How to make a political fundraising event successful?

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Political houses and public figures raise funds for their campaigns by offering to sponsor to political fundraisers. So if you have made up your mind to support a particular candidate or a political group you can go ahead with your plans and organize a political fundraising event. Apart from gathering useful funds, this can also give you a chance to spread awareness about the party or candidate that you are offering support to.

Political fundraisers need to proceed in their endeavor of political fundraising carefully as this is a unique area and need a special type of approach.  Political fundraising is different from the other kinds of fundraising and you can follow this guide, if you want to emerge successful in your efforts.

Decide on the event

This is the Step 1 of your political fundraising endeavor and you must have a clear idea of what kind of event you are going to hold – how big or small you want it to be? How many invitees do you want? Do you want a guest speaker or not? Etc.

Contact the party office for support

Get in touch with the political party or candidate whom you wish to offer support to and give them/him an idea of your plan. In all likelihood, you are going to receive active help. You can get access to information material, support staff, list of political fundraisers, promotional items, hoardings and banners from the party office, to name  a few. Have a short discussion with them regarding the rules/regulations that they would like you to follow and how you can forward the proceeds to them.

Prepare a brief of topics that you want to talk about prior to the event

Every political fundraising event must have a brief lecture, addressing important topics about the party that it is hosting. Therefore, make sure that you make ready a thoughtful and informative awareness lecture to be delivered prior to the event. Focus on a single important topic or at the most two, but ensure that it is interesting to a majority of the guests.

Political fundraising ideas

Incorporate fun political fundraising ideas into the event like 80s Prom, Bingo evening, Wine tasting party etc. Semi-formal events work the best and have a record of being the most popular crowd pullers.

Make a guest list

With due regard to the interest of your acquaintances, friends and family, prepare a guest list comprising of people who can appreciate your political message.

Prepare invitations

Unlike other fundraising invitations which need not be exactly specific, political fundraisers must always ensure that the invitations sent out include all relevant information and details. Topics of discussion, fundraising events incorporated and the aim must be clearly mentioned. Highlight the fact that invitees are required to contribute money.

Winning political campaigns need both good propaganda and funds. A political fundraising event prepared and executed with time and patience by dedicated political fundraisers, can be the best endeavor to accomplish everything in one stroke.

Moneybomb!How Much Money Can You Raise in One Day?

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In 2007 the term ‘Moneybomb’ was coined to describe a grassroots political fundraising campaign in support of Ron Paul’s candidacy for President.  The explosive nature of the term is meant to dramatize the mass marketing frenzy intended to generate as much media buzz and excitement as humanly possible.  Everything is meant to happen in one day with the intent of raising boatloads of cash.

 On the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party in 2007 a group staffed exclusively of volunteers participated in a Moneybomb, an effort that rose between $6-6.5 million in a twenty-four hour period.  That effort is still the biggest one-day political fundraising event ever. 

 A bake sale just doesn’t cut it when running for President.  Looking for new and innovative ways to reach more people in less time political fundraising campaigns began tapping into the potential of technology and the evolution of online communities.  Social media has become the ideal vehicle for informing your entire base – and connecting with new ones – of where and how to donate with a simple click of the mouse.

 Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn boast hundreds of millions of registered users and unlike traditional forms of political fundraising, including direct mail marketing campaigns and email campaigns, social media provides a platform for connecting with your communities immediately in a much more intimate way.   Friends can discuss and share ideas in real-time while accessing those discussions on a variety of devices: desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices.   As friends discuss passionate ideas they invite more friends and so on.  In no time groups of social networks are engaged and the possibility of discussions going viral is considerable.

 Facebook is predicated upon the idea that users are part of a community of 677 million Friends: more than twice the population of the United States.  Now online fundraising platforms are developing to meet the twenty-first century demands of a connected world by creating tools specific to political fundraising that integrate with Facebook and other social media spaces like LinkedIn and Twitter.  The possibilities are limitless when you have the potential to reach 677 million people.

 Online fundraising platforms give individuals and organizations the power to create fundraising campaigns with a simple sign up.  A hosted donations page is created immediately with the functionality to customize a single page or fully integrate into your existing website.  All for free.

 Scalability is a key feature when considering how to get the word out to your donor base.  Whether your goals are $500 for a tee ball team or $1 billion campaign for the White House, online fundraising platforms help causes raise money online fast and effectively.

