We're pleased that our processing fee -- flat 3.95% -- continues to be the lowest in the market making Slatecard the most cost-effective solution for Republican campaigns and causes.

For your review, here's a cost-comparison chart which can be downloaded here as a PDF: 

Slatecard has just made two big announcements (more information below):

1. Slatecard's credit card processing fees have been reduced to 3.95%. 
2. Beginning August 15, all donations will be transferred via direct deposit to candidates and organizations.

To utilize the new direct deposit feature, candidates and organizations should immediately download, complete, and return this application.

1. Processing Fee Reduced to 3.95%

As you know, our goal at Slatecard has always been to provide the most cost-effective online processing solution for Republican candidates and causes. To that end, we are pleased to announce that effective today, we have reduced our flat, online credit card processing fee to 3.95%.

As always, using Slatecard to exclusively process your online donations means:

• The lowest processing fee in the industry (in some cases by as much as 6-8%).
• No Set-up, monthly, or per transaction fees.
• Accept Visa/MasterCard/Discover/American Express.
• Accept monthly recurring donations.
• Safe, secure and reliable.
• Free tools to help empower your community to fundraise on your behalf.
  

2. Direct Deposit Available: Sign-Up Today

Beginning August 15, all donations to a campaign or cause will be transferred electronically to their respective checking account on a weekly basis. Download, complete and return this form to sign-up.

By eliminating paper checks, we’re reducing processing and mailing costs, ensuring 100% reliability of transferred funds (no lost checks), reducing our impact on the environment, and increasing our ability to ensure that organizations have their money as quickly as possible.

In order to make this a viable, long-term service for all candidates and causes, the organization will be charged a fee of $0.50 per electronic funds transfer. If the organization receives regular donations, it should expect to pay $2.00 total each month (four electronic funds transfers).

After August 15, we will no longer be issuing paper checks.

All Slatecard users are responsible for downloading their donor information for any relevant reporting requirements via the Slatecard TakeControl Portal. If you do not have access to this portal, please email us (team AT slatecard.com) immediately.

At the RightOnline Summit in Austin, Texas -- Slatecard co-founder Sendhil Panchadsaram announced that on August 1 we were reducing our credit card processing fees from 4.5% to 3.95%. That's the same fee as ActBlue -- a similar utility used by Democratic grassroots supporters.

From the beginning, we've been committed to providing the most honest, transparent, and cost-effective online processing system for Republican candidates and the Right kind of causes. Looking at the other guys' fees, we've clearly been doing just that.

But we had hoped that as we increased our volume, we'd be able to negotiate lower fees, and we are pleased that we've been able to do just that.

To be sure, there are likely other credit card processing solutions that appear lower, but when you start reading the fine print, you find out that there's always a per transaction fee, typically a monthly fee to use the system, a merchant account fee, and many other costs which are "hidden" from the casual observer. For example, even in our system every time someone enters a credit card for processing we're charged $0.35 and a percentage -- ranging from around 2% - 3.85% depending on the type of card being used, e.g., check card, credit card, visa, mc, amex, discover, etc.

Further, rather than having a confusing, shifting variable rate, we believe our community of activists and candidates has a right to know exactly how much of their donation will end up going to its intended destination. And by bundling multiple contributions using a Slatecard - we're only charged one transaction fee which helps save us money and has helped us reduce these fees. (Trust me, as volume increases it adds up.)

The bottom line is that there's no such thing as a "free" credit card processing system but we're just about as close as you can get.

We're proud to be the most cost-effective processing solution for Republican candidates and the Right kind of causes. Our hope is that the community will recognize our good will and chip-in a few bucks every now and then to help us keep the system up and running and even provide some capital to help pay our bills and expand the platform. It's up to the community to help us stay viable and we're willing to work hard to make our supporters proud to have supported us.

Revolution.

The Politico's MIKE ALLEN and JIM VANDEHEI piece, "Six ways the GOP can save itself," is an essential read and should serve as a roadmap for pulling the GOP out of this tailspin.

Their third nugget is worth posting in this space:

3. Beg for help: The Republican infrastructure is crumbling. Making matters worse, Democrats are erecting a pretty impressive network of donors, think tanks and activist groups that is exploiting the GOP’s structural weakness. The GOP “needs to realize what the opposition is and how formidable it is,” said former GOP leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). “The Democratic Party is organized chaos, but it is so much better than what we are doing.” It will take no less than three to five years to fix, smart Republicans estimate.

For now, Republicans need their rich backers to crack open their wallets. Democrats such as George Soros are so much more willing than rich Republicans to fund get-out-the-vote operations and clever negative campaigns. The GOP needs to somehow cajole its big donors to fork over millions of dollars to counter Democrats and then achieve a competitive edge.

It needs to be smart while spending it, too. Influential Republicans feel the party must fortify intellectual think tanks, establish new activist groups and get a clue about using the Internet to rally its forces. The GOP also needs to fund programs to train young Republican candidates and activists.

