Digital Campaigning – Two Lessons from Obama’s 08 Fundraising

Digital Campaigning – Two Lessons from Obama’s 08 Fundraising

By Bethany Wheatley, responsible for Boris Johnson’s digital campaigns

Digital campaigning has had a lot of attention in the six years since it took centre stage in the 2008 presidential campaign of Barrack Obama. But what exactly is it, how is it used and where is it heading? Over the course of the next few months, I’ll explore why digital campaigning is important.

Broadly speaking, any campaign activities taking place online can be called ‘digital’. So these range from the obvious like a candidate’s website and social media presence (e.g. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), to fundraising and recruitment efforts. In 2014, joining up traditional, on-the-ground campaign efforts with digital innovation is key to an efficient, targeted and impactful campaign.

In this first installment, I want to look at the new and mostly untested method Barrack Obama’s team used to fundraise during the 2008 United States presidential race. Of course technology and techniques have evolved, but there are two lessons for digital that are worth examining.

Most people are familiar with what the campaign did on the fundraising front- contacting supporters via email and social media, asking for small donations to be made online, and tying those donations to a specific goal so donors felt connected to what their money was buying. Typically, money had been raised via large fundraising dinners and big, private donors, so the idea of asking lots of people for small amounts of money, repeatedly, seemed like a lot of effort for not much return.

Their gamble paid off. 6.5 million donations were made through Obama’s website, from 3 million individuals, with over $400 million raised[1].

So why did it work? Simply put – social media users are more politically engaged. They are more likely to convert their support into offline activities than actual offline supporters. In the US, social media users are two times as likely to volunteer time, four times more likely to encourage others to contact political representatives and five times more likely to recruit others to join their cause[2].

By encouraging people who had never before donated to a political campaign to give online in small amounts, a new source of support emerged because of the low barrier to entry. But beyond the funding aspect was the knowledge that someone giving money to a candidate is more likely to actually turn out to vote on election day. Effectively, the Obama campaign was locking in votes, $20 or $30 at a time.

While engagement statistics will vary from country to country and campaign finance rules will certainly differ, there are two universal lessons for digital from the Obama campaign’s online fundraising that I want to highlight.

1. Buy-in: Getting a supporter to donate money (or volunteer their time) makes them more likely to vote on election day.
2. Low barrier to entry: Making it as easy as possible to engage reaches new groups, opening new avenues of support.

Of course the Obama campaign still raised massive amounts of money through more traditional methods, but the willingness to take a risk was rewarded. Incorporating digital into the heart of their main campaign enabled them to reach further than would have otherwise been possible. Digital campaigning alone won’t win an election, but not using it well can contribute to losing one.

Crédit photo : ssoosay

[1] http://www.mdgadvertising.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/political-fundraising-in-the-social-media-era.png

[2]http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/02/20/digital-politics-pew-research-findings-on-technology-and-campaign-2012/