 

Political Fundraising – Viral Fever: 2012 elections will take the Internet by storm!

Ever since Obama set the trend by using social media for his online fundraising campaign in 2008 there has been a surge of politicians using the Internet for fundraising. The 2012 elections is about to take the internet by storm. President Obama “announced” is re-election bid via digital video that reached 13 million of his supporters and tied up with none other than Facebook to hold a town hall meeting to answer questions from both in person and “online attendees”.

Having learned their lesson since 2008, rivals and contenders have hopped on to the social media wagon. The benefits of taking your political fundraising campaign online stare at you in the face; you can reach a wider audience in a cost effective way, engage more discussions and field more questions than possible with in-person meetings and political rally’s. Yet, most importantly, fundraise for your campaign online and monitor progress by tracking the number of followers online. Politicians now understand that rallying support to get them elected is not just visiting small towns in middle America for fundraising but also becoming savvy with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter that has most of the country’s young and old hooked! 

An article in the Associated Press by Beth Fouhy is calling this “Welcome to the Social Network, the presidential campaign edition”. While this is great news for politicians and supporters alike, taking your political fundraising campaign online also makes you vulnerable to an uncomfortable level of transparency. Get ready to be inundated with more rhetoric as the presidential elections gain momentum online.

 I bet no one thought that limiting your message to only 140 characters would actually be sought after by politicians, huh? With little or no control over messages that are distributed via social media, the slightest slip-up could work against the campaign. And with the world of politics being murky as it is, there will be a lot of controversy and mudslinging to watch out for with very few avenues for damage control.

Also, the next presidential election campaign will see those that have used online fundraising tools before get more sophisticated as they use new tools and innovative online fundraising ideas for political fundraising; and there will be a many new and first-time online fundraising users who will leverage social media to get their message out to voters. With the presidential elections just around the corner, there will be many more political fundraisers to watch out for.It seems like ‘Viral Fever’ will be inevitable this upcoming presidential election!

Political Fundraising – Getting the Most out of Political Fundraisers

Political fundraising is important for keeping a community in the best possible order. People hold political fundraisers all the time for causes and candidates running for office, but many of those people find no success from their efforts. This may be because people genuinely were not interested in the fundraiser, but it also could be because people were not aware that the fundraiser was going on. If you have found yourself in need of funding for your political campaign, you may think about moving your fundraising to the World Wide Web. Here are a few logical reasons as to why you should do that.

Successful political fundraising comes from getting a large number of people in support of a common goal. That may be hard to do if you cannot reach a large number of people to begin with. The majority of the adult population has some kind of social networking account online, so if you could reach those people, you may be able to get more followers for your political fundraiser. You may have one donor who has a friend on their social page and brings the friend to you campaign. Then if that friend has another friend to bring to the campaign, you can quickly build up a following through social sites alone.

Since political campaigns are always hard to manage anyway, it is nice to know that you can at least manage your political fundraisers easily online. You can have someone do this in the office without having to worry about heavy calculations along the way. All you have to do is go on your online account and you can see the progress of your political fundraising online. That frees up more time to talk to the people and do actual political duties beyond raising money.

Political fundraising online gives you a chance to reach a lot of people and process as many different campaigns as you can put up. Some sites will charge you a monthly fee for their services, but others will just charge a processing fee for payments made to their system. You can always find fundraising options online that are cheap and free of the heavy overhead of standard campaigns. In one-way or another, you can make the web work for you. Think about the kind of fundraiser you want to have and consider working with it online. You will have the funds you need in no time.

For free fundraising tools that will help you effectively raise money online for your political fundraisers, you can create, manage, and track the success of an unlimited amount of political fundraising campaigns today by using a robust online fundraising platform. Fundraise with ease for your political fundraiser now by using these free and easy to use, political fundraising tools.

Political Fundraising – Getting the Most out of Political Fundraisers

Political fundraising is important for keeping a community in the best possible order. People hold political fundraisers all the time for causes and candidates running for office, but many of those people find no success from their efforts. This may be because people genuinely were not interested in the fundraiser, but it also could be because people were not aware that the fundraiser was going on. If you have found yourself in need of funding for your political campaign, you may think about moving your fundraising to the World Wide Web. Here are a few logical reasons as to why you should do that.

