Donors often say “I don’t know what to give to,” which logically tempts innovators to work on solving that problem. People have created a variety of donor-facing tools, most of which have been of good quality; but nonetheless these projects have produced disappointing results. How come?
Because in politics and other fields, donors are almost always mobilized through a combination of information and relationship.
When I encounter people making tools for donors, here’s the advice I give them.
Suggestions for donor-tool builders
Suggestion 1: Be extra careful to make something that real people want.
“In nearly every failed startup, the real problem was that customers didn't want the product,” writes successful startup investor Paul Graham. The disappointments of past donor tools make this wisdom crucial.
Before making even a minimum viable product, find quick and cheap ways to test user demand. For example, you could pretend to be the product, and see if usage outstrips your ability to meet the demand manually.1 Preserve as much skepticism as you can muster; assume that your demand doesn’t exist until you can prove otherwise.
If you picture a large market of political donors blocked only by lack of knowledge, there’s a lot of evidence that’s wrong.2 When donors say “I don’t know what to give to,” don’t infer that donors do know what causes they care about. Too often, builders make tools for donors with developed preferences such as, “I care about climate change in Ohio and Kentucky.”3 I’ve met few donors who have such crisp preferences. Donors give for many different reasons; almost none of them sound like that quote.
Suggestion 2: Try something new.
Learn what’s already been tried and how it went. Talk to me and others who have worked in this space. Form a hypothesis of what past projects were missing and what you’ll do differently. Small tweaks in execution can make a big difference.
Ideally, form and test at least one hypothesis about what drives donations besides more information. For example, you could build a new method of relational fundraising or social proof. Or you could explore new methods of team-based fundraising, or gamification.
My model of the typical unmobilized donor is someone with not-yet-formed political giving preferences, who will act on a credible ask from a trusted source. In this model, the bottleneck is the number of askers (aka volunteer donor advisors), not the information. You could explore ways to help volunteer donor advisors move their contacts up a ladder of engagement.
Closing questions
What sort of information have you seen mobilize new donors? Have you seen it work on its own (and if so where)?
What tools do you think donors want?
Appendix: Where information worked
I tried to think of examples where information alone mobilized donors. The only one I came up with was late in the 2018 and 2020 cycles. When everyone’s hair was on fire to affect the outcome, a few projects raised mid/high-single-digit millions of dollars on social media by providing slates of state-level candidates where more funding could make a difference. In these instances, donors had a high latent desire to give, and a credible opportunity successfully channeled that.4
All of the other examples I can think of combine novel information with a healthy dose of relational fundraising, like these below.
Swing Left’s BluePrint product is the most successful still-live donor tool I’m aware of, having survived a few cycles. It raised $3.6 million in 2022, a good portion of which came from relational fundraising rather than organic spread.
The information I’ve seen most effectively mobilize potential donors is a combination of a broad theory of the case, combined with specific recommendations. This comes in many different forms, such as this by Reid Hoffman’s donor advisor; these slides from Movement Voter Project; or Mind the Gap’s quant-heavy strategy. In a similar vein, I co-hosted several successful “Political Giving 101” sessions summarizing the Guide for New Political Funders. None of these spread on their own; all have required relational fundraising.
This is how DoorDash started. The full story is under Insight #2 in How I Built Successful Political Startups.
The main evidence is the handful of projects built to serve this market that have all met with disappointment. I’ve spoken with maybe 100 volunteer political fundraisers, with lists from dozens to thousands of people, and almost none of them grew their community primarily via groundbreaking analysis or new tools.
This is a real use-case example from a tool builder.
Subsequent edit: Even in this example, the information alone wasn’t sufficient; these campaigns were boosted via savvy social media strategies.