A week or so ago, Ronald Hansen of the Arizona Republic and USA Today included Slatecard.com in his round-up of companies on the Right and Left which candidates use to process their online donations. I was quoted in the piece:

Processing fees already may be viewed as an unavoidable expense as basic to campaigning as phone bills and plane tickets.

"Your average online donor is an impulse buyer," said David All, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who last year founded Slatecard.com, which he hopes to be a Republican answer to ActBlue. So far, the site's donors have raised more than $5,000 for GOP presidential candidates.

In charging a 4.5% flat fee, All said he loses money on small donors, which is hopefully offset by the bigger ones. In any event, he sees the site as filling a critical void for the GOP.

"With online donors, the sooner you can seal the deal, the better," he said. "You're risking not sealing the deal if you can't donate online." 

While I appreciate the mention, I think Ronald missed some important points about Slatecard that I added to the comments of the post. Here's what I wrote:

Thanks for including Slatecard.com in your round-up. This a very important discussion to have.

Transparency, openness and honesty are just a few of the guiding principles we cling to at Slatecard.

In fact, that's why one of our first blog posts back on October 11, 2007 (we launched October 8) dealt with this issue specifically, titled "Transparency in Processing."

We're proud to be one of the most cost-effective online processing solutions for Republicans and while we're doing this as a volunteer effort, we believe it's necessary to helping give the Right the tools it needs to better leverage the power of the Internet.

One point I'd like to include is that while we may have only raised a little over $5k for Presidential candidates, we've raised well over $325k for other Federal Republican candidates and committees. In fact, we're proud that over 41 candidates have already signed up to use Slatecard to exclusively process their donations.

We're just getting started but we're making tremendous progress given the fact that we've only been up for six months.

Thanks again.

David All
Executive Director
Slatecard.com PAC

The bottom-line is that a processing fee for online donations will always be a part of the process. However, we're proud of our lowest-on-the-market rate of 4.5% regardless of what credit card a donor uses and the fact that we don't charge a per transaction fee or a set-up/monthly fee to candidates.

To keep this operation running - we instead rely on generous donations from you - the Slatecard community. And, as you know, we appreciate it.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a piece on the rising strength of small dollar donors in politics. This is a trend I've called the Long Tail of politics.

The recent flood of Internet donations that has helped pump 2008 presidential campaign coffers to highs also is accomplishing what Watergate-era campaign-finance regulations set out to do: dilute the influence of special interests and wealthy donors.

The main beneficiaries of the boom in small donors are Democratic contenders Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both were expected to file reports with the Federal Election Commission Thursday night detailing their February fund raising. The Obama campaign has released numbers indicating the Illinois senator would report raising about $55 million in February, a one-month record for a primary candidate. About 90% of the total came from donors who gave in increments of $100 or less.

I'm quoted twice in the piece:

Political strategists are trying to replicate the Obama model. David All, a Republican political consultant, admired how the campaign last year chose five small donors to have dinner with Sen. Obama, and then made a video about each one and posted them to the Obama campaign Web site. "It told their story, and Barack Obama was merely the thread that connected them all," Mr. All said. "What he's doing is creating a community, and this community is spreading his message virally" by word of mouth and emails to friends, he said.

And:

Internet giving at the congressional level also is spreading, albeit more slowly. Web sites such as ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democrats, let donors contribute to individual candidates. ActBlue has directed more than $14 million to federal Democratic candidates this election cycle, compared with $16 million for the 2006 congressional elections.

Mr. All, the Republican consultant, started a rival site last October called SlateCard.com. It has raised just $300,000. "What I'm finding is a lot of Republican campaigns are just hiring college kids or using their son who has a Facebook account," said the 28-year-old Mr. All. "They don't understand what this is all about." 

 

I'm not much of a poet, so I won't try, but it's a good way to point out a blog post generating some buzz for Slatecard thanks to Captain Ed Morrissey over at one of the Right's most popular hangouts, Captain's Quarters.

Of note, Captain Ed has built his very own Slatecard to promote the candidates he cares about.

On Thursday, I was on air with Captain Ed at Heading Right Radio where we discussed Slatecard and our effort to help promote Republican candidate Jon Elrod in Indiana.

This past Saturday, I was on a New Media Panel at CPAC where I discussed what we're doing at Slatecard.

