Online political fundraising processors have made campaigning much easier to do. People running for offices, in the past, had to physically be present to collect most of their donations. The only other way to get money to someone was to send them a check. If you send a check then it would, at least, take a few days to get the money to the person. Time is always an issue, therefore, the speed of the donation was sometimes a problem. You also have to factor in the amount of time it takes to go to the bank to deposit the donation. You can see how this tacks on more and more time to the process of getting and using political donations.
Online Speciality Fundraising Processors
Online payment processors have made the process faster. People do not need to meet physically. Also, no one has to go to the bank in most cases. the money moves electronically from one account to the next. It all happens, usually, by the next business day if there are no hick-ups. Therefore, the process that sometimes took half a week is shortened down, in most cases, to just a few days. How does this work? Most political campaigns set up a website with a donation button. The donators click the button, choose how much they are going to donate, then send the payment across. The system collects the payment and pushes it through to the bank account automatically or when the person or organization requests it. It is super simple to do if you have some experience with computers.
Bigger Well Known Processors vs Speciality Fundraising Processors
Can you use a bigger more well-known payment processor than a specialty one? The answer is yes. However, they tend to charge more and have more hidden fees. A lot of these outfits were originally designed for businesses or organizations that work in “for-profit” sectors. Therefore, they can get away with charging more. Not exactly what you need in your case. Although, it may work in a stop-gap fashion. However, it is not recommended for the reasons listed above.
If you want to run a highly effective political fundraising campaign then you need to make sure that you are using good tools. You want tools that will help you instead of nickle and diming your donations away. Moreover, you need every penny of those donations you can possibly get to make sure that you reach your voters. Therefore, a little bit of research and planning goes a long way before you make any decisions on what platform to use.
