Candidate Tools
The Modern Policy Institute
FUNDRAISING
Services & Software
They say it costs money to make money. You can set up your website to accept donations using a CRM like CiviCRM, but you will still have to connect it to a payment processor. Most payment processors take a small commission from each donation. In recent years, payment processors have cropped up specifically to server political campaigns, some of them partisan. You can always connect a traditional payment processor to your website, such as Paypal, but the options below were specifically designed for political campaigns and nonprofits. They allow you to use a single service for fundraising across the various websites and social media sites your campaign utilizes.
Anedot
Anedot provides a nonpartisan solution for donation payment processing. They charge 4% + 30¢, which may not seem like a lot, but if you start raking in large donations it can add up. The benefit of using Anedot is that you do not have to be tech-savvy to get it up and running and there are no monthly fees. You can create a professional looking donation page with very little effort and no initial cost.
Anedot
Anedot provides a nonpartisan solution for donation payment processing. They charge 4% + 30¢, which may not seem like a lot, but if you start raking in large donations it can add up. The benefit of using Anedot is that you do not have to be tech-savvy to get it up and running and there are no monthly fees. You can create a professional looking donation page with very little effort and no initial cost.
Easy to Use
For a basic donation page that requires no technical expertise, you can create a page using Anedot’s tools and the page will be hosted on their site. With little effort, your webmaster can integrate this page into your website so everything remains cohesive.
Social Media Connections
Anedot integrates with popular social media sites to provide you with a centralized donation center that reaches out to the various platforms you use to connect with voters. You can setup an Anedot donation form directly on Facebook. You can also include buttons to for donors to share the page across several social media networks.
Sell Merchandise
You can use Anedot to sell merchandise to help bring those campaign dollars coming in. Sell hats, yard signs, or tee-shirts to motivate your supporters to continue donating to your campaign.
ActBlue
ActBlue is a partisan fundraising service designed to help Democratic candidates and organizations. It is the original service in this category upon which others are based. The service is specifically designed to gather a large number of small donations. ActBlue charges as 3.95% processing fee—less than Anedot, but you have to belong to the right party to take advantage of the service. It’s also worth noting that the 3.95% rate is only guaranteed in six states. Other states have variable pricing.
Data Analytics
ActBlue provides data analytics tools for all customers. These are full-featured and there are no premium tiers. Your campaign will receive access to the same tools ActBlue provides to national candidates like Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.
Brand Power
The ActBlue brand name is well respected in liberal circles and partnering with ActBlue will give you credibility if that is your target demographic. Frequent Democratic donors are often registered with ActBlue Express, which allows them to give one-click donations. Tandem donations recommend constituents donate to allied candidates, such as when Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff worked together in their Georgia Senate races.
Public Disclosure
ActBlue reports all donations to the IRS, FEC, and state election authorities. This process is more transparent, but it prevents anonymous donations. Small donations that can usually be done anonymously are publicly reported by ActBlue. This means that if someone wants to give to your campaign anonymously through ActBlue, they would have to funnel that money through at 501(c)4 nonprofit.
Argenta
WinRed is a relative upstart that, at the behest of Donald Trump, has become the standard platform of the Republican Party. Trump took steps to punish GOP candidates who did not use WinRed and has legally threatened competing services such as Anedot. He also pushed the GOP to revoke the domain name for competing—and cheaper—service give.gop. This is because WinRed is owned by friends of Trump, such as the Kushner family, and they have gained enormous profits by monopolizing GOP fundraising. We placed WinRed on this list for the sake of completeness but we do not recommend you use it because it only rose to prominence through crony-capitalism.
Argenta
WinRed is a relative upstart that, at the behest of Donald Trump, has become the standard platform of the Republican Party. Trump took steps to punish GOP candidates who did not use WinRed and has legally threatened competing services such as Anedot. This is because WinRed is owned by friends of Trump, such as the Kushner family, and they have gained enormous profits by monopolizing GOP fundraising. We placed WinRed on this list for the sake of completeness but we do not recommend you use it. It costs more and has only gained prominence through crony-capitalism.
A For-Profit Enterprise
ActBlue is a nonprofit while Anedot is a for profit company. Both models work. The problem with WinRed is that it’s a for-profit company that has leveraged the power of certain individuals in the GOP to use the party to punish competitors. While the party claims these measures were taken to consolidate GOP fundraising for efficiency, the heavy-handed tactics are hard to justify in service of a for-profit company.
Opaque Platform
WinRed’s website does not provide any instructions or information for using their services without signing up first. Rather than advertising the benefits of their service (if any actually exist), they instead rely on intimidation and threatening candidates who use competing services. Their support documentation is anemic and they do not advertise any support lines or e-mail services.
No Transparency
In contrast to the transparent reporting by ActBlue, WinRed only discloses the minimum amount of information required by law. There are also concerns regarding the platform’s monetization of the data it collects. Their privacy policy asserts the right to sell donor data.
PolCRM
right.us was originally give.gop before the Republican party revoked the .gop domain name from the platform. It was created by the founder of Anedot and functions as a sister organization using Anedot as its underlying technology. It functions as a version of Anedot that is specifically tailored for the Republican party.
Cheapest Option
Although right.us uses Anedot, it is actually cheaper than Anedot itself with a commission of 3.75%. This money actually all goes to Anedot. right.us is sustained by a $1 a month newsletter called New Guard. If you’re a Republican looking to use Anedot, you can save some money and get the same service using right.us.
Anedot and More
Since right.us is just a version of Anedot with a Republican sheen, you get all the services available on Anedot at a discount. But using right.us will also place you in the right.us directory so more conservative-minded donors may find you.
Not WinRed
Using right.us allows you to avoid the cronyism that has tainted WinRed. It’s still a for-profit company, but at least it’s honest about it and has not engaged in legally dubious strong-arm tactics.