Successful political fundraising comes from getting a large number of people in support of a common goal. That may be hard to do if you cannot reach a large number of people to begin with. The majority of the adult population has some kind of social networking account online, so if you could reach those people, you may be able to get more followers for your political fundraiser. You may have one donor who has a friend on their social page and brings the friend to you campaign. Then if that friend has another friend to bring to the campaign, you can quickly build up a following through social sites alone.

Since political campaigns are always hard to manage anyway, it is nice to know that you can at least manage your political fundraisers easily online. You can have someone do this in the office without having to worry about heavy calculations along the way. All you have to do is go on your online account and you can see the progress of your political fundraising online. That frees up more time to talk to the people and do actual political duties beyond raising money.

Political fundraising online gives you a chance to reach a lot of people and process as many different campaigns as you can put up. Some sites will charge you a monthly fee for their services, but others will just charge a processing fee for payments made to their system. You can always find fundraising options online that are cheap and free of the heavy overhead of standard campaigns. In one way or another, you can make the web work for you. Think about the kind of fundraiser you want to have and consider working with it online. You will have the funds you need in no time.

Political Fundraising – How to win more Hearts, Minds, and Donations

We all know that having a successful campaign can be a pain in the pocket. It requires a lot of money and a lot of effort to be able to do run a good political campaign.  For that, we should consider political fundraising.  If you are a candidate, political fundraising is your key to be able to gather the money that you need to have a well-oiled machine for your campaign.

Of course, it can be difficult to design a good political fundraising strategy that can yield top results.  As a candidate you should think of considering who to ask, what you are asking and how you should be asking for it. 

Many political fundraising veterans would say that individual contributors will be your primary source of money.  Your political fundraisers might have a limit on the amount of money that an individual may donate so it is important to know the laws and stick with it.  The challenge here is to get as many as possible so that you can reach your target amount.

Of course you have the traditional ways of fundraising.  You can ask your friends and family to contribute to your campaign.  More often than not, they will say yes and add to your hat of money.  Here, your network is valuable but with the many things that you ought to do in your campaign, this will not get you far.

You can target people who have the same agenda on issues as yours.  Various groups such as labor unions, religious groups, ethnic groups or environmental coalitions, among others can be your partners.  However, these groups may be more inclined on giving you moral support instead of the cash that you need.

You can try talking to influence buyers or people who always love to be on the winning side.  They are good partners in campaigns but they can only give so much.

Consider political fundraising online.  It is much more effective in terms of reach and awareness levels of your target audience.  Doing this will enable you to save money and time as well as effort in running a political fundraiser.  You will be able to reach more donors and potential voters because the Internet will encompass local, state and national area of coverage.  You will get more return of your investment as you try to do more with online political fundraising.

In political fundraising, having the widest reach is the key. With this, online political fundraisers are your best bet.  You will just invest on little time, money and effort and you will get more than what you intend to receive.  There is so much help out there and with online fundraising, there is a big chance that you will be able to tap into resources that you never have thought existed.  There is great potential in online fundraising that you may want to explore and political fundraising may be the best way to find out what online fundraising can do for you!

Political Fundraising: Obama Challengers Would Need to Raise $590,000 a Day to Match His 2008 Campaign

 According to a recent article published by Bloomberg, during the first half of 2007, Barack Obama managed to raise $59 million for his presidential campaign.  In order to match that, any prospective Republican, Independent, Libertarian, Green Party, and/or any other challenging candidates to Obama’s re-election would need to raise approximately $590,000 each day, until June 30th if they entered the race today.

Former Minnesota Governor, and Republican, Tim Pawlenty, announced the other day that he was setting up an exploratory committee to raise money for a possible candidacy. With some experts now predicting that President Obama could become the first billion-dollar candidate, every day that passes by other potential challengers to his re-election, will make it much harder to match the President’s war chest for getting re-elected.

“It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Republicans to raise as much money as Obama,” said former Republican National Committee finance chairman Al Hoffman Jr., who is a North Palm Beach, Florida, real estate developer.

However, this does not mean that the Republicans and/or any other party candidates can’t mitigate an Obama fundraising advantage. There are the popular outside groups, such as Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, who helped the Republican party take over control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 and are preparing for the 2012 election as well. The prospective candidates are lining up major fundraisers and continually preparing efforts to attract small donors to boost funds.

“All of the potential serious candidates have been laying that groundwork for a long time,” said former Republican Representative Bill Paxon of New York.

“Just because they haven’t actually started collecting the resources doesn’t mean they haven’t been working on building the infrastructure that will allow them to collect the checks” when needed.

