Easy Money • Web sites that warehouse campaign donations have cropped up all over the Internet as candidates prepare for this fall’s election.

Online campaign contributions have played a burgeoning role in elections for almost a decade. But what was once considered a supplementary method of gathering small donations has morphed into a necessary one.
In general, online contributions offer two things TV spots and phone banks cannot: an interactive relationship between the contributor and the candidate and an easy way to donate small amounts.
“If you see an online video and then right below the video there is a little button that says ‘help this candidate’ and you can contribute right there, it cuts down on the ‘Oh maybe tomorrow.’” said Marissa Doran, communications director for the online contribution clearinghouse actblue.com. “That interactive relationship is something that can’t be found in other fundraising methods.”
Online contributions first took center stage during Howard Dean’s bid for the 2004 democratic presidential nomination. It was cheaper for Dean’s campaign than traditional fundraising methods. And those who contributed tended to do so in amounts beneath the legal limit of $2,000, allowing the campaign to continue to solicit the same individuals.
“If so many of the donors are smaller-dollar donors, ones that haven’t maxed out, you can build a pretty substantial infrastructure, which for campaigns is everything because if you have the ability to budget how much money you are going to have a month from now, you can plan a winning campaign,” Doran said.
In this election cycle, presumed Democratic Nominee Barack Obama has built upon Dean’s novel fundraising methods to allow him to raise more through online contributions in January — $28 million according to a campaign announcement — than Dean did during his entire campaign.
But presidential candidates are not the only ones to see the value of incorporating Internet donations into their fundraising methods, and donations need not always be made on the candidate’s personal Web site. New sites allow supporters to go online and make donations to any candidate they want from any state, to create their own donation pages and to easily find links to candidates’ Web sites.
Two popular online fundraising Web sites are actblue.com, a site that supports Democratic candidates, and slatecard.com, which supports Republicans.
Andrew Eldredge-Martin, Bob Lord’s campaign manager, said one of the best things about online fundraising sites such as ActBlue and Slatecard is that they are decentralized. They allow people to create their own sites to do their own campaigning and fundraising with family and friends who will listen to their opinion.
“When you have that kind of grassroots effect, you can really reach a lot more people,” he said.
But Doran said that the attractiveness of multi-jurisdictional Web sites is mostly in the time it saves.
“Even the difference between asking someone to make four clicks before their donation is complete and two or one click is huge in terms of return. Anything that streamlines that process really helps fundraising,” she said.
National Web sites aid local
candidates
Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives such as Howard Shanker, 1st Congressional District, and 7th District Rep. Raul Grijalva, have raised tens of thousands of dollars on ActBlue, while total donations for other Democrats such as Ann Kirkpatrick in the 1st Congressional District and Bob Lord in the 3rd District have risen even higher.
“We aren’t at all surprised at the level of contributions we have received through ActBlue,” said Zac Petkanas, director of communications for Ann Kirkpatrick. “Ann’s message of change is really popular at the grassroots level, and the Internet is a great way for grassroots donors to get involved.”
Eldredge-Martin said Lord — who has raised the most money on ActBlue with nearly $300,000 from more than 1,500 supporters — has focused on online fundraising from the very beginning because it’s a convenient way for voters to support the campaign and immediately see the impact of their contributions.
“A huge proportion of people are online and are very active online, so we saw that as a really important way to reach out to those voters and those donors,” he said.
And those donors are playing a pivotal role in the campaigning opportunities available to Lord, Eldredge-Martin said.
“If you look at our fundraising numbers just through ActBlue, a lot of support has come through that, so it has a very real and very material effect on our ability to run our campaign,” he said. “Bob Lord right now has raised more money and has more money currently on hand than any non-incumbent in Arizona… we’re doing really fantastic and a huge piece of that is online fundraising, no doubt.”
State Senate President Tim Bee, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 8th Congressional District, has raised the most money on Slatecard of all Arizona Republican candidates, bringing in $111 from seven supporters. Though it doesn’t sound like a lot, Tom Dunn, Bee’s press secretary, said the campaign also receives donations from its own Web site, timbee.com, which has generated more than $1 million.
“Slatecard, I think that’s kind of in its infancy stage right now. I think that says we’ve had seven donations on that, and online through timbee.com we’ve had 1,800 people donate money to the campaign,” he said.
Online donors choose sides
Brian Marston, co-national director of letsgetthisright.com, another Republican online fundraising site, said there are obvious gaps between the amount of money Republicans and Democrats are raising through online sites.
He hopes his site, along with the other sister sites his company has launched, will help close the gap.
“We recognize that Republicans are way behind Democrats as far as an online presence,” he said. “And we’re looking to slowly build a contact base, build relationships and start to whittle away at that lead.”
Emily DeRose, spokeswoman for the Arizona Democratic Party, said she believes the reason Democrats are receiving more money through online fundraising sites is because people are more plugged in to the Democratic message and their vision of change.
“I think it is indicative of the fact that the Democratic Party is more appealing to people from all walks of life right now than the Republican Party,” she said.
Several calls to the Arizona Republican Party were not returned.
Doran said that the success of ActBlue over Slatecard has given Democrats a competitive edge.
“After several major losses in the last two elections, the Democrats were sent scrambling to find a better way to fundraise,” she said. “Republicans have their more dedicated and traditional funding sources, so it is not as important for them to utilize other methods. The success of online fundraising for Democrats is important in terms of being competitive.”