Anti-impeachment online campaign receives $11 million in pledges
Howard Lake | 17 January 1999 | News
The Philanthropy Journal Alert reports that a married couple from California have raised $11 million in pledges via their Web site as part of a campaign to end the impeachment trail of President Clinton.
The Philanthropy Journal Alert reports that a married couple from California have raised $11 million in pledges via their Web site as part of a campaign to end the impeachment trail of President Clinton. The site, MoveOn.org, was set up on 22 September 1998, costing only $89, and started out by collecting petition signatures. The couple behind the site, Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, founded the software firm Berkeley Systems, creators of the pioneering flying toasters screensaver.
A remarkable 450,000 people joined the petition. Straight after the vote to impeach the President, the site owners e-mailed the petitioners and asked them to pledge to donate between $25 and £1,000 to fund political campaigning work. In three weeks, over 16,000 people had pledged a total of nearly $11 million. Of course the fulfilment rate remains to be seen, but the success of a low-cost, topical campaigning site which relied on online word of mouth for exposure, must be encourgaging to campaigning charities.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.