Letter - People Power United joins coalition efforts to urge Act Blue to do more to protect donors and foster a healthy fundraising ecosystem that ensures donors and supporters feel respected and safe
🗽A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
People Power United joined other local, state, and national groups to urge Act Blue to do more to protect donors and foster a healthy fundraising ecosystem that ensures donors and supporters feel respected and safe. Shout out to Civic Shout for leading these efforts. Here is the letter sent on behalf of our membership:
To: ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones, ActBlue Chief Revenue Officer Peter Slutsky, ActBlue Director for Democratic Politics & Elections Kiersten Arnoni, ActBlue Assistant Director for PACs Emily Zahn, ActBlue Communications Director Megan Hughes
Re: ActBlue’s responsibility to protect donors
Date: December 18, 2024
Grassroots donations play a vital role in funding the work done by progressive organizations, Democratic political campaigns and political committees.
But for many years now, campaign operatives and practitioners have engaged in a lively debate about the sustainability and ethics of some of the fundraising tactics employed by some campaigns and committees. Many of us have argued that these tactics are exploiting donors, harming the Democratic Party’s brand, and causing damage to the progressive fundraising ecosystem.
At the same time, the results of several races this cycle and in previous cycles make clear that raising a massive sum of money online doesn’t guarantee victory, calling into question the wisdom of campaign tactics that prioritize fundraising totals over all other considerations.
This debate hasn’t been confined to digital operatives and campaign staff. Democrats’ questionable fundraising tactics have garnered widespread press attention, prompted inquiries from multiple state attorneys general, attracted scrutiny from the Department of Justice and Federal Election Commission, and inspired state and federal legislation. Democrats’ spammy and deceptive fundraising tactics have even found their way into pop culture, where late night hosts like Stephen Colbert and comedians like Colin Jost have made them the punchline of jokes.
Over the summer, the debate over Democrats’ digital fundraising tactics reignited by a series of articles published by Sam Stein in The Bulwark. The articles detail scammy emails and text messages directing people to donate to various Political Action Committees via ActBlue.
In response to Stein’s reporting, ActBlue released a statement affirming that it has “a responsibility to ensure the entities on our platform are using our technology appropriately” and is “committed to building a sustainable grassroots movement.”
Later, on The Great Battlefield Podcast, ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones reiterated ActBlue’s intention to do more to protect donors from bad actors and unscrupulous tactics. "There are actions that we can and must continue to take to tamp this down," she said. "This is a frontier of innovation that we’re committed to."
We strongly agree with these sentiments and greatly appreciate ActBlue’s commitment to doing more than it has in the past to protect donors on its platform from being exploited.
We also appreciate the steps ActBlue has taken in the past to rein in some of the most egregious practices, including modifying the policy on pre-checked recurring donations, providing new guidance to Political Action Committees on your Account Use Policy, and strengthening your Terms of Service in August 2024.
Given ActBlue's pivotal role in Democratic and progressive fundraising, it has a special responsibility to play a leadership role in protecting donors from deceptive practices. And while ActBlue has taken some helpful steps in that direction, we believe it can and must do more.
To that end, a group of experienced digital fundraisers, organizers and campaign professionals developed a list of recommendations and ideas for your consideration. These ideas are intended to be a starting point for a discussion, not a prescription or set of demands. The recommendations can be found in Appendix A below, followed by a few examples of the types of messages we’re referring to in Appendix B.
While the undersigned don’t all agree with every idea and recommendation listed below, we all believe that ActBlue should be doing more to protect donors and foster a healthy fundraising ecosystem that ensures donors and supporters feel respected and safe when choosing to give their money to Democratic candidates and causes.
We look forward to collaborating on these ideas to ensure Democratic donors are better protected. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss what we can do to help you tackle these challenges in 2025 and beyond.
Sincerely,
Adam Bonica, Stanford University
Adam E Hyland, EccaNova
Aidan King, Bread & Roses Digital
Alexander McCoy
Alexandra Acker-Lyons, AL Advising
Alis A Rasmussen
Alix Smullin, Swing Left North Shore/Cape Ann
Amanda McKay
Amber Abrahamson
Andrew Bundy , Movement Voter Project
Andrew Hudson, Climate Hawks Vote
Andrew Wallach
Ann Budner
Arthur Tarley, Bread & Roses Digital
Becky Sampson
Ben Betz
Billy Wimsatt, Movement Voter Project
Bre Danvers-Kidman
Carol King
Carol Murota
Center for Common Ground
Central Valley Matters
Charlene M. Woodcock
Charles Chamberlain, Democracy for America Advocacy Fund
Christian Norton, Concerted Action
Craig Johnson , Change Agent
Craig Morgan, Neighbors for Progressive Action
Dave Karpf, George Washington University
David Slifka, Bluem Ventures
Donald Cowan, Grassroots donor
Doreen Paster
Dorothy Largay
Doug Foote, Footprint Campaigns
Emily Michalakes
Eric Miller
Erika Leaf
Eugenie and Brian Rosenthal
Eve Hershcopf
Farhad Choksy
Haley Bash, Donor Organizer Hub
Harold Moore
HollywoodDemocrats.com
Ian Koski, Quorum Creative
Indivisible Yolo
James Michel
Janet Singer, Crimson Goes Blue
Janice Murota
Jason Garcia
Jason Paul , Paul for DNC
Jeff Blum, All In for NC
Jeff Larson
Jen Stine
Jenn Kauffman
Jennifer Tomkins
Jim Gruman
Jim Pugh, ShareProgress
Jo Miles
Jody Lerner
John Ray
Jordan Hunt, Mandate Media
Jordan Krueger, CampaignHelp
Josh Klemons, Reverbal Communications
Josh Nelson, Civic Shout
Julia Gittleman
Karen O'Rourke, Neighbors For Progressive Action
Karen O'Rourke, NPA
Kari Chisholm
Kathryn Peterson
Ken Burnside
Lakshya Jain
Laura Packard, PowerThru LLC
Laura Weisel
Lauren Miller
Laurie Covens
Laurie Mendik, Markers For Democracy
Laurie Welch
Laurie Woodward Garcia, People Power United
Leslie Sakai
Lewis A. Friedland, Win Wisconsin
Liam Connell
Lisa Kaneff
Lloyd Cotler, Banter Messaging
Lori Anderson
Lynn Chain
Mara Schechter, Summit Campaign Strategies
Marc N. Weiss
Margaret O'Halloran, Neighbors for Progressive Action
Marie Follayttar
Mary Drummer
Mary E. Bierman
Mary Frank
Matt Dragon
Matt Lockshin
Meredith Florian
Michael Bodaken
Michael Phelan, Social Security Works
Michael Phelan, Strategy & Hustle
Michael Ryan
Michael Whitney
Mike Silvia, Frmr: ActBlue
Miranda Yaver
MoveOn
Murshed Zaheed, Pacifica Strategies
Nancy Krempa
Naomi Kritzer
New Blue Interactive
Nick Guthman, Blue Future / Youth Progressive Action Catalyst
Oil Change U.S.
