Fundraisers with Wildrose punching above their weight
For a small opposition party, Wildrose is very good at raising big bucks. Danielle Smith’s crowd proves it again by thumping the PCs in the latest quarterly fundraising reports to Elections Alberta.
Wildrose collected $1,097,677 from April 1 to June 30. The Progressive Conservatives rounded up only $685,232.
That’s a big change from the first quarter, when the PCs outpointed Wildrose by $552,375 to $527,613.
The Wildrose surge in the second quarter was probably toxic fallout from the provincial budget — the scandal over cuts to the disabled, layoffs of palliative care nurses, and much else that made the PCs look uncaring.
Premier Alison Redford’s excellent early response to the flood, which brought all fundraising to a temporary halt on June 20, may help the PCs in the future.
But the Tories have a big, builtin problem on the fundraising front, and they finally know it.
The latest results show Redford’s party collected only $25,248 in donations below $250, which don’t require the reporting of individual names.
Wildrose received $486,472 from people contributing those smaller amounts — 19-times more than the Tories.
Even in the first quarter, when the PCs actually raised more money overall, their small-donor total was much the same: $26,462.
The persistent Wildrose lead in small donations carries more than monetary value. It also fosters the impression that Wildrose is the runaway favourite of regular Albertans who can’t afford to give much.
The PC’s heavy reliance on corporate donations, by contrast, can make it look like a party buried in the watchpockets of big business.
The fact is that for many years — indeed, decades — the PCs didn’t bother to solicit small individual donations.
They wouldn’t scoff at a few bucks, mind you, but they could raise embarrassingly large amounts just by making the rounds of “traditional” corporate contributors. So they never developed systems for going after smaller amounts. Then, Wildrose arrived in 2009. From the start, it solicited smaller donations with targeted phone campaigns.
There wasn’t much choice, since the PCs had the corporations tied up. Many business people were actually afraid to give to Smith’s party.
That slowly began to change as PC popularity waned and Wildrose grew.
And then, before the last election, the whole dynamic flipped over. Wildrose was drawing big company donations, as well as even more smaller ones.
The PCs slipped behind, to the point where they were short of cash in the last days of the 2012 campaign. The emergency $430,000 transfusion from the Katz group arrived in that period.
Now the PCs are determined to catch up.
“We have to do, and we are doing, a better job of communicating with individual members about the importance of giving to the party,” says PC executive director Kelley Charlebois.
“If it’s $20, that’s fine. If it’s more, that’s good too.”
After six months of organizing small-donor campaigns, Charlebois adds: “We’re pleased with the response. It’s been more positive than I expected.”
The results aren’t showing on the books yet. That could come later.
For the PCs, it must. For one of the few times since they took government in 1971, they have a money problem.
While this war goes on, the other legislature parties are fighting a much smaller battle on another planet.
Brian Mason’s NDP raised $126,034 in the second quarter, while Raj Sherman’s Liberals picked up only $52,855.