Ethan Demme, who was gracious enough to sit in the back and tick through the slides for my presentation, passed along this video:

 

At the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), we will be airing a 30-second promotional video to help alert conservatives to the Slatecard utility.

Our vision for the video, was to come up with a creative idea that would be memorable, interesting enough to cut the clutter with countless other spots, and be "fun" enough to hopefully generate some buzz among activists.

We think this video hits its mark:  (Digg the vid here)

Random bits from around the Internets worth a click (or two):

1. William Beutler of Blog, P.I. follows up his Rightroots v. Big Red Tent v. Slatecard comparison post with further thoughts. Of note, Beutler picks up on our "Defeat Radical Islam" issue badge change that was inspired by his thoughts that we blogged about on Saturday. Beutler missed the fact that we also changed the requirement for a phone number on the donation page but maybe he'll pick that up in a later post. Beutler also makes a suggestion to expand to state and local races, something we're quickly trying to do. And we could use your help.

2. The liberals over at Buckeye State Blog have taken notice of our support for Bob Latta (and helped us make a few changes to our Google AdWords/Analytics account). Thanks. Buckeye  State Blog, showing its ignorance in this space, attempts to make an apples-to-apples comparison of Slatecard's support for Latta compared to that of ActBlue and Robin Weirauch. The comparison is looking at amount raised and total number of supporters to that of Actblue. Of course, the problem with this is that liberal Weirauch has been using ActBlue as her website's credit card vendor since the beginning. Take a look at this page on ActBlue, which shows the amount of money raised by DailyKos, SwingState Project, and OpenLeft at just over $15K. The Wes Clark money is interesting to note also. Bottom line is that we still have work to do, but the $1,900 in the door for Latta is $1,900 more than would have been there without the Slatecard community.

3. Writing about Slatecard's early success, DC-based tech evangelist Peter Corbett notes:

It’s interesting to see the Republican camp finally gaining ground in the online fund raising side of things.  Democratic strategists have been light years ahead in this area.  I recently asked a prominent Republican strategist why this is the case, and he confided in me that “digital creatives/strategists are the key to online fund raising prowess.  It just so happens that the dems have a monoploy on this kind of talent as these folks are more liberally leaning.”

It looks like the talent pool may be shifting, albeit slowly.

If you blog about Slatecard and want to be included in this space, please shoot us a note at Team AT Slatecard.com. 

In his latest post, "Rightroots, Big Red Tent, and Slatecard: An Assessment," William Beulter of Blog, P.I. and New Media Strategies, has said some really nice things about what we're doing here at Slatecard. As Bill did at his blog post, let me also disclose that Beutler is a friend but I had no knowledge that he was working on this essay.

Here's the comment I left on his blog post:

 

Since our launch on October 8, the Slatecard community has made tremendous progress toward our goal of being the most comprehensive and widely used directory of Republican politicians in existence.

What we're hearing is that Republican activists are finding out that Slatecard is not simply an “online shopping cart,” but is a vibrant hub for information and political activism in the modern world.

That progress is being realized through the only currency which matters in politics -- money.

In fact, one of Capitol Hill's most prominent newspapers which covers the political beat, Roll Call, reported on our progress in its November 15 issue of Shop Talk (sub. req.):

All for One and One for All. Slatecard.com, a political action committee founded by a GOP political consultant and a freelance software designer to support Republican candidates running for federal office, revealed this week that it has raised more $71,000 since its inception early last month.

$71,000 in a little over one month for Republican candidates and committees is impressive. You should be proud.

But since the article was printed, we've continued to raise money for the Right kind of candidate and committees. Here's where we stand right now:

• Total Donations: $72,672.80
• Number of Supporters: 356
• Average Donation:  $204.14

If you haven't already, I would urge you to pick a candidate or two from our directory -- anyone you think needs the support -- and give at least $10 or $20 to their campaign. There are far too many candidates without issue badges. They need to hear from you today.

And trust me when I tell you this: We are just getting started.

Early next week we're going to be making a major announcement about Slatecard which is what we've been working on over the past few weeks. Please stay tuned.

Revolution.

