Act blue doesn't funnel money from Our Revolution to the DNC
I've heard more than once, a person accusing Our Revolution of raising money for the Dems, thru Act Blue. On this forum and elsewhere. I'm kind of puzzled on one hand but then the Sanders campaign was my 14th campaign since 2004. Not everyone has the intimate insider knowledge of how campaign fundraising happens that I do. So maybe from inside my "Campaign bubble" I'm blinded by what the common folk know and think.
I'm kidding, its not about knowledge, its about having the intellectual curiosity and integrity to not repeat "stuff" that you hear without exercising some level of due diligence. Its about being so blatantly negligent, or so emotionally tied to a concept or person, that you can sacrifice your integrity because you believe something that fits your world view. Its a predetermined outcome: Bernie sold out, so he will continue to sell out and I refuse to consider evidence to the contrary.
Act Blue is a candidate specific, or 501C4 specific platform. And that is the big selling point for Act Blue, it charges 3.95% otherwise the platform is the best in the bizz, your candidate or committee gets all the proceeds.
Think about it for a moment, 2 Dems for congress headed to a primary. One is the incumbent, the other is the challenger. The challenger puts up an Act Blue page for online fundraising, if part of the funds went to the DNC, they could then be spent on the incumbent.
Why would anyone raise money that a portion can be spent against their own campaign? If thats what Act Blue did that, I doubt a single Dem primary challenger would use it. Act Blue would not be a very popular platform and it never would have grown as quickly as it did since being introduced in 2004. But in spite of the facts, the notion is still being put forward that, by Our Revolution using Act Blue, it is in essence funneling money to the DNC.
Comments
Hm. But didn’t people catch ActBlue skimming X% off Bernie money
and giving it to the DNC and/or Daily Kos?
Markos
Would have fundraising appeals, either on the website or via emails. Many/most of them were set up to be 50-50 Kos & something else. The asshole even had the nerve to fundraise off of Bernie's name despite his support for Hillary.
Whenever you see something like that you can change the split. But of course a lot of people don't catch it before it's too late.
Markos was using act blue for the fundraising, but act blue wasn't the one skimming; it was markos who did the skimming.
Did they?
I've never heard that and can't find any evidence online to support your accusations. To be fair I searched for no more than 4 minutes.
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
Believe it, lots of people do say that.
Hang out in the comments on kossacks for sanders & wayofthebern and you'll see. It seems to be based on a combination of ignorance and paranoia.
Markos getting a cut
is vastly different than Act Blue skims for the DNC.
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
I agree.
But I'm not hearing it from kossacks; I'm hearing it from redditors.
It was in fine print
I started to donate to Bernie via Kos link. Just before I hit donate final button, I saw the note that 50% of donation would go to DK. I closed it without donating and went to Bernie's web site to do it instead. It was tiny. If you were in a hurry you might not notice it.
Yes, i even inadvertently did
Yes, i even inadvertently did it myself - once. Appalling.
Thanks for the inside view
Do you know anything about nationbuilder? That's what the Stein campaign is using, and it looks like some sort of marketing platform.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Its like NGP VAN
which is only available to Democrats. Nation Builder is available to any candidate.
Both start out as database creation and management for campaigns, but do more than that.
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.
People posted about it here.
Perhaps “caught” wasn’t the right word — it wasn’t exactly that ActBlue was doing something fraudulent. It was more that people had not been aware that ActBlue did not just channel 100% of your donation through to the recipient.
In particular, a donation to Bernie via an ActBlue widget on Daily Kos could and did result in X% going to Daily Kos rather than Bernie. If I recall correctly, there was some fine-print legalese somewhere acknowledging this, but people had to know to look for it, and then search pretty hard to find it.
Here’s a link to a report on TPW (The Progressive Wing)
Does DKos take part of every donation on ActBlue pages they set up?
Thanks for this info ... been wondering
Since the Democratic Convention and all that went down, I have particularly avoided donating to anyone. Reason? I was not certain where the funds were actually going, and the last place on earth I wanted them going was to support Hillary Clinton or anyone connected to the Clinton Syndicate.
I especially avoided Act Blue, as I simply had no information on how they handled funds. Were they just a funnel for the DNC? I was afraid they were, so if I saw Act Blue in the solicitation, I was outta there and fast. I seriously considered joining with Sanders' Our Revolution, but was not so sure donations were not ending up in Clinton Syndicate pockets.
Your info helps a lot ... although I've got to admit that I'm still not 100% sure about OR.
You can always donate by check & snail mail.
That way you can bypass act blue.
If you want to know where the donations Bernie received for the primary went to, look at the detailed Bernie 2016 reports out at the FEC website.
Then, for example, look up the reports on Sarah palins pac (sarahpac?), and see the differences. (I'd say Hillary for America, but we know how twisted & convoluted everything she touches is. Or you could try correct the records reports. You know Markos is buried in there some where. Something-something digital messaging.)