We need fundraising ideas. Creative ones. Begging only goes so far.

[eyesroll]

Good afternoon, everyone.
The Vince Whitacre (aka Whitacre D_WI) for Congress campaign is churning along, but we're hitting a creative wall for fundraising ideas.

House parties and the like are in the works; we've asked Michael Moore; and there will be more flat-out asking for money from people at meetings, but as a small, grassroots campaign, traditional strategies aren't always the most effective. We need something new. Something interesting. Something legal. It can be online or offline. It needs to be cheap (or paid for with legal in-kind contributions and volunteer labor) or free.

Ideas, please?

[OneBlueSky]

1. I once worked on a Congressional campaign . . .

and our big fund raiser was an auction . . . got supporters to donate all kinds of stuff, from the spectacular to the mundane . . . the best donation, and best seller, was an original etching by Degas . . . the other items that brought in some serious cash were trash cans . . . we contacted a half dozen or so local artists and asked them each to paint a trash can in their own style . . . and sign them . . . the candidate used the occasion to talk about the environment . . . went over really well, and the trash cans brought in some significant bucks . . .

[eyesroll]

2. Wow. Cool.

Something like that could actually work. Thanks.
(Note to self: Ask FEC if eBay auction, with full disclosure that buying = a donation, is legal.)

[grasswire]

3. I've managed such auctions...

...for charities. Hospital auxiliaries, arts groups, etc. They do very well if you get a chairman who can get some creative donations and if you provide a fun themed venue for the auction itself. One event we planned with a M*A*S*H theme, with people invited to come in fatigues and some crazy skits and mess hall type food and decor. It was a huge hit. Vintage music, dancing.

Another good event is a "quick draw" where you find a dozen artists willing to do a sketch right at the event in half an hour or so and those sketches are auctioned off. Combines well with a buffet.

Ebay, of course, has a charity auction function but you have to be a registered non-profit to participate. You also could just do an informal eBay auction. Remember that on eBay millions of potential buyers all over the world are viewing your stuff 24/7. If you get some good donated merchandise you could do well.

[GOPFighter]

4. Ask some prominent politicians or...

...celebrities to donate something they autograph to auction. Bill Bradley might donate a basketball, Jimmy Carter a hammer, Al Gore an absentee ballot, Michael Moore a bowling ball or a stupid white male, etc.

[OneBlueSky]

11. there are also variations on this theme . . .

a little less demanding than a trash can . . . you could, for example, ask artists to paint mailboxes, toilet seats, hub caps, lamp shades, or whatever else your imagination can come up with . . . good luck . . .

[msanger]

5. have you looked at Dean's campaign?

if you get a small number of people fired up about you, and donating to you, then they get their friends fired up and donating....

I think that is all the Dean campaign is doing, I think it is all any campaign is doing.

There are software programs for email campaigns that make it easy to forward the newsletter or whatever to a few friends, and also make it easy to connect to the "donation" page. Constant Connection is one - which I'm using a little.

I think the idea to get as much for the buck as you can, and it seems like email campaigns based on friends recruiting friends is very effective.

good luck.

[knight_of_the_star]

6. Sell stuff that people will buy

Just make sure that they know what the money is going to.

[msanger]

7. igive.com or shoptodropbush.com

I don't know about the legality of using on-line shopping for an individual candidate - but you might be able to figure out some way to finesse this.

www.shoptodropbush.com raises money by serving as a link to on-line merchants - but to get around teh $2,000 limit to candiates we donate the money to moveon.org.

www.igive.com might let you get around that, but I'm not sure. if you want to explore either way, I'd be happy to chat.

[eyesroll]

8. We'd pretty much have to declare things as follows:

(Let's say we sell a book we bought for $12, for $20, online to raise money.)
1. Each book sold counts as a $12 expenditure by the campaign, to the publisher or Amazon or wherever we get the book.
2. Each purchase counts as a $20 contribution to Vince Whitacre for Congress. We'd have to advertise it as such: "$20 contribution gets you This Book!" People who bought the book would have to fit the same criteria they would if they were contributing directly (US citizen or permanent resident, not at the $2,000 limit, etc).
3. Since this is a hunch and not gospel, I'd need to run this all by the FEC first...I know they have rules about give-aways and premiums. (But I know they are legal, depending on the situation.)

Thanks for the jumping-off point.

[grasswire]

9. yeah but...

....if people DONATE items or services to an auction, then you are not involved in buying and selling for profit.

[eyesroll]

10. Yeah, but we still have to count the value of the items as contributions

If someone contributes $25 in cash, we count it as a $25 cash contribution. Simple.
If someone contributes a $25 book for auction, we have to count it as a $25 in-kind contribution (and the person contributing the book would have to be a legal donor), and then again as a $25 expenditure if sold. (Plus we'd count the entire winning bid as another contribution.)

Volunteer labor is generally acceptable without documentation. (The exception is professional services -- if we hired a professional auctioneer, and he decided to help us out and do it for free, we'd still probably have to count the amount he would have charged as an "in-kind" contribution and expenditure. We could not accept this service for free at all if the auctioneer was on duty as an employee of a corporation.)

It's still doable. Just gotta account for it. Fun, fun, fun...