In addition to a good candidate, a great campaign manager, and a well-executed marketing strategy, you also need a well-designed fundraising strategy for your political campaign. Check out these 23 political fundraising ideas for inspiration!
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Running a successful political campaign can feel like a daunting task. But with the right fundraising strategy and powerful fundraising platform in your toolkit, it’s possible to bring in the support needed to fuel your campaign and get you into office.
In this article, we unpack 23 unique and engaging political fundraising ideas to inspire you and help you raise more. Let’s get started!
Note: Political fundraising is highly regulated, so do your research regarding campaign contribution allowances under U.S. laws.
Without further ado, here are 23 fundraising ideas to maximize the success of your political campaign.
Crowdfunding is one of the most effective ways to raise money for your political campaign. A crowdfunding page can be set up and running in minutes and can accept donations instantly.
Include images and videos on your crowdfunding page – along with your fundraising story – to connect with supporters and build trust in your campaign.
Use Donorbox Crowdfunding to create a brand-aligned crowdfunding page packed with powerful features that elevate your reach and fundraising potential. Include social sharing buttons, a goal meter to drive a sense of urgency, and a virtual donor wall to acknowledge gifts. Share regular updates and allow supporters to subscribe via email.
See how Markus Batchelor created a crowdfunding campaign using Donorbox Crowdfunding:
Grassroots campaigns mobilize people and nurture a growing movement. Here are some tips to boost the success of your grassroots campaign:
Peer-to-peer fundraising enables volunteers to become advocates who promote and raise funds for your campaign. It’s also a fantastic way to expand your reach by tapping into the networks of your supporters.
Create a peer-to-peer campaign and send direct invites to supporters with Donorbox Peer-to-Peer. Or, allow anyone to fundraise on your behalf by including an “I want to fundraise for this” button on your campaign. Supporters can create customizable campaign pages that advocate for your cause and boost support, with all donations flowing directly to your main campaign account.
See how this organization let anyone sign up to fundraise by enabling Peer-to-Peer on their Donorbox Crowdfunding campaign:
Use Peer-to-Peer for Political Fundraising
Contribution request letters should definitely be mixed into your political fundraising strategy. Make the letters personal, and try to have them handwritten, if possible.
Here’s a sample letter for a political fundraising invitation that was a part of the Biden campaign in 2020. You can see the stress remains on gratitude throughout the letter. And it ends with suggested donation amounts that will help meet the campaign goals.
In a chain fundraising letter, a supporter is sent a letter in which they are asked to send in a donation (whatever the average amount your political campaign is working with) and then forward the letter to 10 friends with a personal note asking their friends to send in the same amount and then forward the letter to their friends as well.
To turn this into a digital activity, have donors tag 10 of their friends on Facebook and ask them to donate to your campaign. Provide donors with the link to your online donation page to include in their Facebook posts.
Personal solicitation by telephone is one of the old-time favorite fundraising techniques. Prepare fundraising scripts for staff and volunteers who’ll be calling potential donors.
Direct donors to your online donation form or get them to commit to a specific date for collection. Within 24 hours of the phone call, send the donor a letter of thanks confirming the amount pledged, and include a pre-addressed return envelope.
Check out our guide to hosting a successful phone-a-thon for a free sample script and tips to train your volunteers.
Pro tip: Solicit high prospects/major donors when making telephone requests.
Custom t-shirts featuring your campaign colors or logo are a great way to raise funds for your political campaign. They give supporters something in exchange for their donation and promote your cause to a wider audience.
Create a campaign to promote your t-shirts. Sell them at in-person events, parades, and online. Consider investing in Facebook or Instagram ads to promote the t-shirts. Check out this example of a t-shirt campaign promoted on Donorbox:
Raise Money Online with Donorbox
Mentorship auctions are a great political campaign fundraising idea. It gives your donors something of great value, so it’s likely to incite higher bidders. Here’s how to make this idea work:
Conversations can happen face-to-face or remotely using video conferencing tools like Zoom.
Invest in a text-to-give software to capitalize on text donations. Include a unique campaign ID and promote your text-to-give campaign both online and in person.
