Democratic Campaigns See 62% Increase in Online Fundraising
NGP Analysis of Democratic Political Fundraising in the Washington Post
NGP Analysis of Democratic Political Fundraising in The Hill's Hillicon Valley blog
Democrats have seen the percentage of overall contributions coming through their online channel increase by 62%, comparing the second quarter of 2008 with the second quarter of 2010. The percentage of the total number of donations NGP’s clients are accepting through NGP’s online contribution system is now 29%, or almost a third of the total number of donations.
“NGP’s analysis shows that many Democratic campaigns are running more sophisticated online fundraising efforts in 2010, and as a result they’re raising dramatically more online,” said NGP CEO Stu Trevelyan.
NGP is in a unique position to analyze online campaign contributions, with over 1,700 campaign-related clients and a majority of Democratic campaigns using their online fundraising tools. Seventy-five percent of the DCCC’s Frontline candidates use NGP’s Contribution Web Package, and NGP’s CWP clients range from statewide Democratic campaigns to state legislative Democratic candidates. NGP’s fundraising database also stores offline contribution data, enabling an analysis of online versus offline fundraising performance. The analysis looked only at campaigns fundraising for elections in both 2008 and 2010.
The online channel continues to democratize political engagement, giving greater voice to a larger number of small-dollar contributors. While overall online contributions soared, the average online contribution amount decreased from $258.72 in Q2 2008 to $211.34 in Q2 2010. The online channel also continues to drive down the average donation across both online/offline, which fell from $471.92 in Q2 2008 to $357.81 in Q2 2010.
There are several factors underlying this trend:
Increased comfort with online giving: Individuals who have made an initial contribution online are much more likely to make subsequent contributions through that channel.
Improved online campaigns: NGP has seen an increase in the number of clients using sophisticated features that harness their donor data to ensure they never leave money on the table. For instance, NGP clients have the ability to create a “contribute” link in an email that populates a contribution page with a donor’s highest previous contribution amount, whether the previous contribution was made online or off. Another example: more and more clients are taking advantage of NGP’s recently release feature allowing campaigns to accept contributions through their mobile phones.
Increased adoption of social networking: Leveraging supporters’ social networks makes it easier to recruit new contributors. For example, NGP’s clients use Personal Fundraising Pages to provide their supporters with the tools to establish goals and raise money from their friends and family, extending their campaigns’ reach. Clients are also using the social network integrations provided in NGP’s tools to connect with supporters on Twitter, as well as to accept contributions and share their decision to support a campaign on Facebook.
Across all Democratic campaigns, online fundraising has increased even more; the analysis above only considers campaigns doing online fundraising in 2008. NGP has also seen a significant increase in the percentage of fundraising database clients also now using NGP’s online fundraising tools in 2010 over 2008, as those campaigns who didn’t do online fundraising in 2008 or who used unsophisticated tools adopt NGP’s tools.
