It seems that I’m getting a slew of political fundraising appeals every day, and most are using ActBlue to process contributions. After seeing how active ActBlue is even in this non-election year, I thought it might be useful to look at their fundraising in support of island candidates.
ActBlue is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization that provides a fundraising platform to support Democratic and progressive candidates.
From their website:
As a nonprofit, we’re driven by the belief that our democracy works better when more people participate in civic life and when our campaigns and nonprofits are powered by the people they serve. That’s why we’ve built a powerful online fundraising platform for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, progressive organizations, and nonprofits. Our tools make it possible for anyone to build a grassroots campaign or movement and give donors an easy and secure way to support their favorite candidates and causes.
ActBlue acts as a “conduit” for individual contributions to candidates. Candidates and other political organizations solicit contributions which are processed by ActBlue, which charges candidates a 3.95% “processing fee” on money raised, and also solicits voluntary “tips” from individual donors. The suggested tip starts at 10% and goes up from there.
Contributions to ActBlue earmarked for a specific candidate in Hawaii appear on the candidate’s campaign spending reports as if they came directly from the donor. There’s no indication in the candidate’s disclosures that the money had been solicited and processed by ActBlue. To track ActBlue requires examining the organization’s own reports to the Campaign Spending Commission.
ActBlue Hawaii reports each contribution it receives, showing the name of the donor and the candidate the money is earmarked for. Then ActBlue transfers those earmarked funds to the candidate, and those transfers are reported by ActBlue as “contributions to candidates” on a separate part of their regular reports. However, the candidate’s reports do not indicate they came from ActBlue.
This makes it difficult to quickly assess whether all of the contributions from ActBlue are properly accounted for on the candidate’s books. But that’s an issue for another time.
Data made available online by the Campaign Spending Commission includes contributions to and expenditures by candidates and their campaigns from November 8, 2006 through this June 30, 2019. Similar data for noncandidate committees (think corporations or political action committees like ActBlue) is available beginning January 1, 2008.
ActBlue Hawaii first registered with the Campaign Spending Commission as a political committee on June 30, 2011. It recorded its first successful fundraising on October 10, 2011, when it transferred two contributions totaling $110 to Mark Kaniela Ing, and $60 to Takashi Ohno. Both candidates went on to win their legislative races in 2012.
That was a pretty modest beginning. In the most recently completed election cycle (2016-2018), ActBlue Hawaii processed 4,102 contributions for a total of $1,187,696.68 that was then transferred to the state and local candidates designated by the original donors.
Here are amounts raised through ActBlue by candidates who received at least $5,000 through the fundraising platform.
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Bundling! Standard Democratic contributions in the upper tier and an odd fellow recipient list of many unsuccessful candidates in the lower range.
The ideology of ActBlue assuming from $105 k + for Coco Iwamoto is lefter liberal and only $27 k + for Jill Tokuda.
You are not correct in drawing conclusions about ideology from the amounts raised. ActBlue does not solicit the contributions–it is a platform that candidates can choose to use, if they wish. How much or how little goes through ActBlue is determined by the candidate and the campaign. So, no, they are not bundling, in the way that a fundraiser might. They are simply a conduit.
Ian thank you. Acknowledge not very familiar with .org but my google found an association with Emily’s List described as Pro-Choice, ActBlue is a PAC and charges 3.95%. In small Hawaii races it is a National FaceBook type clearinghouse. My concern is like FB and Nextdoor, the potential for influence in a clearing house is always of concern.
Also noted some complaint sites regarding credit card disputes, not unusual for the amount of monetary handling. And the public in general has received very little information, that included an article titled “Republicans Do not Understand ActBlue” agreeable, but also the Maka’ai’nana. Like the local Sherwood’s community group was surprised not to receive any funding from another group Change.Org that kept all contributions made toward them, none of which was received in Waimanalo to help the cause.
With many of our legislators, I can’t distinguish them from Republicans.