1M+ Donations to Obama in March

by Patrick Ruffini :: March 24th, 2008 11:50 am

(Correction? See update.)

If you’re a Republican (like me), it’s time to grab the Rolaids again.

According to publicly available donor data on BarackObama.com, the Obama campaign has already received more than one million individual donations in March. Obama had received 727,972 donations in his record-breaking $55 million February. And we still have a week to go in the month.

[Update: The Obama campaign has pulled down the original graphic in response to this post, but not the version at Ben Smith’s, so I’ve reposted a screengrab of that here.]

This graphic stood at 963,525 just as February was turning into March (note: a script seems to run that increments this old graphic in 2,000 chunks, but it was accurate in February).

What this means in terms of a bottom line number for March is anyone’s guess, though it appears highly unlikely (to me, at least) that the campaign won’t exceed its February haul. The average contribution plummeted from around $140 in January to $75 in February. If the lower February number holds, that could mean $75 million raised already this month. But it seems likely that the average contribution would have drifted further down still as repeat donors become a bigger slice of the pie. Here are arguments on both sides of the ledger though:

Why the Number Could Be High: What was happening at the end of the last month with Obama’s online donors? It was the One Million campaign, with the pitch of making a matched donation to reel in new donors with the goal of reaching one million donors to the campaign. The logic behind this seems to suggest a very high number of small donations, as people chip in $5 or $10 to help the campaign get towards its million donor goal. Crucially, the goal was set in numbers, not dollars, making gift size less important. The Obama campaign has done relatively little goal-based fundraising in March, so online contribution averages may have drifted up to more normal levels with less of a frenzy to meet a goal.

Why the Number Could Be Lower: We already saw at the end of February how the Obama campaign was getting tapped out of new donors. Towards the end of the month, they seemed to be reeling in 5 donations for every 1 new donor recruited. That ratio is likely to have been even higher in March (with even more donations this month than last it almost certainly has, in fact). And the first-time donors are the ones likely make larger contributions in excess of $100. For repeat donors, it’s more likely to be $25 here, $50 there. More donor longevity means smaller donation averages.

What It Means: That Obama was able to attract so much support in March is nothing short of staggering, given the bad month he has had, from perceived losses in Ohio/Texas to the Jeremiah Wright controversy. Or Obama donors could be rallying to his side in troubled times (look how Hillary was able to reel in donations after announcing a self-loan).

The accelerating pace of donations demonstrates conclusively the snowball effect that kicks in the longer a successful low-dollar fundraising base has been in place. In a sense, it seems to be momentum-proof. It also suggests a campaign that has become tethered to its supporter base as if by umbilical cord. Given the omnidirectional reinforcement supporters get from the email channel, the earned media channel, and the social channel, online donors are constantly connected to the campaign, even in slower periods. There is no limit to number of contacts a campaign can effectively have (unlike in direct mail), as the campaign is “always on” regardless of how many emails or Will.i.am videos one receives.

I also wonder if the huge March number is also a factor of recurring monthly contributions really paying off in a big way.

Whatever the total, Obama looks headed to a monster March in fundraising. $55M would be a low estimate.

UPDATE: Ben Smith noticed this yesterday, and the Obama campaign is claiming a technical “glitch” in the counter but won’t say how much it’s off by. The graphic seemed to be rising at improbably high rates after it was yanked from the site in February, however the number of donations was accurate.

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