New case study: How HFT used Red Stampede to Manage a Local DA Race

Neal Harrington | [email protected] | 704.578.1248 | 6701 Fairview Rd., Charlotte, NC 28210 | www.redstampede.com

REDSTAMPEDE REDEFINE POSSIBLE

Fundraising, technology, & how to win a campaign before it

even starts

Andrew Murray is the District Attorney in Mecklenburg County, NC. First elected in 2010, he is up

for re-election in November. Our parent company, Harrington Forward Thinking (HFT), managed

Andrew’s campaign fundraising operation in 2010, and was retained again for the 2014 cycle.

Knowing that North Carolina would have a several high profile races in 2014; and a crowded field of

candidates would all compete for many of the same donors and activists, the campaign tasked HFT

to raise the majority of money needed to win reelection a year early, in 2013.

Like many small campaigns, there were limited resources available making it critical for HFT to

build an operation that was efficient, cost effective, and could be managed with limited manpower.

Knowing the task at hand, HFT implemented its online fundraising and advocacy technology

platform, Red Stampede.

Optimize major donor fundraising through Events

HFT devised a fundraising strategy that centered around 3 anchor events that would be

supplemented with other major donor fundraising programs. Each anchor event would headline a

major public figure in order to help draw people, and more importantly, sponsorships to each.

In order to maximize the campaign’s profit from each event, HFT used Red Stampede’s event tool

to manage each phase of the event including sponsorship recruitment; marketing and promotion;

registration, and any post event related tasks.

Unlike last campaign, HFT could now create unlimited donation tiers or sponsorship packages

within each event created on the campaign’s website. All of the event information synced with the

campaign’s email system, internal and external social networks and internal documents used for

major donor recruitment. As a result, HFT increased its number or sponsorships for each event by

an average of more than 300% compared to 2010, which generated more net profit for every event.

In addition, Red Stampede allowed the campaign to better serve its supporters by auto-populating

form fields with the registered user’s information. This enabled major donors to quickly and easily

fulfill their financial pledges and/or any additional fundraising commitments with a single click.

Each successful donation made to an event was automatically attributed to it and whichever

sponsorship level applicable. Because this information is then synced between all systems and

databases connected to Red Stampede – HFT was able to track and monitor everything in real time,

hours of data entry were eliminated, and the need for spreadsheets that plague nearly every smaller

campaign was over.



Build a base of support through personal fundraising pages, email, and

targeted fundraising campaigns

HFT’s devised a lower dollar fundraising strategy that would entail existing supporters helping

recruit new supporters, the ability to test messaging and other elements of several simultaneous

fundraising campaigns, and a highly targeted and sophisticated email program unlike anything the

campaign had done in the past.

The campaign understood that existing campaign supporters would have greater success recruiting

and building trust between the campaign and a potential new supporter than if the campaign simply

targeted the individual itself. To accomplish this, HFT used Red Stampede’s Personal Fundraising

Pages (PFP’s). Each supporter could create his or her PFP with one click. They were also able to

edit their page title, description, and fundraising goal or use the default values set up by the

campaign.

Once created, users promoted their pages in several unique ways to recruit people to donate. They

shared it to Facebook and Twitter .They used Red Stampede’s email recruitment tool to import their

contacts, address books, and/or upload any excel list and send a personal message to each contact

inviting them to their page. They even embedded their fundraising widget into their personal blog

on the campaign’s website, in which they could then share the blog to any group that they were a

member of on the website. The campaign would help users drive traffic and build support for their

fundraising efforts by promoting the user’s fundraising blog postings to the homepage on the

website and sharing it to the campaign’s Facebook page.

Using Red Stampede’s donation manager, HFT built several unique donation pages which allowed

us to align specific fundraising messages and appeals to targeted donor groups. Each page was tested

and modified in real time when needed. Whether pushing an online contest or competition, a

fundraising deadline, or an event sponsorship, each fundraising campaign had its own donation page

with a specific – tailored message to optimize results.

HFT used Mailchimp as its primary email platform for event marketing, online contests, and

fundraising pushes. The integration allowed HFT to embed event details and donation levels into

email templates that were connected to the campaign’s website. Donors could then sponsor an event

at a particular level directly from their email. As a result, we reached several thousand more people

than in the past allowing us to eliminate the costs of printed invitations altogether. In addition, the

email program connected each fundraising initiative to a unique donation page customized for that

specific campaign.



The outcome

HFT raised $220,000 and built the campaign’s base of support to more than 300 unique donors in

2013. Andrew’s total 2010 campaign cost $250,000, so he was well positioned heading into this

election year. In fact, as the candidate filing deadline approached earlier this year, each potential

opponent ultimately decided against running as they knew it would be difficult to overcome

Andrew’s major financial advantage. HFT congratulates Andrew and is proud to have played a small

role in helping him win reelection.

New case study: How HFT used Red Stampede to Manage a Local DA Race

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