Text-giving software ike Donorbox Text-to-Give makes this political fundraising a breeze. Donors simply text your campaign ID to a toll-free number and will be redirected to your donation page to fill in your donation form and complete their gifts. They’ll also receive an automated receipt.
Donorbox also makes repeating donations very easy. Donors simply text a keyword to repeat their donation – no need to return to your donation page!
Door-to-door campaigning is daunting and uncomfortable, but there’s no better opportunity for a voter to shake your hand and look into your eyes.
Schedule regular door-knocking hours into your schedule, and leave a small gift to remind voters of you long after the visit (e.g. a pen or a fridge magnet).
Make it easy for voters to donate cashless gifts via credit/debit cards and digital wallets with donation kiosk software like Donorbox Live™ Kiosk. This app transforms your iPad or tablet into a donation magnet when paired with a card reader. Or, download the app to your Android smartphone to use Tap to Pay – no additional hardware required.
Collect Cashless In-Person Donations With Donorbox Live™ Kiosk
Organize a parade close to the end of your political campaign and utilize a candidate float decorated with signs and balloons. Hand out your candidate’s t-shirts and get volunteers to wear them.
Have volunteers work their way through the neighborhoods, handing out flyers to voters. Make sure you check the local legal regulations beforehand.
This is an effective political fundraising idea because it utilizes the sentiment of urgency to bring in many donations.
A campaign brochure that explains why the candidate should be elected is the most basic medium used in political campaigns. However, many voters receive your brochure and throw it away soon after.
Instead of giving out brochures, hand out “brochure notepads” that can be used over and over again. Include pictures and information about the candidate on the first two pages of the notepad to provide important campaign information to voters.
Add a QR code to your notepad to quickly connect voters with your website and donation form! A free QR code is automatically generated with every Donorbox campaign, and you can edit the corresponding link to fit whatever your goals are.
Pro tip: Add a “Vote for XY” at the top or bottom of every notepad page as a reminder to vote.
Small donors can contribute repeatedly, providing a financial consistency that’s priceless in a years-long campaign. Recurring donations are crucial to generating steady support for your campaign.
Donorbox Recurring Donations helps you create customizable recurring donation forms hosted on Donorbox or embedded in your website. Here’s an example of a recurring donation form and fundraising page hosted on Donorbox for a political campaign.
Start a Recurring Donation Campaign
Although “small donor fundraising” is incredibly important, major donor fundraising still plays an important role in reaching your campaign fundraising goals.
Major donor fundraising only works when you establish your own credibility by receiving endorsements from key political leaders or interest groups, or by establishing your name and reputation in your community.
Identify individuals in your community who make large political contributions, then contact them personally, if you can. Research campaign disclosure records or ask the local elected officials and party leaders.
Yard signs are a conventional yet effective political fundraising idea – especially if your political campaign is local.
Purchase enough signs to cover major entrances and important intersections in town, and the yards of influencers and leaders in your community. Keep a digital map so that it’s easy to see the gaps and take down the signs after your campaign has ended.
Pro tip: If possible and relevant, put some of them up yourself to show that you are actively campaigning.
This is one of the most affordable political campaign fundraising ideas out there. Email marketing platforms are increasingly easy to use since email service providers have made them simple and intuitive.
Grow your email list organically by collecting contacts who consent to receiving emails. To collect email addresses, add a sign-up form and subscribe button to the main page of your website.
Use a robust email marketing tool like Donorbox Email Marketing (Beta) to send highly targeted, mass email communications to your supporters and bring in more funds. Create stunning emails using customizable email templates, and include images and video with the drag-and-drop editor. Seamlessly integrated into Donorbox CRM, Email Marketing lets you effectively segment your donors, track campaigns with ease, and get key insights on campaign performance.
Interested in Donorbox CRM? Learn more and join the waitlist.
Mobile fundraising is a great way to connect with donors supporting your political fundraising via their smartphones. Make mobile giving as easy as possible by offering donors the option to donate using digital wallets.
Along with credit/debit cards, bank transfers, and direct debit, Donorbox donation forms make it easy for supporters to give via digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Stripe Link, and more.
