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.

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.