Do Something Now - Donate Effectively for the Election

Give money like the future of our country depends on it. It does.

Focus for Democracy: the most votes per $

Anyone who has donated to an electoral campaign in the past is probably being deluged with emails and texts asking for donations to support any number of worthy candidates.

Where is the most effective place to donate election dollars? It is very hard to know who needs your dollars the most and where your money will be used most effectively. Unfortunately, last minute donations to an individual candidate or a political party tend to go into last minute advertising buys that are of uncertain value and very expensive ways to get a vote.

For the last several elections, I have been following the research and advice of Focus for Democracy, a giving circle to support progressive democracy that is run by several very seasoned analysts in electoral strategies and philanthropy. They do deep research to find the initiatives that are targeting key battleground states with long game strategies to cultivate swing voters who the parties and the campaigns are not reaching. They look particularly for initiatives that utilize continuous, intensive randomized control trial testing to validate and refine their messages and strategies to be most effective in dollars per vote.

The Focus for Democracy team then further screens to determine which of these initiatives have a critical funding gap that isn't being filled by other major funders or mass fundraising.

Each month or so through the election cycle, they run zoom calls to share their findings and make recommendations of where our dollars will make the most difference at this stage of the election cycle. Yo get to hear from a leader of the recommended project and ask questions. In classic giving circle manner, they then take pledges on the call. Informative and fun. After the call, they send out instructions for donating directly to the designated organizations. This is an entirely volunteer effort. Focus for Democracy does not take any cut from the donations.

I will be regularly updating this Donate page with the most current recommendations from Focus For Democracy. Next update will be shortly after the Oct 1 call

The Donate To links will tell you how to donate by credit card, check, DAF etc with credit to Focus to ensure it goes to the key designated election campaign.

OR...Let Focus channel it to the most effective place: Focus for Democracy Regranting Fund The landscape is changing day to day. As we get closer to the end, I am giving my last dollars to this regranting fund for Focus to channel to whichever organization still has a funding gap that can leverage the highest return of votes per dollar. They do not take a cut. This can be either C3 tax deductible or C4, not tax deductible. Give C4 if you can.

There are lots of good places to contribute. This is where I am directing my contributions:

Small donations (up to $50)

Harris/Walz and my favorite down ballot races through ActBlue

Bigger donations:

Movement Voter Project - support local organizing in swing states
Working America - reach non union, blue collar workers in rural parts of swing states
HeadCount - working with musician celebrities to get young fans to register and vote.
Movement Labs - reach voters deep in swing states who may never get a knock on their door to register and vote.

Pick the projects that appeal to your values and your pocketbook.

Read more about why I support these groups below

Up to $100 - be counted

Every little bit helps. Small donations to the candidate of your choice add to their count of total contributors which is valuable for attracting the bigger donors. You can find the candidates and campaigns of your choice through ActBlue.

Be strategic with bigger donations

Lots of campaign dollars go into the deep dark hole of endless TV ads. Very small return in votes for every dollar spent. Let’s be strategic. I am currently giving my big donations to these Get Out The Vote organizations:

Movement Voter Project (MVP) strategically finds and invests in local voter organizing groups in critical swing states. They invest in capacity building for groups with a focus on youth, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), LGBTQ+, and immigrant voters. Sort of a mutual fund for local organizing. This is critical for this election and builds long term local capacity to swing critical policy and develop the pipeline of future candidates. MVP will be on the front lines of protecting the vote efforts during the critical counting and ballot curing period.

Donate to MVP At this stage in the election, they need unrestricted donations the most, but can also always use tax deductible donations (as from a DAF)

Working America - This AFL-CIO political affiliate that has been doing the long term trust building work through door and phone canvassing to reach non union, blue collar workers in swing states, often in rural areas ignored by the Democratic party. Their 5 million plus membership is now primed. This last funding will support key well tested, highly targeted social media outreach to them to bring their votes in. Most effective program in cost/net democratic vote that Focus for Democracy has studied.

Donate to WA via Focus - At this stage in the election, they need unrestricted donations the most (but give tax deductible donations after the election to start building for 2026 & 28!)

Can you donate more if it is tax deductible? If you have a DAF or foundation, give to one or both of the following 501(c)3 initiatives :

Focus for Democracy

Movement Labs - You may ignore all political texts that come in on your phone, but Movement Labs is doing the research to figure out how to break through and make texts work to cost effectively reach likely Democrats deep in swing states who may never get a knock on their door to register and vote. Current priority target of Focus for Democracy.

Donate to Movement Labs via Focus - Because much of their text work is non-partisan register and vote messaging (just very effectively targeted) Movement Labs can still take tax deductible as well as non tax deductible donations (but only through the Focus link)

Still want to donate directly to a campaign?

Oath - We think that Oath is one of the most useful data driven tools for finding races up and down the ballot where your $$ will have the most impact. You tell them issues that are most important to you, and they tell you in which races your dollars will have the most impact and what gap they are still trying to fill. It is a pretty cool tool

In general, the higher up the ballot you go the less impact your money will have at this point. Most good Senate races are pretty well flooded with money right now so you are only buying more TV ads of questionable marginal value when you contribute to most campaigns at this point. If you focus on issues, Oath will generally direct you to high leverage down ballot races. However, if you want to donate up ballot, in addition or instead of selecting policy issues, you can select Flip the House or Hold the Senate to focus on House or Senate races (or possibly down ballot races that will help bring voters for a House or Senate seat)

Support this website.

I don't need any donations to run this website. Just pass the link to this website on to others and give your money to groups like the ones listed above. That will be the best contribution to this project.

Do Something Now! - Election 2024