As a political organization, it’s important to meet FEC, state, and local compliance requirements and report – but manual filing is often tedious and time-consuming. Donorbox’s native integration with ISPolitical saves you time and minimizes errors by automatically syncing all donation and donor data collected through Donorbox with your ISPolitical account. Learn more about this powerful integration here.
When considering paid media, be mindful of the cost per thousand impressions (CPM). That’s a measure of how many dollars it takes to reach 1,000 people. Test various channels and choose the one with the best price/performance ratio.
In addition to paid advertising, there is also free media coverage. Free media coverage is typically referred to as “earned media” and frequently comes in the form of news stories on television, radio, and/or in newspapers.
A pledge campaign is where you ask people to commit to giving to your campaign at some point in the future or regularly. It allows donors to commit to you without having to donate instantly.
People are often likely to give more if they can defer their payment to the future or pay in installments. Pledges also help you plan and forecast your campaign better by knowing how much funding you’ll have access to.
Don’t be afraid to ask for due pledges, always thank your donors, and organize a tracking system for pledges.
Social media is a great way to build your grassroots campaign by getting more individuals to support your platform. Post short-form video, memes, interactive content, and user-generated content that connect donors with your campaign’s donation form.
Although posting might be easy, converting the follower into a donor isn’t always the easiest task. Look for moments when supporters are particularly excited (or particularly angry at your opponent) and give them something to do about it — like give you money.
Learn how to turn social media followers into donors here.
A “bundler” (a “connector”) is someone who can raise a significant amount from their own network. Bundlers are especially important in places where donations are limited by legal caps.
Bundlers differ from peer-to-peer fundraising since bundlers are more connected than the average person – and are usually well-known in the political universe. These individuals generally require minimal support from your campaign, perhaps only the candidates signing some cards or showing up at one event.
Mobilizing dozens of bundlers (or hundreds if your campaign is of a larger scope) can significantly increase the number of donations for your political campaign.
Events are an excellent opportunity to attract a particular group of donors to support your political campaign. Although events can be used to solicit all levels of donors, they are best used to solicit medium donors.
Set up a host committee, an event budget, and market your event well. Use an event ticket pricing strategy to determine how much you plan to raise during your event.
Leverage a robust event ticketing tool to promote and sell tickets to your event – like Donorbox Events. Customize your online event page with images and videos, and include unlimited ticket tiers based on your pricing strategy. Plus, supporters can make donations on top of purchasing tickets – right from your event page!
Determining and highlighting the tax-deductibility of your event tickets is easy – simply include the fair-market value and tax rate to increase transparency.
Check out this paint and sip event ticketing page created for a political campaign:
Create a Fundraising Event Page
Walk-a-thons offer great opportunities for raising money and spreading the word about your organization, without high overhead costs.
It’s not uncommon for only 50 cents of every dollar to reach your campaign after all the logistics and marketing costs are taken into consideration. Of course, no two events are alike, and you can get a lot more bang for your buck with add-ons like a raffle or auction.
You may have celebrity friends and acquaintances willing to provide endorsements and talk about why they support your political platform. While getting celebrities to endorse your campaign is a great fundraising idea in itself, the way to take it up a notch is to ask those celebrities to donate something tangible for a fundraising auction.
Ask them to donate items like autographed baseballs or basketballs, tickets to an upcoming concert, or a chance to meet them in person. Depending on the industry your celebrity is in, the donated item/experience can vary.
A fundraising auction has great potential to bring in a lot of donations by people making bids on “one-of-a-kind” items. They also provide value to donors, as donors aren’t just making a financial donation, but getting something in return as well.
Political fundraising requires working on multiple fronts – from mobilizing volunteers to posting on social media, having meetings with celebrities, and organizing high-profile fundraisers. We hope these political fundraising ideas help you reach your financial goals.
Donorbox’s powerful fundraising features are designed to help you raise more for your political campaign. Check out this quick video to see how:
For more unique political fundraising tips, ideas, and insights, head over to our Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our newsletter for a curated selection of expert articles and resources sent to your inbox every month.
Ilma is a content writer with over eight years of experience, specializing in nonprofits and social impact, marketing, language, and psychology. She draws on years of volunteering in the nonprofit sector to craft thoughtful, research-informed pieces. Ilma is also a therapist passionate about mental health and often weaves this perspective into her writing.
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