Making donations to ActBlue and others

[JT99]

I get lots of emails from ActBlue and other organizations asking for donations, and I donate regularly when I can. But I'm curious about all the emails offering to triple or quadruple, for example, my donation. How does this work? I can't find any information on the ActBlue web site.

I'm always on my guard against spoofing and phishing and don't like clicking on links in emails. I prefer to go directly to the web site to make a donation, but once there, I don't see any options to have my donation multiplied.

Can someone shed some light on why this is? Any advice is appreciated.

[CrispyQ]

1. I wondered too, about matching claims & assume they are marketing ploys.

I do try to pay attention to FEC filing dates, so if I have a little extra cash I can throw some to a campaign. Even $5 makes a diff cuz big donors also look at how many contributions candidates are getting, not just how much.

I don't believe there's a way around all the email/texts from ActBlue. All the candidates use them now. You'd have to go old school & mail a check. I'm curious how many people have printed checks vs not. ???

[Bobstandard]

2. Lots of it is BS

I haven't seen anything that convinces me these ‘doube or triple your money’ pitches are valid. And I've tried to look into it. I think its mostly sales pitch.

It appears to me that when you donate through Act Blue your contact info gets distributed —probably sold—to just about anyone who wants it. I've gotten tons of texts from organizations that, upon researching them, have just been established, have very little information available about who they are or what they support. When you go to the sources that can tell you who they actually donate to, you often find that little of what they collect has actually been distributed. Worse, many have been established so recently that the haven't yet—and may never—report anything about that. I'm guessing some are complete scams, some even run by con artists on the right.

I've stopped using ActBlue and now go directly to individual campaign websites. If they send me to ActBlue, I don't donate to that campaign. I'm a small dollar donater so there are more campaigns id like to donate to than my money will allow. I'm now sticking with those that can take my money without resorting to ActBlue.

[JT99]

3. Using the campaign web sites

...is probably a good idea. As for how much they pass on to campaigns, I did find this on the ActBlue web site:

"We pass along a 3.95% processing fee on contributions to the groups using our platform.

Completing a contribution involves expenses to process your credit card. We're legally required to pass along processing costs to the campaign so that we do not make in-kind contributions to them.

As a non-profit, we rely on tips from donors to pay our bills."

That sounds to me like they pass on most of the donation to the campaign.

If I donate through an organization I make sure it's well established with a proven track record.

I admit I'm not crazy about my info being shared. I get tired of deleting 20-30 emails asking for money every day during campaign season but if it helps us win elections, it's a small price to pay.

[Bobstandard]

4. When you look close to the texts you find...

that the “campaign” is actually some organization that may or may not be related to the candidate or cause they proport to support. Even a cursory look at the organization asking for the donation can look suspiscious. Just today I’ve gotten them from go.freedom-dems.org and go.retiredamericanspac.org. Maybe they do a great job doing whatever it is they do (and freedom-dems,org specifically says its not assoociated with andy candidate or candidates campaign) but right now I want my money to go to a candidate in position to win the House or the Senate.