We are pleased to announce the release of our latest Issue Badge: Support Our Veterans. 

This brings our total to 31: 

Last week at CPAC we asked conservatives walking by our exhibit booth to take the CPAC Slatecard.com Pulse. The Pulse was a quick poll where conservatives selected their choice for the Republican nominee for president and then assign an "Issue Badge" to describe why they were supporting that candidate.

Well the results are in and with 289 votes cast, conservatives at CPAC have spoken.

With 151 votes, John McCain came away the clear winner of our CPAC Pulse, followed by Mike Huckabee with 92 votes and Ron Paul with 46 votes. 

But what's most interesting are the top issues driving support to the candidates.

For those backing John McCain the top issue by far was "Protect & Defend America":

But for Mike Huckabee his supporters top issue was "Faith & Values":

 

And for Ron Paul's backers, it was "Cut the Pork":  

Of course, the cool thing about Slatecard is that when you donate to a candidate, we ask donors to tag your donation with an issue badge that explains why you're supporting them. It works the same way as the poll folks took at CPAC. For more information about issue badges, read this blog post.

Here's a short video explaining how Slatecard works:

Campaign Managers and Candidates:  Imagine logging in to a web-based dashboard every morning to see which issues have been driving donations to your campaigns. You could use that information for smarter, more effective online and offline donor prospecting.
 
Slatecard Community:  Imagine being provided opportunities to support the candidates who best represent the issues that you support -- similar to how Amazon.com is able to recommend books that you might like based on previous history and similar users. Regardless of geography, you would find the candidates that are your kind of candidates who stand up for the issues that matter most to you.
 
These visions are about to become reality through Slatecard's Donor Analytics™

The following is a memorandum previewing the revolutionary innovation and value of Slatecard Donor Analytics^TM. And remember, Slatecard is the most cost-effective solution on the market for Federal candidates, committees and Causes. Republican candidates, committees and conservative Causes interested in getting started with Slatecard.com, the most cost-effective solution for processing online donations, should email Team@Slatecard.com.

Download and Take It With You: SlatecardDOTcom_Memo-DonorAnalyticsReport-01292008.pdf (505.96 kb)

Memorandum
To: Interested Parties
From: David All, Executive Director, Slatecard.com PAC
Date: January 29, 2008
Re: Previewing Donor Analytics™

Since its launch on October 8, 2007, the Slatecard.com community raised $151,318.52 through January 23, 2008 for Republican candidates, committees and conservative Causes from 1,845 grassroots activists throughout the nation. The average donation has been $82.01.

While seemingly similar websites have merely served as an “online shopping cart” for political candidates, Slatecard has always been much more. Slatecard is a utility to support and enhance Republican activism. Upon its launch, Wired.com labeled Slatecard a “Facebook for Republican campaign donors.”

One of the most important innovations leading to Slatecard’s early success has been the deployment of “Issue Badges.”

When someone makes a donation through Slatecard.com, the donor is asked to assign an “Issue Badge” after the donation has been authorized which represents the issue that drove the donation to that candidate. By doing so, the donor is helping qualify candidates based on the issues they represent. The innovation of Issue Badges is an intellectual property asset of Slatecard.

We currently have 30 issue badges loaded in the system:

DISCLAIMER: It is our hope that the following analysis merely provide a glimpse of what the Slatecard.com utility could provide to Republicans and conservative Causes. We recognize that the sample size of which this analysis is based is likely not statistically accurate.

What are Donor Analytics™?
Along with FEC-required contact information, through our Take Control Portal, candidates, committees and Causes can access the issues that are driving donations to them from grassroots activists. Eventually, these reports will be automated through Slatecard Donor Analytics™.

If used effectively, this free tool can help build a smarter, more effective donor prospecting strategy.

By analyzing data collected from the Slatecard.com community, we can identify the issues that are driving donations to Republican candidates, committees, and conservative Causes. It should be noted that not every donor assigns an issue badge to a candidate. The following analysis is based on 477 assigned Issue Badges for a total of $54,187.17 collected from October 8, 2007 – January 23, 2008.

As donor volume increases and donors better embrace the Issue Badges process, we expect the statistical sampling of these reports to improve in quality. Further, some issues, such as immigration in the broad sense, have several issue badges (Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Secure Our Borders, and No Amnesty) which could affect the outcome of this report.

Also, we plan to randomize the placement of issue badges in the very near future so that the default issue badge is not “Conservation of Resources.”

The Issues Driving Donations
One of the more interesting observations is the average donation size for individual issue badges assigned to recipients. One might label this average a “value” for a donation. 

When reviewing the chart below, the methodology should be noted (Issue Badge Total / Frequency = Avg. Donation).

