I’m a student at the University of Florida in Gainesville, but I’ve been very involved in the Marion County Democratic Party (the county directly south of Alachua County and Gainesville.) The Marion County DEC (Democratic Executive Committee, the county party unit of the Democratic Party in much of the south) is like the vast majority of local Democratic parties throughout the nation: disorganized, inefficient, unresponsive, and increasingly struggling for political relevance. It seemed there was no way out, so many were just talking and not doing. Meeting after useless meeting talked about unnecessary subject after unnecessary subject. Problems were discussed, yet no plan of action taken. Leadership seemed distant and sometimes nonexistent.
I began to volunteer for the party during the summer of 2005, between my senior year of high school and my freshmen year of college. I had previously worked with the party on a very minor basis, but this time I volunteered half of my day almost every weekday that summer. At that point, I found out that one (of many) main problem was fundraising. The most the party had ever raised in a year is roughly $18,000 (it costs around $1,000 a month to keep operations running, with headquarters rent as well as utilities and Internet bills.) The local Republican Party raised a maximum of $34,000 in a year.
So I began to think. Can we bridge this gap? Probably. Would it really matter though in terms of enhancing our capabilities in winning elections and making Marion County more progressive? Only very little. How could the party raise the kind of resources it needed to be a truly effective and useful political institution? What would a good local political party spend its resources on?
Clearly, the old party tactic of raising money through fundraising dinners was becoming less and less effective in terms of raising needed funds. Fundraising dinners, though important for PR, news placement, and promoting candidates and the local party message and policies, cost too much money and brought in only a few thousand dollars ($3,000-$8,000 a dinner in Marion County.)
Before the 2004 election, the idea of what is technically referred to as an “automatic recurring donor program”(an example is today's Democracy Bonds, though I would say we came up with this idea before Democracy Bonds ever hit the web; great minds think alike) was banded about. In an automatic recurring donor program, Democratic supporters agree to give a certain amount of money to the party every month. Yet unlike a pledge, the money is automatically deducted from the supporter’s bank account. The party thus has a constant flow of cash coming in month after month. But, like so many ideas that had been proposed to fix the party’s numerous problems, it was soon dropped to discuss more ideas, and continue to do relatively nothing.
After the debacle of 2004, when Marion County saw all of its Democrats at every level lose with the exception of the incumbent Sheriff. The County Commission, School Board, all its legislative delegation with the exception of 1 district, its congressional delegation with the exception of 1 district, and all countywide offices with the two exceptions of the Supervisor of Elections and Sheriff, remained in Republican hands. John Kerry only managed to receive 41% of the vote to George Bush’s 59%.
So, during my last month (August 2005) of volunteering for the party before I went off to college, I unearthed the idea of an automatic recurring donor program. I joined up with the relatively new Fundraising Committee chair, Eugenie Martin, who had just saved the party from financial ruin (we were down to a few hundred dollars in early summer) by holding a very successful fundraiser ($6,000 was raised) which included 4 gubernatorial candidates (the big draw, which got us front page in the Sunday paper) as well as a few congressional candidates.
As I left for college, I left the idea with the Fundraising Committee. The Fundraising Committee, however, was very focused a second fundraiser in November, which would cement the gains made in the July fundraiser, and give the party some fiscal wiggle room. This was OK in my opinion, by giving the party some fiscal wiggle room, the committee could focus more time and energy into the startup of the automatic recurring donor program.
I returned to Marion County for Winter Break in mid December and worked directly with Eugenie Martin with new information from the bank in how to start up the program from Jeremy Sheppard, a committee member. A brochure was created for our new program, “The Winner’s Circle.” Due to a few delays by the party’s useless Steering Committee, the program was finally passed and got off the ground early this month, with a first mailing going out to Democratic supporters around the county. I personally did the follow up calls this week (its Spring Break.) We originally estimated a 5% success rate of only getting under 10 folks onto the plan in the initial mailout of 100. Of the 60 folks I talked to, I managed to get 11 folks to agree to sign up (nearly a 20% success rate.) Other efforts in very small direct outreach to the central committee and a few clubs yielded roughly another 14 in both online and physical sign ups. The original goal, set in January (before the stalls by the party establishment) was to have 50 by the end of the March (the first quarter.) We’re already halfway there within two weeks of working. We probably won’t reach that goal, but we now know what it takes to get folks signed up in significant numbers. With time and effort, The Winner’s Circle has the ability for real success.
The possibilities for The Winner’s Circle are endless. We have nearly 76,000 registered Democrats countywide. We have over 300 (nearly 400) listed club members throughout the county, and roughly 70-80 members of the Executive Committee (precinct captains.) There are thousands of Democrats who have voted in 3/3 primaries (making them active Democrats.) By just getting a tiny fraction of registered Democrats in the county on this program is enough to make a sea change in local politics here.
Having 1% of all registered Democrats on this program (760 people) giving the minimum monthly donation of $10 (and folks will give more than that) will yield a regular monthly income for the party of $7,600. This will mean a yearly income of $91,200, that’s roughly $52,000 more a year than the maximum the local Republicans have ever raised (roughly $34,000.)
These resources can provide the local party with the ability to do things it was normally believed to be completely unable to do: buy TV airtime and produce ads, hire staff, get adequate office space and facilities, and organize in every corner of their county.
Its time to rebuild our local parties. I hope that our little effort in Marion County, Florida will provide some idea on how these struggling institutions can reach the promised land, at least in terms of fundraising.