Marketing Election '08: Q&A With Matt DeBergalis, ActBlue

FC: What have the options been up until you guys came along?

DeBergalis: It was and kind of still is the Stone Age. Political contributions are still largely done by individuals writing checks to campaigns. There are people who literally collect a pile of checks from their social circles. The means by which galas and fundraisers are handled are so archaic that it only really works when the numbers are big enough. It's fine if you want to handle $5,000 contributions that way, but you're not going to do that with 5,000 people each giving $10 or $20.

Door-to-door fundraising vehicles don't really make that much money. The other big tool however has been direct mail -- it works particularly well for the Republicans, they've always had a large advantage in direct fundraising by mail. ActBlue is a nice counter-example: our model, where everyone can use their own language and own pitch for why they're supporting a candidate, actually works better for the democratic party than for a republican party.

The advantage of the Internet over direct mail is that people have some kind of indication of how much is being raised -- everybody recognizes this is a lot more effective than blindly sending an email that asks for money and does not show you how many people in other towns are getting the same mail at the same time and responding.

FC: Why do you think the Democrats are doing better online than the Republicans?

DeBergalis: Thirty years ago Republicans began to invest heavily in lasting institutional assets. Large donors, the Coors foundation and others began to develop think tanks, media outlets, news institutions, and a direct mail strategy that's grown to become a monster at raising money. All of these things were deliberate choices, while the Democrats didn't do this. So I think to some degree the Republicans haven't needed to innovate as quite as badly as we've had to innovate because they were in power and they had all of this.