Bernie Sanders’ campaign attracts multiple small online donations

Howard Lake | 16 February 2016 | News

• Tagged with:
• Digital
• politics
• Research / statistics

Every US Presidential election campaign throws up a new example of successful digital fundraising. This time it is Bernie Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic Party nomination that is achieving some impressive results, in particular in terms of lower-value donations.

Here are just a few of his digital fundraising achievements, as reported in Sanders’ online fundraising gives Clinton a run for her money:

• $6 million in the 24 hours after his New Hampshire victory
• $3 million after his narrow loss in Iowa
• $2 million on on day (Sept. 30)
• average donation is $27 – one hundredth of the legal maximum of $2,700, much lower than the average for Hilary Clinton’s campaign.
• ActBlue handled 2,689 donations per minute at one point. Its previous record was 781.
• in 2015 Sanders received 72% of his campaign donations from people who gave less than $200; Clinton received 16%.

More digital fundraising in US political campaigns:

• Barack Obama raises £7m in two weeks from donations of £3,000 or less (February 2008)
  
• Hilary Clinton’s online fundraising website “faster than Obama’s” (April 2007)
• Obama – world’s greatest fundraiser? (November 2008)
• Obama’s fundraising: amid the hype some serious analysis (November 2009)
• “Spam” for Bush fundraising online? (September 1999)
• Serious Money: Fundraising and Contributing in Presidential Nomination Campaigns (2007)

Photo: Juli Hansen / Shutterstock.com

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.