Using The Web For Political Fundraising
August 20th, 2008 by Mark Hanson
Social media is still vastly under-exploited as a tool for empowering individuals and groups behind a common aim and actually getting them to DO something. Picket, canvass, attend an event or raise money. To make it work though, you have to bring people with you, motivate them and not just use the web as another channel to ’send’ them things.
The prospect of getting funds in, that are not donated by a powerful interest group, has been the incentive for US political campaigns to cede a bit of control down to grassroots. Howard Dean/Joe Trippi did it with devastating success in 2004 and now Obama is taking that on. British politicians have been skeptical of the potential for ordinary folk to bring in cash so have shied away from any attempt to engage properly in new media.
However you CAN motivate people behind specific appeals or campaigns. As long as you target properly and show people they can make a difference so a SPECIFIC aim that they care about. Step forward Compass, the left wing pressure group. They sent an email to a targeted group of supporters asking them to donate a small amount towards a small sum, needed to do some research that might unlock a campaign for a windfall tax on energy companies.
edited highlights…..
“Our windfall tax campaign is really gaining momentum. Thanks to your lobbying we’ve now got over 55 Labour MPs supporting us and the number is still growing! We’ve also received a wave of new media coverage in recent days.
We urgently need YouGov to run a poll of UK voters to demonstrate electoral support for a windfall tax, this will cost £1000 - the same amount in profit that Centrica, BP and Shell make every second of every day, but unlike them we don’t have any budget for this. Fortunately UNISON has kindly pledged £500 on the basis that our members and supporters collectively pledge the same – this is a call to help us release this funding.
Please donate to our campaign today. Don’t let the oil and energy lobby win – we need just 50 people to donate £10 today - less for those on tight incomes, or more if you can afford it, any surplus above £500 will fund more campaign work. Go to the website now and make a special donation to this important campaign: http://www.compassonline.org.uk/donate.asp. Or make cheques payable to ‘Compass’ and send first-class to the address below.Please do it this second and don’t leave it to someone else to do! Its time to ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’.” Well it WORKED! The email went out midday last Friday. So far they’ve raised £3,500 from individual donors in addition to the £500 pledged by UNISON. That includes 76 donations that came in immediately by Paypal included in above figures. Donations are still coming in. Given the email went out on a Friday / over a weekend in August they are quite pleased with this response.
Tags: Compass petition, uk politicians raising funds online, windfall tax
August 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I think it’s fair to say that without the internet and the football forums on it, FC United of Manchester would not be in existence and our 3,000 regulars would mostly have been lost to top-flight football’s soaring ticket prices for good.
A rally meeting in summer 2005 set the tone but we went on to raise £140,000 in three weeks to get our club off the ground.
Going from strength to strength we take on today Boston Utd - who were in the football league just a few months ago!