Oliver MacColl , Freelance consultant
Organizing 2.0
Paul Davis
Paul Hogarth
Peter Robbins
Peter Yedidia
Pro-Choice North Carolina
Rachel Dellon
Rachel Hill
Regina Clemente, Movement Voter Project
Renais Winter, Neighbors for Progressive Action
Robert Wheeler
Roberta Baskin, Partners4Democracy
Roberta C Brooks
Rose Scott
Rosemari Ochoa
Sandi Fox, Smart As A Fox LLC
Sandra Endo
Sara Cederberg
Shari Hohf
Shayna Lewis, Win Without War
Stephen Miles
Steve Vogel, Swing Blue Alliance
Susan Ryan
Swing Left
TakeItBack.Org
Ted Lemon
Tina Cincotti, Funding Change
Tom Mendelsohn, Mendelsohn, Gittleman & Associates, LLC
Wayne E Rosing
Will Easton, EthicalEmail.org
Yasmine Taeb, MPower Change Action Fund
Zack Schwartz
Appendix A: Recommendations
Strengthen terms of service and account use policy by adding specificity and closing loopholes
Prohibit post-petition and post-survey redirects to ActBlue pages that include language falsely claiming the individual promised to donate
Prohibit misleading tandem donation appeals that don't specify in the email, text or ad which entities are receiving part of the split or how the split will be allocated
Prohibit phony countdown clocks
Prohibit all administrators from selling or swapping contact information acquired through ActBlue donation forms
Initiate enforcement action against agencies and their leadership for repeated violations, limiting or removing their ability to administer ActBlue accounts
Close the loophole Political Action Committees are using to get around your July 31 guidance by sending emails and texts without their full name that link to a petition redirecting to an ActBlue page
Set a maximum threshold for the percentage of total expenditures entities using ActBlue for donation processing can spend with companies they own or control
Prohibit tactics identified by the American Association of Political Consultants as “examples of bad practices”, including:
Using language like “final notice” to deceive donors that the solicitation is a bill
Using misleading sender information to suggest the solicitation came from a government entity, official or signer that you are not a representative of
Using matching language when the donation is not matched
Invest in new features to protect donors
Offer an optional email forwarding service so that when donors provide an email like alicesmith@gmail.com, it gets sent to the campaign or committee as alicesmith+jonesformayor@donors.actblue.com
Let users opt-out of sharing contact information not required by the FEC with entities they’re donating to
Modify the default tandem fundraising opt-in experience so donors aren’t signing up for 10+ email lists with a single donation
Include a small number of fake donor records in CSV exports to catch folks selling or swapping donor contact info acquired through ActBlue donation forms
Require every organization registering to receive ActBlue contributions to list a public website and prominently link to it on every ActBlue donation page
Require all donation pages to include an opt-in disclaimer
Require any page that solicits donations for a political organization/pac/llc/etc that is not an official Democratic Party committee or apparatus (DNC, DSCC, DCCC, DGA, DLCC, state parties) to have an automatic disclaimer that says: "[Organization Name] is a [type of org] and is not an official organization of the Democratic Party."
Require any page that doesn't directly donate to a candidate to say something along the lines of: "Your donation will not directly benefit any political candidate"
Build an FEC or Open Secrets integration that dynamically pulls in or at least links to data on a committee’s expenditures. Ideally this integration would allow prospective donors to see who runs the organization, the type of organization, date registered with ActBlue, website, total contributions, candidate recipients, expenditures by category, and top vendors/recipients
Provide transparency and a voice to the digital fundraising ecosystem
Regularly survey donors to better understand their experiences with ActBlue
Provide a dedicated email address and cell phone number to make it easy to report violations
Create a mechanism for anonymously reporting potential violations
Regularly produce public reports outlining enforcement actions, including the number and nature of violations acted upon since the last report
Regularly solicit industry stakeholder input on new threats to donors using ActBlue and what ActBlue can do to neutralize those threats
Hire more support staff to ensure that abuse reports are addressed within two business days (when you report something now you get this: “We do our best to prioritize event and refund inquiries; however, due to an unusually high volume of requests, other inquiries will be handled within 10-14 business days.”)
Create an integrity unit inside ActBlue that is responsible for investigating complaints and ensuring that entities with ActBlue accounts are following the Account Use Policy and Terms of Service
Appendix B: Sample Text Messages
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