The movement’s invisible army
(It's volunteer donor organizers.)
Summary: I’m refining a menu of ways to help volunteer donor organizers. Please send them my way.
1. A big problem
It’s nobody’s core job to engage new political donors or to move political donors up a ladder of engagement.1
Because it’s nobody’s job, existing efforts leave much whitespace.2 For example, when people ask me how to get started as a donor or to learn more, I have no compelling on-ramps or ladder of engagement to offer them.
2. The right mindset to solve the problem
We don’t need to solve the problem ourselves. The Ethereum Foundation writes:
Instead of just asking "how do we solve this problem?" we ask "how can the Ethereum community solve this problem, and how can we help?"3
This is a powerful framing.
How can the movement create a donor ladder of engagement, and how can we help?
3. The right people to solve the problem
The movement has an invisible army that can help solve this problem, but they are so unrecognized and under-served that they go by no single name.
Step one is to name them: Volunteer Donor Organizers (VDOs).
VDOs are a critical part of the movement, but oftentimes don’t know it. The ones we’ve spoken with use different terms for their work; some don’t have any label for it. Without a label or any ongoing support, they tend to feel a bit alone. But they are not alone; in fact, they have many shared challenges and opportunities.
Step two is to describe them.
A VDO is someone who organizes others around political giving, and:
Fundraises for more than one campaign or organization, and
Is not paid for that work.
Based on our interviews, VDOs typically:
Spend only part of their time on donor organizing work.
Have an email list of 50-500 people (sometimes more!) comprised of friends, industry colleagues, relatives, and others.
Host or co-host several fundraisers per year.
Manage all logistics out of a google sheet.
Receive no support for their overall work, except when organizations manage basic logistics for their own events.
Want to do more to engage their contacts, but are constrained by time.
Step three is to ask why nobody supports VDOs.
While many organizations seek to fundraise via VDOs, none support VDOs’ overall work. Serving VDO’s wouldn’t be especially complex or expensive, and could yield greatly increased funding for the movement. So why isn’t it happening?
I think the reason is that no organization has incentive to support VDOs. No organization can justify supporting VDOs if they then go on to raise for other causes. Indeed, a few organizations do help VDOs form giving circles - but only if the goal is to raise for the organization’s own priorities.
I can’t yet say whether incentives are the only reason that VDOs are so unserved; but in a movement perennially constrained by capital, it’s a powerful explanation.
Step four is to ask how we can support existing VDOs and train new ones.
For lots of people, being a VDO is their highest and best use of their volunteer time. With rough math, we estimate anyone who can raise more than ~$250 per hour should be a VDO.
And now we come to the part that we’re inventing.
Help us help VDOs
We have a draft menu of ways to support VDOs. To refine these ideas, we are speaking with as many VDOs as possible.
If you are a VDO, know others who are, would like to be, or have worked with one or more, please reach out!
Gratitude to Haley Bash and Hadar Sachs, who contributed to this note.
Some donor groups do a bit of this, but not as a core activity. Organizations and campaigns don’t do it; need to raise money for themselves now, not for the movement over time. Professional fundraisers optimize for return-on-time, which means soliciting already-engaged political donors.
There is no development office (aka finance office) for the movement. There’s a limited set of “engagement chunks” being offered, mostly just conferences and events that are heavy on frontal presentation. There’s little if any use of modern marketing techniques.
For those interested, more color here and here.