How to crowdfund for your political campaign - Part One

Political crowdfunding can provide great benefits to both current and future politicians, especially in the lead up to an election. Every dollar can make a significant difference to a campaign. Online political fundraising has a range of benefits, such as an increase in exposure, transparency with all donations and the ability to spread your message to specific niches within your online following/community.

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a way to gather small donations from a large group of people for a common project or event. These donations are often generated via social media and online communication, along with more traditional forms of promotion.

Why work with mycause?

With fantastic customer service, media support and a responsive website, mycause is far from just being a donate now button. Our Australian owned and operated platform will help elevate your campaign to help you reach your targets and goals. Your mycause political campaign can be branded and personalised with ease - feature packed as our platform allows you to upload text, video and photographs onto your campaign to show exactly who is raising funds and what for.

The benefits of online crowdfunding

Online crowdfunding is quick, easy and convenient for donors and campaign creators. There are many benefits to crowdfunding, such as:

• Easy access to the latest information on your campaign

• All donations are recorded and visible on the crowdfunding campaign page

• Great way to tailor and target content to specific segments of your followers

• Build your database by increasing your online audience reach

• Able to collect all donations in one place

• Test community support for a project

• Crowdfund to compete as an independent against politicians in major parties.

Keep people interested with online updates

Donors can be updated on how many donations a campaign currently has via the crowdfunding page. The creator of the page can also post regular updates as the campaign progresses. Campaign creators can also post about an upcoming rally or election fundraising event to raise awareness and show people where their political donations will be held.

Transparency in your campaign

It is very important that your campaign is transparent, with clear goals and easy to understand information. If you want people to donate, then you need to state how the funds will be used and regularly update your page with the most up-to-date information. Write up a paragraph or some dot points clearly explaining how much you need and how it will be utilised within the campaign.

Communicate with your constituents

With new channels of communication - digital media - you will be able to reach the people who may not have the time to attend your political events, or aren’t close enough during a day spent knocking on doors and talking to locals.  One of the best elements about online crowdfunding is that it opens up the lines of communication between political candidates and members of the public. It is an ideal way to discuss local issues with constituents and convince them that you are worthy of their vote come election time.

Tailor your content for your online followers

What do you do once you have the ability to communicate with such a large and diverse group of people? You engage with them. If you have an audience that is willing to listen, watch or read what you’re about, then you need to give them the content that will keep them interested and engaged throughout your campaign. In some cases, you can even create different kinds of content for the different groups with your audience. This content can then be targeted as posts on specific aspects of your campaign to your online audience.

Facilitate and organise online discussion 

Unlike public rallies which may get out of hand, online comments and messages can be monitored, controlled and removed if necessary. There are a whole host of benefits to online crowdfunding, and you are ultimately only limited by your imagination and political fundraising ideas.

Increase your offline database

When people donate to your cause online, you then receive their contact details and basic information. This is priceless information that will be invaluable for future campaigns. With each share and each small but new donation, you gather more information on who your donors are, where they live, and how they can be contacted in the future.

Funnel event donations online 

You can encourage people to donate online through your campaign page, which is a great way to collect all of your donations in one location. If you are hosting a gala event, a local fundraiser, a raffle or even receiving commercial donations, then you can ask your donors to donate directly to your campaign via a text message or online.

Check the level of community support for a project 

Online crowdfunding campaigns also allow you to test out how much support there will be for a project. The campaign is also a great way to leverage community interest and support before officially launching the project through your social media accounts. If you want to raise funds for a community project such as a new recreation centre or playground, then you can use the crowdfunding campaign to gather online interest and initial donations for the project. The high level of public interest and dedication to seeing the project succeed can result in the acquisition of a bank loan, enabling the project to be completed.

Level the political playing field

One benefit of crowdfunding is that it gives all political candidates a chance of winning. It can be very difficult for candidates who cannot afford to fund their own campaigns to really compete in an election campaign. This is where political crowdfunding is of huge benefit, as it helps you be heard amongst the major political parties. It is vital that you also get a dedicated team of friends and family, who will support you.

The scope and reach of your campaign also need to be given much thought and consideration. Please go to part two of this political crowdfunding blog to learn how scope and audience reach can help you achieve your political crowdfunding goals.