2014-06-24
Susan Griffiths-Sussems
While we are still not in the same situation as the US, we in Australia are increasingly on the same track. We know that money matters in a campaign – it impacts on everything. The number of candidate posters that can be printed and placed, the number of ads on TV – even down to the number of how-to-vote cards that will be available at a polling booth on the big day.
In the lead up to the 2013 federal election, a fundraising target of $3 million was set to give the Australian Greens the best chance of meeting the bare minimum required to get our voice heard above the noise generated by the other parties. There was never a chance that we would match the budgets of Liberal or Labor — and certainly not that of the Palmer United Party.
Our target was almost double what had been raised in the 2010 campaign — less the $1.6 million donation from Wotif founder Graham Wood. Without this unprecedented gift, it is highly unlikely that our candidates would have had the exposure that they did. As we know, new senators Larissa Waters (Qld), Richard Di Natale (Vic), Penny Wright (SA) and Lee Rhiannon (NSW) joined the team in the Senate and history was made.
While a target of $3 million for 2013 was ambitious, we knew it was not unrealistic. We had a solid strategy in place to seek financial support from members and supporters of the Party for the duration of the campaign. We also sought expert advice from Josh Peck in the US who had previously worked in the highly successful digital communications strategy for the Obama preselection campaign in 2010 and the Howard Dean campaign before that. This enhanced our already existing fundraising platforms and certainly proved to be a sizable bolster to our efforts.
With the support of people across the country responding to a variety of fundraising communications, we exceeded our target of $3 million and in fact pushed past it, raising over $3.5million. This is thanks to YOU — and without your support we could not have undertaken the highly professional work required to run a fully integrated election campaign.
While we suffered a swing against us in the 2013 election, we held our own with Peter Whish Wilson (Tas) securing his place in the Senate in his own right, joining the re-elected Sarah Hanson-Young (SA), the eventually re-elected Scott Ludlam (WA) and the newly elected Janet Rice (Vic). Plus, Adam Bandt retained his seat of Melbourne in the House of Representatives with a record vote of 42.6%.
Fundraising activity for the Greens across the country is generated from three primary sources:
- Activity undertaken for specific electorates and candidates by branches/groups;
- State specific fundraising such as fundraising dinners and phone calls made to donors seeking support;
- Programs coordinated by the National Office in consultation with the States. This helps to ensure that there are multiple fundraising requests sent with varied messages and targets from different signatories.
While there has been some crossover in communication, we are working now to ensure that the process is seamless and multiple messages with different information are not sent out.
Also, comprehensive analysis is being undertaken of our activity and results leading up to 2013. We are identifying what worked well, where we can do better and where there is potential to extend our fundraising platforms.
With the swing against us, we lost significant federal electoral funding. As you may know, if candidates receive at least 4% of the primary vote, political parties and independent candidates receive $2.48* per every primary vote they receive. The funding our party receives for this goes directly to the states, and having suffered a drop in votes this means that state coffers were impacted.
With the analysis of the 2013 results, we know that we now must raise $5 million to cover the electoral funding shortfall, and to increase our reach to the voters of Australia.
To that end, we have already started fundraising for the 2016 federal election. Between now and the end of 2016, there will also be State elections in Victoria (29 November this year), NSW (28 March 2015) and Queensland before June 2015. At the National Office, we are also working with those states to ensure that fundraising activity is optimised and that we are assisting their state election fundraising activity with targeted and strategic fundraising communications to their supporters.
So welcome to Team 2016! We are inviting our supporters to join us now to prepare for the next federal election. We have a target of 2,000 members for the team supporting our efforts to reach the goal of $5 million. So far, just over 200 people have joined the team, and we will be keeping these supporters informed about our campaign and how we are tracking toward our goal. Please join us today.