That infrastructure Paxon touched on includes the forming of teams of people to raise money from circles of high net worth donors. These circles of wealthy donors have been a staple of presidential campaigns since George W. Bush in 2000 became the first major-party nominee to be elected president after declining to limit spending for the primaries in exchange for federal funds.

“When they give the signal to go, the checks will be written and the money will be there,” said Frank Donatelli, a partner in the law and lobbying firm McGuireWoods LLP, who raised more than $100,000 for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

“The moment you start a committee, the overhead starts,” he said. “That’s what’s holding everyone back.”

Candidates MUST Attract Smaller Donors

This election cycle’s prospective Republican, Independent, and other party candidates are also making plans to focus on small donors, following Obama’s 2008 example of incredibly successful fundraising for his campaign. Obama raised 54 percent of his money in contributions of $200 or less from donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

“One is cognizant of that,” said Sam Fox, chairman of the St. Louis-based investment firm Harbour Group, who raised at least $200,000 for Bush. “A lot of attention will be paid to that particular aspect of raising money.”

Four years ago, nearly all of the main contenders for both Republican and Democrat parties’ presidential nominations had announced their plans to take on the White House. Presently, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia was the closest to an official announcement which came on March 3, as he announced he was setting up a website in order to raise money to explore a presidential run, besides Pawlenty.

Other prospective Republican candidates have been using political action committees to raise money and spend on activities that could benefit a quest for winning the presidency. The activities include hiring staff, developing targeted donor lists, while traveling around the country and meeting as many possible supporters as possible.

Without a doubt, President Obama ran the most successful political fundraising campaigns in history, propelling a Junior Senator from Illinois into the most powerful position in the world. Attracting small donations from millions of poor to middle-class supporters paid off handsomely for his run, while heavily fundraising via the Internet, which has made giving donations much easier for donors nationwide.

As the presidential race for the 2012 White House heats up, analysts predict strong growth in the online political fundraising space, where both sides of the aisle, including all those running for president, could reach $40 billion in money raised for their campaigns, with about $4 billion being raised online.

 

Political Fundraising: Raise More Money, Reach More Donors Online

If you are running for a political office, or helping with your favourite candidate’s political fundraising efforts, then you can get reach more of your audience with your message by going online. When you sign up with a quality online fundraising platform, you can reach more people in more places, much faster, than traditional fundraising means, while allowing those supporters to donate to your campaign online and help make your election campaign a success. 

Being a political candidate and ensuring success means raising as much money as you can, in as little time spent on fundraising as possible, not just to compete with, but beat your competition. The campaigns are intense, focused and nerve-wracking. There is a flurry of activity surrounding you and it can be hard to know what to do first.

If you delegate your political fundraising efforts to your consultants and utilize a robust online fundraising platform, you can streamline your efforts and concentrate on what needs to be done, and if that means getting your message out to potential voters, meeting with voters, and importantly getting elected, than fundraising should not require the majority of your time.

Online fundraising platforms make receiving donations from your donors fast and easy. In just a few minutes, you can register, create your political fundraiser and send your message out to your supporters via email, and the many social media sites, such as, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. You will also be able to use the many free fundraising tools and resources provided to enhance your campaign and get even more donations. The fundraising platform will send out your messages on your behalf to the many sites that they partner with to give you even more exposure.

Let’s face it; traditional fundraising efforts don’t work nearly as effectively as they used to. Door-to-door canvassing is ok, to meet some of your constituents in person, but it will not give you the donations or the exposure that you need. You would have to spend at least 12 hours a day door knocking; and you don’t have the time for that. Political fundraisers can become much more successful when done online, like most other things. You can even invite your donors, supporters, and likely or on the fence voters to online community-based forums, which will allow you to transcend space, time, geographical, and corporate boundaries that limit human interaction. You will allow people to see you and the message you deliver online, whether it be by video or blog posts.

Of course, donations are not synonymous with getting elected; you will need to do other activities to get your name and face out there and make sure people understand what you stand for. But donations can help in getting some of those activities done: making up and distributing flyers and postcards, newsletters, television and radio ads, not to mention costly fundraising event dinners. These all cost money and do not guarantee results. When you have donations pouring in to your fundraising platform, you can run your campaign with ease. You will work more efficiently and people will see that you are calm and relaxed. They will see that you get things done and they will be more apt to vote for you. And you will be proud of how your political fundraisers efforts paid off.