1.    Cut The Pork: 54
2.    Pro-Life: 48
3.    Protect & Defend America: 46
4.    Jobs & Economy: 36
5.    Conservation Of Resources: 33

Top Issue Badges By Total Dollars

1.    Protect & Defend America: $9,435.99
2.    Cut The Pork: $6,593.00
3.    Available and Affordable Health Care: $4,825.00
4.    Jobs & Economy: $4,337.00
5.    Defeat Radical Islam: $3,525.00

We have added the "No Amnesty" issue badge to the mix, bringing our total to 30.

This badge has been added to offer more choices to those interested in supporting candidates and causes with regard to illegal immigration.

We will be formally announcing the Slatecard Causes program later this week; however, the Minuteman PAC is the first cause and is operational. In short, we are pleased to announce that Slatecard will be helping raise funds and encourage grassroots activism for the Right kind of Federal Political Action Committees (PACs).

To be considered in the program early, email us at Team AT slatecard.com.

Here's all 30 issue badges:

On Monday, we asked the Slatecard community to vote in an online poll to help us choose an issue badge to represent "Freedom."

Here are the results of that poll:

Before Slatecard, when an online contributor donated to a candidate online using a commercial vendor or a site like ActBlue, the process ended for a user with submission of the credit card data. But by contributing to candidates through Slatecard, users are able to qualify candidates by assigning that candidate an issue badge. The badge does not have any monetary value but rather represents the issue the contributor feels the recipient candidate represents well.

Therefore, Slatecard users will effectively create a qualified Wiki of candidates that the community will later be able to use to find those candidates, regardless of geography, that support the issues that they care about.

Ultimately, we expect this innovation to increase overall support for candidates by leveraging the collective knowledge of the community. Therefore, we're not only supporting activism, we're enhancing it.  

 

UPDATE Jan. 9, Noon: Voting is now closed. The winner will be announced shortly. 

Issue badges are the revolutionary way we help qualify candidates on the issues that matter most to us. To find out more about issue badges, read this post.

At the request of the community, we are adding a "Freedom" issue badge to the mix which will bring the total up to 29.

Please help us choose which badge best represents "Freedom" by voting in the online poll below. The badge which receives the most votes by Tuesday, January 8 at Midnight (EST) will be the badge we add to the system.

 

Just a heads up that we've revised the "Immigration Reform" badge to literally say, "Comprehensive Immigration Reform."

After tracking how the "Immigration Reform" badge was being used by donors, it was clearly not being assigned for its intended purpose.

Previous: 

Now:

One of the top issue badges given to candidates by the Slatecard community has been the "Defeat Radical Islam" badge: 

However, as both William Beutler of Blog, P.I. and Joshua Levy of TechPresident have pointed out, the badge that we have been using may be sending the wrong message. In Beutler's words, "The war against radical Islam is not, the last time I checked, a war against all Muslims. But that’s what the badge implies."

It's a fair critique, and one we take seriously.

To resolve this issue, we have replaced the badge with this one: 

We believe this symbol - crossed AK-47's - meets our goals and helps clarify the issue for all.

What do you think? Email us at Team AT Slatecard.com and let us know. 

Based on feedback from the Slatecard community, we've added two new issue badges to the mix, for a total of 28 issues for the community to choose from to help us qualify candidates.

"Say NO to Harry Reid's censor of Rush" (or should we say, attempt...)

"FairTax"

We address this question in our Frequently Answered Questions, but I want to cover it in this space to help clarify the significance of issue badges.

Before Slatecard, when an online contributor clicked "submit" to send their credit card information for processing on any candidate's website or even a site like ActBlue, the process was finished. Not on Slatecard.

When a Slatecarder contributes a monetary donation to any candidate on Slatecard, after the credit card has been processed you are taken to a issue badges page where you can help qualify that candidate on the issue which you believe that candidate supports or represents well.

Here are the current issue badges that a Slatecarder can choose from:

Once the Slatecarder selects the issue badge, they are asked to enter a short message (100 characters or less) to send to that candidate, and a name to associate with the badge (e.g., first name, full name, nickname or anonymous).

Clicking "deliver badge" drops the badge onto the candidate's Ticker, onto the original Slatecard which the Slatecarder was referred from, and in our main Ticker on the homepage.

While the donation amount isn't public, all other information is public. That means that if the candidate happens to look at his or her Slatecard profile, they'll get your message regardless of when it was sent.

Further, once we've tabulated a solid stable of delivered issue badges, we're going to help visualize them better for our community so that in the candidate directory, along with being able to search by location or office, a Slatecarder will be able to find candidates who support their issue.

Think of it as a qualified wikipedia, regardless of where the candidate "says" they stand on the issue, the community that supports the respective candidate will help determine the candidate's position on the issues that matter to us.

And of course, we're also thinking creatively about how issue-based data might prove helpful to campaigns trying to figure out what their next piece of direct mail or message should be on the campaign trail.

That is how issue badges will help enhance Republican activism.

So why don't you get started today by supporting a candidate and delivering your issue badge.