“There is an entire infrastructure that needs to be thought through, and it seems to me no one is interested in building that,” said former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.).

Without a doubt, Slatecard.com is the tool that should be immediately embraced the Republican Party.

The reasons are simple:

• We provide the lowest credit card processing fees available (and we'll likely get them lower in the future). Keeping more money in the pockets of the campaign is commonsense. No set-up fees. No monthly fees. Smarter technology.
• Honesty and Transparency remain essential ingredients to our effort.
• 47 candidates have already embraced Slatecard. Most of these candidates are challengers with a few incumbents. It's a heckuva good start.
  
• After a mere six months, we've earned our spot at the table by producing results for Republicans. Results should be welcomed by the establishment.
• Our Donor Analytics will prove extremely valuable to candidates who care about better targeting a message to their supporters.
• We're backing McCain - with $25 donations at a time - we are helping tap the Long Tail that could help change the fundraising game for our next President.
• Our platform remains insanely reliable and our commitment to customer service is something that we care deeply about and take seriously.
• And we're not resting on our laurels. We're in the process of building the next version of Slatecard which I guarantee will be the most powerful tool ever made available in politics. We could build and deploy faster with more resources.
  

We've built the platform for a community of Republican activists that could easily be embraced by every Republican candidate running for Congress or the Senate. Ditch your costly credit card processing system and engage Slatecard.com. A wider embrace now would add to our growth and the collective success of the Republican Party and help ensure the longevity of the Republican Party.

Sadly, the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" remains relevant.

A week or so ago, Ronald Hansen of the Arizona Republic and USA Today included Slatecard.com in his round-up of companies on the Right and Left which candidates use to process their online donations. I was quoted in the piece:

Processing fees already may be viewed as an unavoidable expense as basic to campaigning as phone bills and plane tickets.

"Your average online donor is an impulse buyer," said David All, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant who last year founded Slatecard.com, which he hopes to be a Republican answer to ActBlue. So far, the site's donors have raised more than $5,000 for GOP presidential candidates.

In charging a 4.5% flat fee, All said he loses money on small donors, which is hopefully offset by the bigger ones. In any event, he sees the site as filling a critical void for the GOP.

"With online donors, the sooner you can seal the deal, the better," he said. "You're risking not sealing the deal if you can't donate online." 

While I appreciate the mention, I think Ronald missed some important points about Slatecard that I added to the comments of the post. Here's what I wrote:

Thanks for including Slatecard.com in your round-up. This a very important discussion to have.

Transparency, openness and honesty are just a few of the guiding principles we cling to at Slatecard.

In fact, that's why one of our first blog posts back on October 11, 2007 (we launched October 8) dealt with this issue specifically, titled "Transparency in Processing."

We're proud to be one of the most cost-effective online processing solutions for Republicans and while we're doing this as a volunteer effort, we believe it's necessary to helping give the Right the tools it needs to better leverage the power of the Internet.

One point I'd like to include is that while we may have only raised a little over $5k for Presidential candidates, we've raised well over $325k for other Federal Republican candidates and committees. In fact, we're proud that over 41 candidates have already signed up to use Slatecard to exclusively process their donations.

We're just getting started but we're making tremendous progress given the fact that we've only been up for six months.

Thanks again.

David All
Executive Director
Slatecard.com PAC

The bottom-line is that a processing fee for online donations will always be a part of the process. However, we're proud of our lowest-on-the-market rate of 4.5% regardless of what credit card a donor uses and the fact that we don't charge a per transaction fee or a set-up/monthly fee to candidates.

To keep this operation running - we instead rely on generous donations from you - the Slatecard community. And, as you know, we appreciate it.

Campaign Managers and Candidates:  Imagine logging in to a web-based dashboard every morning to see which issues have been driving donations to your campaigns. You could use that information for smarter, more effective online and offline donor prospecting.
 
Slatecard Community:  Imagine being provided opportunities to support the candidates who best represent the issues that you support -- similar to how Amazon.com is able to recommend books that you might like based on previous history and similar users. Regardless of geography, you would find the candidates that are your kind of candidates who stand up for the issues that matter most to you.
 
These visions are about to become reality through Slatecard's Donor Analytics™

 

 

The following is a memorandum previewing the revolutionary innovation and value of Slatecard Donor Analytics^TM. And remember, Slatecard is the most cost-effective solution on the market for Federal candidates, committees and Causes. Republican candidates, committees and conservative Causes interested in getting started with Slatecard.com, the most cost-effective solution for processing online donations, should email Team@Slatecard.com.

Download and Take It With You: SlatecardDOTcom_Memo-DonorAnalyticsReport-01292008.pdf (505.96 kb)

Memorandum
To: Interested Parties
From: David All, Executive Director, Slatecard.com PAC
Date: January 29, 2008
Re: Previewing Donor Analytics™

Since its launch on October 8, 2007, the Slatecard.com community raised $151,318.52 through January 23, 2008 for Republican candidates, committees and conservative Causes from 1,845 grassroots activists throughout the nation. The average donation has been $82.01.

