In one week, US politics has changed rapidly. Joe Biden stepping down from the election and endorsing Kamala Harris has created a thunderclap in US politics and changed the trajectory of the campaign overnight. One of the most dramatic events has been the incredible explosion of small donations fueling a massive fundraising spike for the campaign, the likes of which have never been seen at this scale before.
Within 24 hours, Harris's campaign received an unprecedented $USD 81 million from 880,000 individual donors, including 528,000 first-time donors. As the former Outreach Director for ActBlue, the platform facilitating these donations, here are my insights into how this happened and how we - European progressives can seek similar success.
“The most important stat in this list is the first time donors. Over 60% of the donations were made by someone making their first donation of the election.”
First and foremost, these are just very big numbers! 81 million in 24 hours is a record setting amount for a US politician and is something that will be studied for years to come. But it was also easy to understand and predict based on past experiences. Far from being an unexplainable phenomenon, what has happened over the last week in the US is a perfect reflection .of the tactics, skills, and infrastructure that the ECDA talks about on a regular basis.he
Moments Matter
One thing we talk about a lot at the ECDA is the importance of ‘big moments’. These are times when a story or a narrative is breaking through to the mainstream press and as a result a large audience is thinking about what is going on.
In this chart from ActBlue, each spike represents a story in the news from after Donald Trump became President in 2017. Each data point represents the first time a donor made a donation to a political campaign.
As you can see, the stories that drove the news also brought more people to the donation form and created these big spikes.
Why did this happen? Politics is all about participation.
Voting is of course the most important activity, but you can’t do it until the election happens. Until then, you are barraged with messages about how important the campaign is, and who you should be supporting, but actually taking action that can impact the election is somewhat limited. Online donations are not just a tangible way to be useful and participate in the campaign, but also, you can do them easily from anywhere with just a few clicks of a button - safely and securely.
For Kamala Harris, Joe Biden retiring and endorsing her was the single largest news story not just in the US but across the world. So she was able to instantly have the key prerequisite to a big moment.
Infrastructure must come first
Having the right moment is the hardest part of a successful fundraising spike, but it is by no means the only thing you need. Even more important is being able to capitalize on that energy. To do that, you need to be able to contact people and make direct hard asks, and you have to have messaging and donation software that can handle any amount of scale. Otherwise, you create a ceiling on how many people can and will participate in that big moment. Think about it like this, using solar panels, you can harness the power emitted by the sun for the power grid. Even the best panels can harness around 20% of the energy available from the sun at any given moment. That means that the amount of energy created (your big moment!) has a conversion ceiling based on the solar panel (your campaign infrastructure).
In the case of Kamala Harris, these tools were Action Network (which is available in all EU countries through the ECDA!) and ActBlue, the US based donation platform.
In the 24 hours after the announcement, Action Network facilitated over 140 million emails sent, and processed over 7.7 million actions (signing forms/petitions etc). While it's the energy of the moment that gets people excited enough to take action, it's actually asking them directly for money and other volunteer needs that drives energy into results.
In simple language, it is clear that if you are watching the news, if you are feeling excited and you want to make this a success, then you know what to do, make a donation! And of course, 880,000 people in 24 hours said yes to this!
Once they click, they are taken to the donation page which is created with the guiding theory that simple is best and making something clear and obvious with all the most convenient payment methods will perform the best - safely and securely.
It is also crucial that it looks great on mobile as it's important to convert donors in the moment they are excited and not count on them to come back to the form at a more convenient time. Generally nearly 70% of donations will happen on mobile devices.
So the key challenge is to make sure that you have a good CRM, a list of supporters, and a simple and effective contribution form already in place so that when the sun is shining, your solar panels can capture as much energy as possible.
The Virtuous Media Cycle of donation spikes
Another important way to maximize your moment is making sure that the campaign is leaning into the excitement when it starts to build. While the 24 hour numbers are impressive, equally impressive is how they have continued.
Not only have the numbers continued, but the campaign itself has been sending out press releases and social media messages giving updated totals, and giving the press a story to talk about. Supporters are reading the news, seeing that there’s something historic going on and then doubling down on wanting to be part of that moment by joining the other donors and keeping the spike going. Having your candidate and party leaders talk about how important small donors are and show excitement for their participation helps signal to even more supporters that this is a way they can help.
Can we do this in Europe
Yes! By leveraging ‘big moments’ such as protests against right wing parties, manifesto releases, or election announcements - energy can be created to drive mainstream news stories that gain immense interest and excitement towards your organizations. If you’ve been involved with ECDA already, you should already have a strong CRM (probably ActionNetwork!) and a simple but effective donation page such as what Lunda provides. With these tools you can be ready for your ‘big moment’.
What is also important is that when that moment comes, you are ready at the highest levels of your party or organization to ask for and celebrate small donors. Not only will that lead to the largest spike, it will also cement your relationship with those donors, making sure they come back again and again and deepen their relationship with you over time.
This two-way communication with your grassroots base is one of the great innovations of politics in the internet age and something every party and movement should seek to replicate no matter what their respective scale is.
Patrick Frank is the Outreach Director for Lunda which offers the Action Network CRM and Lunda donation pages as well as fundraising and movement building support. You can reach him at patrick.frank@lundadonate.org for a free audit of your small donor program and to learn more about the available tools and support for progressive parties and movements.
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