Robert Bluey has a column on the front-page of today's Townhall.com called "Leveling the online playing field," which notes the launch of Slatecard:

Slatecard was founded on the notion that conservatives identify with issues. The site gives the community the ability to assign "issue badges" to a particular candidate, making it easy to see which candidates share the same values, hence the name Slatecard. All and business partner Sendhil Panchadsaram have come up with 26 "issue badges" that users can associate with a candidate. Rudy Giuliani, for instance, has badges for "Defeat Radical Islam," "Social Centrists" and "Tax Simplification."

"Slatecard is what ActBlue would look like today if it was created in 2007 in a Web 2.0 world," All said. The site allows users to connect with candidates on a variety of social networking websites, making it a one-stop destination. It also employs a ticker function to see what's happening in real time.

For this piece, Robert asked me a series of questions via email which I've pasted below (with answers) for your review:

• What inspired you to create Slatecard?

This is a quote from my launch blog post:

Quite simply, I was tired of waiting for someone else to get the job done when I knew I could do it better.

In fact, on March 20, I was inspired to write a blog post, entitled, "Let's get our Act together," on the DAG blog. That short, three-sentence blog post was a call-to-action. I was willing to head up the creation of a Republican counter to the wildly successful Democratic activist site, ActBlue, but I needed some help. I thought what was needed was some financial backing to help develop the site. But what came knocking on my door was really what I was looking for: a teammate.

About a month after my blog post, I received an interesting email in my inbox from a guy named Sendhil Panchadsaram who was willing to take me up on the offer. Sendhil, a young, energetic activist based in California could develop the utility and was willing to follow it through to the end. Perfect. Sendhil agreed to be the co-founder of Slatecard and we started developing.

• How does it compare and differ from ActBlue?

Essentially, Slatecard is what ActBlue would likely look today if it were created in 2007 in a Web 2.0 world.

It’s similar in the fact that it’s driven solely by the community. We don’t promote any candidate over another, or force the Republican activist community to support a slatecard of candidates that we have picked. Every Federal candidate that is running as a Republican is able to use our site. Further, any Republican activist can create their very own Slatecard of the candidate’s that they support.

It’s superior to ActBlue with three primary innovations that we believe will lead to increasing support for Republican candidates across the board. Let me explain.

First is the innovation of “issue badges.” Currently, on any candidate’s website or on a site like ActBlue, once a user inputs their credit card information and clicks submit the process is over. Not so on Slatecard. On Slatecard, when a contribution has successfully processed the user is then taken to an issue badges page where the user can choose one of 26 issues that they believe the candidate represents well. For example, a few popular issue badges are “Faith & Values,” “2nd Amendment Rights,” Secure Our Borders,” and “Stop Hillary.” Once we’ve amassed enough data, we’re going to give activists the ability to search for candidates they might support based on the issues. But we’re not letting candidates choose the issues, instead the issues are selected by the community that supports that candidate. In other words, we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to make a qualified-Wiki of candidates where issue-based voters can support candidates regardless of geography.

The second innovation which will increase and enhance activism is the notion that we’ve built a utility that will not only be used when someone wants to contribute money, but at all times. In other words, we’re not simply an “online shopping cart,” but are in fact the only place on the Internet with a comprehensive directory of Republican candidates. In fact, we provide a “Connect” section on every candidates profile where the candidate can add links to social networking sites like facebook, myspace, youtube, flickr, linkedin and other outlets where candidates need support on the modern campaign trail like eventful, meetup and Wikipedia.

The third innovation which could increase activism is the notion of “Snacktivism.” Because every action on our site is registered in The Ticker, a stream of all action on the site, we’re letting activists play the role of a voyeur. The activists can see who is popular on the site and read the messages that other candidates are sending to the candidates. By so doing, people can poke around the site freely, partaking in snack activism.

• Why do you believe Democrats have enjoyed a fundraising advantage online?

One can’t deny that the Democratic base of supporters is fired up for a number of reasons. But I also think Republicans have failed to appropriately reach out and embrace the Long Tail of political fundraising. In other words, I have friends who have never contributed to a political candidate before this year but are now supporting Barack Obama because Obama has figured out smart, effective, Web 2.0 strategies to reach out to those individuals. When we do the math on average donations to Republicans, we’re still well over $1,500 per donor. In other words, Republicans have mastered President Bush’s top-down strategy of bundling money but we’ve yet to realize the importance of tapping “baby bundlers,” those folks who have large networks of friends who can give $10 or $15 every single month for a candidate. Slatecard provides a utility for those “baby bundlers” to add their Slatecard of candidates to their blog or MySpace and a permanent link to send out in an email. Further, we’ve built in a sophisticated referral mechanism so that as long as a user enters the site through a users’ Slatecard, if that person eventually donates to one of the candidates on the Slatecard the original Slatecard creator will get the credit.

