Election-Year Fund-Raising Success Holds Lessons for Charities

The 2008 political campaign has added a new twist to the matching gift: When donors to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign

go online, they can type in any amount — large or small — that they wish to give, along with a short note about what motivated them to donate.

In return, they get back a personal e-mail message from another supporter of the Illinois senator who agrees to give an equal amount as a match. And the donors are given the option of sharing their e-mail addresses if they wish to continue corresponding.

Such techniques are gaining plenty of attention in the charity world, as fund raisers seek to learn lessons from political campaigns that have raised record sums online. Among the key approaches that can apply to charities: People not only like to watch videos online, but they like to create and post them as a way to demonstrate their feelings about an issue or cause. What’s more, they crave opportunities to connect online with other people who share their views.

The guiding motivation behind the matching-gift idea, for instance, “isn’t about sending an e-mail and getting supporters to send money, but to get them to talk to each other,” says John Hlinko, president of Grassroots Enterprise, an Internet-communications company in Washington.

$100-Million Raised

Over all, Senator Obama’s online campaign has outpaced all of its competitors, attracting more than a million donors, and raising at least $100-million online so far. The campaign did not provide specifics on how many people have taken advantage of the matching-gift option. (Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s and Sen. John McCain’s campaigns declined to reveal fund-raising totals for online gifts.)

Joe Rospars says when he accepted the job as the new-media director for the Obama campaign early in 2007, he was told that Senator Obama wanted to follow a simple strategy: “Let people be organizers and not just supporters.” Mr. Rospars took leave from his job at Blue State Digital, a consulting company in Washington that works with nonprofit groups and candidates.

Mr. Rospars says Senator Obama’s campaign set its goals by deciding how many donors it wanted to recruit, not the total amount that needed to be raised. “What is important is that we have a whole lot of people contributing what they can afford,” says Mr. Rospars.

Engaging Donors

The built-in urgency of a tight campaign season, intense news-media coverage, and other factors make the campaign experience difficult for charities to copy. But some of the fund-raising approaches can be useful, observers say.

“The biggest lesson that people can draw from Obama’s success is that fund raising flows from engagement. He and his campaign haven’t just used the Internet to raise money. They’ve first engaged people in the larger purpose of the campaign and then let fund-raising follow naturally from that broader commitment,” says Frank O’Brien, president and creative director of OMP, a Washington consulting company that works with nonprofit groups and political candidates.

OMP has helped guide the fund-raising efforts of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.

While Senator Clinton hasn’t raised as much money online as Senator Obama, her campaign has developed ways to draw supporters closer to the campaign, says Mr. O’Brien. “Hillary Clinton’s online success is equally remarkable,” he says. “Without strong support in key online demographics and with progressive bloggers — MoveOn and others pretty much aligned against her — she has still raised tens of millions of dollars online. And, for the most part, it’s come from women who are participating in campaigns and online giving for the first time.”

The YouTube Factor

One the biggest developments this election cycle has been the widespread use of volunteer-created videos to express support for candidates.

Supporters have created thousands of videos that have been posted on sites like YouTube.

The “Yes We Can” video, which was made independently of the campaign by the musician will.i.am, a member of Black Eyed Peas, and directed by Jesse Dylan, a son of Bob Dylan, became an instant Internet hit.

The video was inspired by the speech Senator Obama gave following the New Hampshire primary. It includes clips from the senator’s speech as well as appearances by a large number of celebrities including Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Nick Cannon, and Kelly Hu. It has now been viewed on YouTube by close to eight million people. The campaign has put the video on its Web site, sent it by e-mail to its supporters, and played it at rallies around the country.

The Obama campaign has posted more than 1,000 videos on its Web site, and more than 4.7 million people have downloaded and watched Senator Obama’s 37-minute speech on race, which he made in Philadelphia in March.

“Getting people to donate is about making an emotional connection, not an intellectual one,” says Mr. Hlinko. “Having video in and of itself is nothing special. Having great content delivered via video is powerful.”

Forging Networks

Fund-raising experts say the large number of online political contributors to the election could be good news for charities.

“Once people are comfortable giving online you can get them to give online to social activism,” says Roger Alan Stone, president of Advocacy Inc., a Washington firm that advises candidates on how to run online campaigns. “One of the benefits out of this campaign year will be this new cadre of online donors.”

The campaigns have worked hard to find ways to draw in donors and keep them. The Obama campaign has emphasized the relationship between the campaign and the contributor. When donors give online, they are asked to tell the campaign what inspired them to give.

Mr. Stone says the Clinton campaign was the first to give donors the option of designating what they want their gift to support, for instance a television ad or door-to-door campaigning.

“People feel they have more control and input on their money. It is like they know what they are buying,” says Mr. Stone. “Ironically, the fact that the campaign doesn’t just see them as a cash register makes them donate.”

The move to give online supporters more control, and to connect them with one another is something the Clinton, McCain, and Obama campaigns have all attempted. They all have presences on social networks like MySpace and Facebook and have supporters using YouTube and blogs to spread their messages.

Senator Obama’s site from the start has offered a section for people to create their own groups to support the campaign. Groups like Raleigh for Obama, Women in Cleveland for Obama, and Scientists for Obama are just a few of the 10,000 that exist with little help or direction from the campaign, according to Mr. Rospars.

Each Obama group has its own blog page, and can schedule live events and track RSVP’s through the site. A supporter can connect with these groups based on either a particular interest or location.

The campaigns also give volunteers online options for participating in phone banks and arranging travel to stump for candidates.

The phone banks have generated hundreds of thousands of calls on behalf of candidates, and volunteers never have to leave their homes. Scripts and instructions on how to conduct a call can be downloaded from the candidates’ Web sites. The volunteer then places each call, fills out the resulting information on a Web page, then submits it back to the campaign.

Volunteers in the Lead

While charities are watching the campaigns, the political candidates have been watching charities, say some experts. Candidates this year are borrowing an approach many charities have used for several years: giving people online tools to make it easy for them to raise money from friends and relatives. Volunteers can organize events or create Web pages through the campaign sites to solicit donations and track the results.

“This has actually been one case where nonprofits were out ahead of politics, where people can manage their participation in the event online and gather friends to sponsor them in the race,” says Vinay Bhagat, chief strategy officer and founder of Convio, a Web-based software company in Austin, Tex.

Brian Rubenstein, an associate director at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the advocacy arm of the charity, says his group is comfortable letting volunteers take charge.

“There is always a little nervousness when volunteers lead, but as a nonprofit you can only reach so many people,” he says. “For a grass-roots volunteer-led organization, if you don’t give the power to spread your message to your volunteers, you aren’t going to be able to grow the way you need to.”

Adds Mr. Rospars, of the Obama campaign, “It will be interesting to see what happens after the campaign when people pick through what we did. I think nonprofits just need to let go a little bit and let the people do their thing.”