While seemingly similar websites have merely served as an “online shopping cart” for political candidates, Slatecard has always been much more. Slatecard is a utility to support and enhance Republican activism. Upon its launch, Wired.com labeled Slatecard a “Facebook for Republican campaign donors.”

One of the most important innovations leading to Slatecard’s early success has been the deployment of “Issue Badges.”

When someone makes a donation through Slatecard.com, the donor is asked to assign an “Issue Badge” after the donation has been authorized which represents the issue that drove the donation to that candidate. By doing so, the donor is helping qualify candidates based on the issues they represent. The innovation of Issue Badges is an intellectual property asset of Slatecard.

We currently have 30 issue badges loaded in the system:

 

DISCLAIMER: It is our hope that the following analysis merely provide a glimpse of what the Slatecard.com utility could provide to Republicans and conservative Causes. We recognize that the sample size of which this analysis is based is likely not statistically accurate.

What are Donor Analytics™?
Along with FEC-required contact information, through our Take Control Portal, candidates, committees and Causes can access the issues that are driving donations to them from grassroots activists. Eventually, these reports will be automated through Slatecard Donor Analytics™.

If used effectively, this free tool can help build a smarter, more effective donor prospecting strategy.

By analyzing data collected from the Slatecard.com community, we can identify the issues that are driving donations to Republican candidates, committees, and conservative Causes. It should be noted that not every donor assigns an issue badge to a candidate. The following analysis is based on 477 assigned Issue Badges for a total of $54,187.17 collected from October 8, 2007 – January 23, 2008.

As donor volume increases and donors better embrace the Issue Badges process, we expect the statistical sampling of these reports to improve in quality. Further, some issues, such as immigration in the broad sense, have several issue badges (Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Secure Our Borders, and No Amnesty) which could affect the outcome of this report.

Also, we plan to randomize the placement of issue badges in the very near future so that the default issue badge is not “Conservation of Resources.”

The Issues Driving Donations
One of the more interesting observations is the average donation size for individual issue badges assigned to recipients. One might label this average a “value” for a donation. 

When reviewing the chart below, the methodology should be noted (Issue Badge Total / Frequency = Avg. Donation).

 

 

Top Issue Badges By Frequency

1.    Cut The Pork: 54
2.    Pro-Life: 48
3.    Protect & Defend America: 46
4.    Jobs & Economy: 36
5.    Conservation Of Resources: 33

 

 

 

Top Issue Badges By Total Dollars

1.    Protect & Defend America: $9,435.99
2.    Cut The Pork: $6,593.00
3.    Available and Affordable Health Care: $4,825.00
4.    Jobs & Economy: $4,337.00
5.    Defeat Radical Islam: $3,525.00

 

We're pleased to announce the launch of the Slatecard Causes program.

UPDATE (May 27, 8:23 PM EST): I've updated the comparison chart after receiving clarification from another vendor. I also went back and reviewed all of the vendors' website to make sure we were still current.

UPDATE (May 18, 4:56 PM EST): I've updated the comparison chart below after receiving clarification from one of the vendors on a point we had misunderstood regarding the creation of a secure donation page. I've also update the first sentence to reflect our new total number of candidates using Slatecard exclusively. 

UPDATE (Feb 11, 11:23 AM EST): We have updated our cost-comparison graphic to include another vendor along with the downloadable document below. We have also added more candidates to our tally of candidates using Slatecard exclusively.

Since our October 8 launch, we've been honored to serve as the online clearinghouse for 47 campaigns (as of May 18, 2008).

We owe much of early success to former Congressional candidate Kevin O'Neill for being the first candidate to use Slatecard exclusively to transact his online donations. When asked how Slatecard helped his campaign get ahead on the campaign trail, Kevin said:

"The reliable and innovative features of Slatecard provide my campaign an edge when it comes to getting my message out to grassroots activists and online donors. In particular, the issue badges selected by my donors have proved to be a valuable resource, helping my campaign understand what issues matter most to my supporters. Further, the real-time tally of online contributions has helped build momentum for my campaign."

Today, we're reaching out to ALL Republican candidates seeking Federal office and letting them know that they too can use Slatecard as their hub for all online donations.

We've done our research to figure out what some of the vendors charge campaigns to process donations and we have found that Slatecard is the most cost-effective solution for Republican campaigns. Here's a chart (click to download as a PDF file to better read the fine print) which compares Slatecard's fee structure/services to campaigns compared with those of some of the others in this space:   

 

   

To get started, email us at Team AT Slatecard.com and we'll get back to you quickly.

Thank you for your consideration and welcome to the Slatecard Revolution. 

VendorComparison_FINAL_05272008.pdf (207.73 kb)

Slatecard is pleased to announce that we now accept American Express (AMEX) for all online contributions.

Even Wes would be happy to hear that: