Franklin Forum Roundup: Obama Campaign Insider Shares Tips

Barack Obama's primary and presidential campaigns challenged and changed online fundraising, becoming the envy of many in the nonprofit sector.

In a session at the Franklin Forum, sponsored by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater Philadelphia Chapter in Philadelphia in late April, Justin Ehrenwerth, who served as Philadelphia coordinator for Obama for America, gave attendees an overview of the campaign's fundraising and volunteer strategies. He also shared advice on how nonprofits can implement similar ideas in their programs.

Those strategies were unique in that they focused on small donors, grassroots volunteer efforts, cutting-edge technology and constant communication. In his 21-month campaign for the White House, Obama raised half a billion dollars online. According to The Washington Post, three million donors made a total of 6.5 million donations online, adding up to more than $500 million, with the average online donation coming in at around $80 and most donors giving more than once.

The campaign was so motivated to get a high number of donors because of the McCain-Feingold Act, which allows individual donors to give no more than $2,300 each. So the campaign needed a higher number of donors to make up the difference.

According to Ehrenwerth, Silicon Valley was one of the keys to the campaign's success. On the East Coast, fundraising for Obama began via traditional avenues, e.g., large ballroom galas where funders were asked to donate. But competition with the very popular, very connected Clinton campaign — which was raising money via the same methods — was tight. The West Coast was a different story, however. Out in Silicon Valley, a place dominated by many young, smart upstarts, Obama's story — and limited curriculum vitae — was very familiar and relatable, Ehrenwerth said.

These young, successful, tech-savvy individuals saw getting Obama elected almost as a challenge, and they saw technology as the key to doing that.

As it centered its efforts more on technology, the campaign quickly realized the need to collect information on potential supporters. Every time someone donated, volunteered or responded to an action, it collected his or her e-mail address and as much other information as it could.

Ehrenwerth said for many of the campaign's advocacy-building events, raising money was secondary to getting individuals to come to the event and buy into the campaign. He described an event he helped organize early on in the campaign at a local Philadelphia music venue where Obama spoke. The venue holds 2,500, and tickets cost $25 each. To encourage ticket sales, the campaign challenged volunteers that if they sold 100 tickets they would get a VIP pass to meet Obama after the event. The event raised $60,000, but Ehrenwerth said it was part of a greater strategy of increasing the breadth and depth of the supporter base.

The No. 1 goal was to get buy-in from supporters, even if that just began with attending an event or volunteering.

"Build a level of enthusiasm, and then slowly ask for more," Ehrenwerth said. "It was much easier to ask for a gift after we had buy-in."

The campaign also capitalized on moments when supporters' emotions were running especially high. For example, it would e-mail constituents immediately after hot debates with messaging that tapped into the emotions stirred up by an issue that the candidates had talked about.

Ehrenwerth said the campaign also relied on a lot of behavioral science to determine how to engage supporters. Organizers realized people are much more likely to do something if they think everyone else is, so they touted volunteer and donor numbers as much as possible. They also offered donors the chance to be entered into lotteries to win things like dinner with Obama and five of their friends.

Some other key takeaways from Ehrenwerth's presentation:

1. Significant resources need to be put toward an organization's Web site. Consider adding videos to your site, as well. Videos drove up visitation and revisitation to Obama's site.
2. Employing someone with community-organizing experience who is familiar with doing really grassroots, face-to-face contact with supporters — might be of value to your organization.
3. Diversify fundraising sources.
4. Try to get a small contribution at first. As the Obama campaign proved, this strategy can still result in a large amount of money over time.
5. Work at getting repeat donors. Many donors to the campaign gave small donations, repeatedly.
6. Make sure your Web site is user-friendly, and especially that contributions can be made easily.
7. Employ new media and have staff dedicated to spending time on them. According to Ehrenwerth, the Obama campaign had a new-media director in each state. They created interactive blogs and talked about everything going on for the campaign locally. He said being on Facebook and other social-networking sites is mandatory because the opportunities are endless. These sites aren't just populated by the under-30 demographic, though it's a good place to reach those individuals as well. In five years, he said, it will be unthinkable not to have a presence on social networks — so start now.If your organization lacks the staff — or those with an understanding of how these sites work — to do this, Ehrenwerth recommended seeing if a staff member's son or daughter who might be more familiar with the sites can help you create and maintain a profile for your organization.

Check out this video on the FundRaising Success homepage to see Justin Ehrenwerth talk more about the Obama campaign.