH-02 challenger Paul Hackett ($540k), Freshman Rep. Tim Mahoney ($510k).
• Progressive bloggers Daily Kos, MyDD, Swing State Project, Firedoglake, Crooks & Liars, Down with Tyranny, Atrios, and AmericaBlog together raised $2.3 million in 2005-06. You know the rest…
• Over 110,000 people have now donated to candidates using ActBlue. The average contribution is $110 split between two candidates. 500 candidates for federal elected office received contributions via ActBlue in primaries and general elections. Over 360 state level candidates and committees in our 22 active states received contributions. There are 1,200 fundraisers who have set up ActBlue fundraising pages to support their favorite candidates with unique methods (like the HelpMeGetAHaircut page, Pizza for Progressives, or I Donated a Case of Beer to Barack Obama page).
• Supporting ActBlue as part of the BlogPAC/ActBlue monthly recurring donations campaign is a great investment. With only $25,000 in seed money when it was started in 2004, ActBlue turned around and saw $850,000 distributed to Democrats. For 05-06, distributions grew to $18 million with only $345,000 in operating expenses. So while traditional fundraising practices return $2 on ever $1 in investment, ActBlue was able to turn every $1 in investment into $50 in return for campaigns.

ActBlue Success Stories- Some specific projects that were active last year under the radar of the netroots community at large include the following.

• Secretary of State Project- The Secretary of State Project used bloggers, of which I was one, and ActBlue to raise $415,000 for seven Democratic candidates for Secretary of State in swing states.  The result: Democratic victories in Ohio, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, and Iowa with a near miss in Colorado bringing hope for fair 2008 presidential elections in these states.

 

• Sen. Maria Cantwell- ActBlue’s slate-style fundraising has encouraged unprecedented teamplay among Democrats.  In 2006, Maria Cantwell, facing her own challenging race, used ActBlue to raise $100,000 for Darcy Burner, Peter Goldmark, and Richard Wright, all of whom were facing tough House races in Washington state.

   

• ActBlue Utah- Utah citizen-activists and party committee members came together to raise $10,000 so that ActBlue could expand to support Utah state candidates.  ActBlue and the Utah State Democratic Party then worked to train Democratic candidates and campaign staff in using ActBlue to fundraise online.

So where are we going from here?

1. Expansion to further states- State legislative and executive candidates in 22 states can fundraise with ActBlue; we’re going to be tackling the remaining 28. We’re currently active in Alabama, Arizona, California, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi (soon), Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia (full launch end of February), Wisconsin, and Wyoming. If your state isn’t listed and you know some resident campaign finance experts or geeks let us know and we may very well move your state to the top of the list!
2. Training and campaign services-  It’s not enough to just provide technology; we want to help campaigns and fundraisers use it well.  In the summer and fall of 2006 we began a series of very successful training conference calls about fundraising in general and ActBlue in particular.  We see an enormous opportunity to positively influence the operations of campaigns and the impact of grassroots activists through online-, phone-, and in-person trainings.
3. Expanding ActBlue beyond fundraising to volunteering and event management-  Just as ActBlue has created a unique public space for online fundraising, we will be expanding our website to enable campaigns, groups, and individuals to publicize events, accept online RSVPs, and manage their volunteers.

This is be no means the end or final vision for ActBlue; it’s evolving and growing with the input, needs, and suggestions of campaigns and donors like you. I’ll be exploring many of these areas in more detail in future posts- giving examples of great ideas and ways people have effectively used ActBlue to achieve victory and grow the Democratic Party across the country.

So what do you think?– Seriously, the power of distributed fundraising is similar to the power of distributed idea creation. What types of things do you think we could do or should investigate? Legal barriers might prevent some suggestions, for others it might be money or time. But there very well could be some outstanding innovative ideas, big picture or small tweaks that we should know about. Leave a comment, we’ll be reading and responding. And if you like what we do, may I again direct your attention here.