# Obama expert to share donor recruitment expertise

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/08/18/obama-expert-share-donor-recruitment-expertise/
- Published: 2016-08-18T08:17:03+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Irish Charity Lab, which aims to improve the charitable sector’s digital skills,
is holding two events in September led by President Obama’s digital director during
his 2012 campaign.**

Amelia Showalter and her team’s online marketing is credited with attracting huge
numbers of new supporters and donors to support Obama and in being a key element
of his successful second term campaign.

“There is huge overlap between politics and charity in the digital marketing space,”
Showalter told The Irish Times. “For example, in each, staff spends much of its 
time trying to get people to donate money. Politics is expensive in the US, and 
a lot of the time you are trying to convince lots of people to donate small amounts
to a political campaign, which is similar to the charity sector.”

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Showalter said both political campaigns and charities must constantly be thinking
about how to make better appeals, how to make their websites easier to navigate 
and simple to donate through.

Irish Charity Lab’s was set up by Jean O’Brien to provide free information for the
charitable sector to help them to engage more meaningfully in evolving digital channels
and realise their full potential.

The events with Showalter (former Digital Analytics Director with the Obama campaign)
and Glyn Thomas on 5th and 6th September will focus on how to recruit new supporters
online. Details can be found on the [Irish Charity Lab’s website](http://www.irishcharitylab.org).

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