Act Blue

I mentioned a while back that Act Blue is now set up to support state candidates in Pennsylvania. Thus far very few have taken advantage of this opportunity. Act Blue is a service that allows you to raise money online (only for Democrats, though) without paying the extra fees charged by PayPal, VeriSign, etc. Act Blue only deducts the charges incurred from Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc. that contributors use to make their donations. Candidates get more for their campaigns this way. The only downside is that your campaign receives a check every week with instead of instant deposits wired to your account.

Though it's a little lag time you save several percent. For example say someone contributes $100 to you through your website by clicking on your Act Blue link. They pay this with a Visa. Visa charges Act Blue 2.4% to do the transaction, leaving $97.60. PayPal would then deduct a percentage for themselves, maybe 2-4% and send the rest to your account. Act Blue mails you the entire $97.60.

One of the other nice things about Act Blue is you can use it to raise money for Democratic groups and people like bloggers can set up their own pages to support candidates they like and are encouraging people to support financially. LVDem has such a page up with some very good candidates listed. Please go there and donate funds to some of these people.

I think one of the great things about Act Blue is the way it allows smaller campaigns to accept online donations with their websites. It usually isn't cost effective to set up a merchant account or pay services like PayPal (which has an awful reputation by the way and I suggest never using them). On the other hand it's easy and efficient to set up Act Blue.

Now please visit LVDems's Act Blue page and give generously. These folks need your support.