• In the short time it has been operating, what do you see as its greatest strength?
  

I’ve been very pleased with the feedback we’ve heard from not only activists, but also campaigns throughout the nation and influential people I trust around Capitol Hill and in Committee/Leadership positions. Everyday, new candidates email us information to update their profile and add new links. Further, I’ve been happy that when candidates find they don’t have a “complete” profile, e.g., they don’t have a facebook profile, they create one so we’re actually playing a small role in helping people better reach their constituency.

• What do you get out of this?

Slatecard has been a volunteer operation since day one. We have hefty legal, accounting, and operational costs that are being paid with generous contributions to Slatecard.com PAC from the community. However, we have already been contacted by local and state candidates who want Slatecard available in their state. Therefore, our plan is to expand the operation beyond the Beltway candidates, as ActBlue has successfully done in 24 states, as soon as possible. To do that, we need a team working on the project full-time with larger server capacity. As available resources increase so will the operation’s presence. However, because we’ve made the decision to not take a single penny over the normal credit card transaction fee to ensure that candidates receive as much of a donation as possible, the choice belongs to the community. If they want it, we will build.

• How much money does the candidate ultimately get from contributions?

If you use a credit card to purchase anything – either online or at a restaurant -- there is a fee associated with that transaction. We fully explain the processing fee at our FAQ and at this blog post, "Transparency in processing."

In "Slatecard: Growing Republican Netroots," Michelle Oddis of Human Events has a large piece on the launch of Slatecard. The story is very well-placed on the homepage of Human Events that I hope you will check out.

Her comprehensive story does a good job of covering why we need Slatecard now (liberals have raised $30M through ActBlue), how the site works, and the importance of the issue badges (qualify the candidates). But of particular interest, Michelle is the first to report on the important role Slatecard will play with regard to "baby bundlers."

Slatecard.com attempts to use the same technique that has helped to advance campaign fundraising in record amounts for Barack Obama called “baby-bundling.”

Baby-bundling, All explained, is what happens when people support candidates in smaller donations, but by encouraging others in their network (by way of internet) to support their chosen candidates as well, accumulate larger amounts through these smaller donations.

“People are able to use our site to help bundle contributions,” said All “not everyone can contribute $2,300, or smile with the candidate at the picture in the photo line at the VIP reception, but there is a lower barrier of entry that Slatecard can help people get into and that’s to contribute 5-10 dollars.”

“Every month, or just once, whatever you can give -- every single dollar counts these days in politics -- and the fact that we are losing elections by less than 2% in many instances, it just goes to show that resources count,” said All.

The story of President George W. Bush's success in 2004 with regard to fundraising was his smart strategy to tap key mega-donors as "Rangers" and "Pioneers" who were asked to then tap their networks to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the President.

These days, Presidential candidates have not only followed our President's lead but are constantly finding ways to add new levels of support and new ways to find new support. For example, Rudy's network of fundraisers are broken down even further in to different price points and are termed "Pitchers," "Sluggers," "All Stars," and "MVPs." Among others, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have state-of-the-art software tools on their website specifically designed for fundraising through a supporters' personal network.

These state-of-the-art tools being used by the campaigns weren't cheap, free, or created in the basement. They are sophisticated tools to help expand their operation beyond their brick-and-mortar headquarters. And they're working because supporters can help raise money on their own time and they don't have to go to the local headquarters to make phone calls. Team Romney et al. can simply assign tasks, dollop praise often, and keep track of who is doing what all from the comfort of the Internet.

The distributed fundrasing network--the people-powered-movement--that is what I believe the story of 2008 will be. Sure, the Dean campaign will rightfully say that's just old news. But I tell you what, it's not old news on this side of the aisle.

The state-of-the-art technology which I talked about above -- that is the role Slatecard can play for all Republican races: Presidential, Senate, and House (and eventually state and local). Slatecard should be seen as a utility to help enchance and grow a candidate's campaign operation. It works, it's honest, and the issue-based data could be particularly helpful when folks are trying to figure out what appeals are working best.

We're glad to help fill this role.