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Political campaigns move to targeted fundraising through Facebook, other social networks
GLEN JOHNSON
AP Political Writer
June 13, 2010, 12:39 p.m
BOSTON — Candidates in some top political races are raising big sums of money using software that taps donors' social networks, an endeavor that lets the donors track their friends' donations with the zeal a fantasy baseball team owner uses to monitor player statistics.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker in Massachusetts and two GOP Senate candidates, Marco Rubio in Florida and Rob Portman in Ohio, are among those using a software-based fundraising tool called BlueSwarm to successfully tap their social networks for campaign cash. The Democratic Governors Association also plans to use it.
The software democratizes the fundraising process by letting average citizens not just donate, but raise money themselves from their Outlook contacts or their Facebook friends.
The traditional political fundraising model relies on experienced bundlers to hustle money from a small set of well-connected donors.
In contrast, BlueSwarm and similar software lets users work their friends and families and, in turn, have them solicit their own network to build a donor tree with deep roots. The same technique applies to institutional fundraising used by colleges or social causes such as charity campaigns...
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