Is your campaign ready for donations by text?
“Text-message contributions aren’t allowed under federal law. But there are reports that firms are upping the pressure on the FEC to make a change,” professional fundraiser Erik Nilsson writes for Campaigns and Elections.
While text-message contributions open up a new way for campaigns to reach out to voters and accept funds, there are hurdles.
“Maryland and California have allowed text-message contributions for state-level candidates. Maryland hasn’t held a statewide race since it changed its rules and in California, party officials have complained that cell providers haven’t offered the service.
“Other problems around collecting political donation via a text message include:
- The donations are not forwarded to the campaign until well after the billing cycle. This is no good if a campaign needs their funds right away to buy ads or support GOTV efforts.
- The donations are only tagged with the donor’s cell number. Not their name, address, occupation and employer as required by the FEC. Telecommunications companies are going to have to change their policy and provide far more information about donors to make the FEC happy.
“Political fundraisers have ways to get around these problems such having donors send a text and then having a phone bank call the prospect back for her donor and credit card info,” writes Nilsson.
“Will the FEC let campaigns process donations via text? I believe the FEC would like to provide this option. Their current stance is to embrace technology so more people can be involved in politics. The problem is that they need the mobile carriers to play along and provide information on the donors so you don’t have donors going over their limits.
“Campaigns also have to be comfortable with waiting 35-plus days for their donations. This means text donations will not be attractive to campaigns come October or even September. The mobile carriers have to be concerned about chargebacks, too. What if they pass a donation on to a candidate and the donor changes her mind or didn’t understand that her text was incurring a donation on their mobile phone bill? Moreover, the carriers will have a difficult time getting their money back from a campaign that has lost and closed its doors.”
There are also services allowing you to send text messages and emails to voters on their cell phones, offering Libertarians a low-cost way to reach voters.
Look in to them.
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