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It’s no surprise that the advent of small donor online fundraising has coincided with a veritable explosion of manipulative and even outright false emails aimed directly at donors’ wallets.
And while we wish it was surprising to learn that Democrats and our allies are engaging in these shady practices virtually as much as Republicans do, both Blue Tent’s coverage, and increasingly, more mainstream news outlets, are reporting that Democratic donors also need to be wary. In fact, the vast majority of campaign fundraisers across the board use at least some manipulative fundraising tactics, according to the results of a 2020 study by researchers at Princeton University, and just over 10% of the campaigns and vendors sending fundraising emails use falsehoods or manipulative tactics in over two-thirds of their emails to donors. Princeton collected more than 250,000 emails from more than 3,000 political campaigns and organizations for its study.
Democratic candidates and Democratic organizations may be the “good guys” when it comes to their policy positions, but many of their fundraising vendors, and even staff at some Democratic campaigns, use fundraising tactics that would be right at home in a Republican campaign. According to the working paper accompanying Princeton’s research, “in general, the differences in likelihood of use of manipulation with respect to various sender attributes (party, incumbency, campaign vs. organization, and electoral race) are relatively minor.”
Our mission at Blue Tent is to provide progressive donors with the information you need to make the greatest possible impact through your political giving. This includes advocating for progressive organizations and Democratic campaigns that treat donors as respected equal partners in the movement to save our democracy and push for progressive reforms. With that in mind, here’s a quick primer on the five kinds of manipulative, and even downright false, fundraising emails that are probably in your inbox right now.
1. The fabled “matching gift.” To be fair, matching gifts are a real thing in the nonprofit charitable world; it’s not uncommon for a large donor to offer to match, or in effect double, smaller gifts up to a set amount. That doesn’t happen in the world of political fundraising, because the Federal Elections Commission limits individual giving to any single campaign to a total of $5,400 for an entire election cycle (the primary and the general). And while it’s tempting to enjoy a little schadenfreude over reporting that the Department of Justice is looking into Trump’s so-called “Keep America Great Committee” over its use of this gimmick, an expert source told Blue Tent that Trump actually borrowed it from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
“They [the DCCC] have long had one of the worst email programs in the Democratic Party,” said Josh Nelson, CEO of Civic Shout and co-founder of The Juggernaut Project, two companies that help Democratic campaigns and progressive groups grow their opt-in email lists. Nelson is one of a small group of Democratic campaign and fundraising professionals who have been pushing for change.
2. The fake survey or poll. Do you want to support free and fair elections? Of course you do. Do you want to stop Republicans from winning a majority of the seats in your state legislature? Absolutely. So that means you want to donate money right now to candidate X, right? Well, maybe — but also, maybe not — and wait, isn’t this supposed to be a survey asking for your opinion? Frequently, Nelson said, the fake survey or poll fundraising email doesn’t even include a “No” option for the donation request at the end, “and by then, you’ve answered five questions and you want to get through” the thing.
In their study of manipulative emails sent during the 2020 campaign, the Princeton researchers found that once a user completes one of these surveys, “there is an overwhelming likelihood—16 out of a sample of 20 that we examined—that they will encounter a deceptive user interface that makes it appear as if a donation is necessary for the text or choices entered into the form to actually be submitted.”
3. Fake “from” and subject lines. While wading through our emails to decide which ones to read and which to quickly trash, most of us take a quick look at both the “From” and “Subject” lines to see who sent the email and what the email is about. According to both Nelson and the Princeton study, even these essential pieces of initial information are also manipulated and even falsified by manipulative fundraisers. Scammy fundraisers will include your email address in the From line; this tricks recipients into believing that the email is a reply to an ongoing conversation. As for the subject line, one contact of Nelson’s actually received a Sept. 2020 fundraising email in which the subject line indicated the email was about a potential job interview.
4. Bait and switch. The email implies that a Democratic champion, like Stacey Abrams, is calling on every American to chip in to save voting rights. A photo of that very hero is right at the top of the email. So clearly, if you give right now, you’re giving to support your hero’s work, right? Wrong. Instead, the email is from “some random PAC... that Stacey Abrams has nothing to do with. Her team never saw it. And so it’s partial impersonation, but also just trying to make the donor think that Stacey Abrams wants you to donate to this random PAC she’s never heard of,” Nelson said.
5. Emotional manipulation. These fundraising pitches run the gamut from meaningless fundraising deadlines to implying that good Democrats are giving — and if you’re a good Democrat, you’ll give, too. According to Nelson, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is one of the worst offenders in this category. “For years now, the Pelosi campaign has sent an email roughly once a month that says, verbatim, ‘This is the most important email I’ve ever sent you.’ And they’ll send you that [same message] three weeks later, again, on a different topic,” Nelson said.
What’s a donor to do about misleading emails?
Given the prevalence of shady fundraising tactics on the left, how can a progressive donor fight back? Last December, Blue Tent writer Harry Cheadle provided the two top tips donors can use to at least ensure your money is going to a progressive cause (and not a consultant’s bank account): Don’t give to groups you don’t recognize, and read the ActBlue page for any link you click on carefully before donating.
In our conversation, Nelson also urged donors to reward good behavior. “If there is an organization or a campaign or an entity that sends you accurate, honest, respectful, substantive emails, donors can make an effort to contribute to those organizations instead of the ones that are trying to mislead and scam them.”
Here at Blue Tent, we’ll take that advice one step further. Has a campaign or organization implied that you’re not a good Democrat if you don’t give? Has Nancy Pelosi’s organization sent you yet another “most important email, ever?” Unsubscribe from their list—and if you receive another email from that campaign or organization, report them as a spam sender. Immediately delete any email that talks about a fundraising deadline, or falsely claims your donation would be matched, or claims to need your opinion for a survey or a poll. And, again, unsubscribe.
For our part, Blue Tent plans ongoing coverage of this issue, including naming the worst fundraising vendors, calling out campaigns and organizations that engage in misleading or manipulative tactics (or use vendors that do), and holding up campaigns and organizations that, in addition to being effective, are treating donors with the respect those donors deserve.
Ultimately, Nelson said, if the political fundraising industry doesn’t crack down on misleading and deceptive practices, regulators and elected officials will have to step in. In the meantime, it’s up to progressive donors to do what they can to reward the good actors and punish the bad—not just to protect themselves, but the future of Democratic fundraising as a whole.
“As somebody who works in the industry and who very much wants Democrats to win, I’m afraid if we don’t get this stuff under control we’re going to basically kill email as a viable channel for grassroots fundraising,” Nelson said. “[This would] be a huge disadvantage to Democrats, who are more reliant on grassroots fundraising.”