How to donate effectively

Step 1: Establish a budget

Decide how much money you are willing to invest per paycheck, per month, or per year. Translate that to a monthly budget.

If you want to contribute to state and local candidates you must do so separately. The DNC directly contributes between 2%-5% of its budget to state parties, and state parties directly contribute about 1% of their budgets to local committees. Otherwise, the DNC and state parties spend all of their money on infrastructure and staffing.

If you want an easy option, click on to our one-step solution.

You can also learn more about Donation scams and spam.

Step 2: Define your goals

Decide what percentage of your budget you want to give to:

  • Federal candidates
  • State candidates
  • Local candidates (including county)

Example Budget: Equal Amounts

If you want a simple budget:

  • Federal: 33%
  • State: 34%
  • Local: 33%

Example Budget: Focus on Local and State Candidates

If you want to allocate more money to state and local candidates because you are concerned about the 2030 redistricting leading to gerrymandering, or the impact on your property taxes:

  • Federal: 25%
  • State: 25%
  • County: 25%
  • Town: 25%

Example Budget: Focus on Federal Candidates

If you are primarily concerned about federal issues (keeping in mind that federal candidates tend to be much better funded than state and local):

  • Federal: 30%
  • State: 30%
  • County: 20%
  • Town: 20%

Step 3: Set up monthly donations

Allocate your monthly budget.

Example Budget: Equal Amounts, $30 monthly budget

If you want to invest $30 per month ($360 per year), you could contribute as follows:

  • DNC: $7.50 per month
  • NHDP: $7.50 per month
  • Belknap County Committee: $7.50 per month
  • Town Committee: $7.50 per month

The One-Step Solution

We have set up pre-built donation lists for Belknap County residents to make it easier to use a simple strategy. Just click on your town below!

  • Alton
  • Barnstead
  • Belmont
  • Center Harbor
  • Gilford
  • Gilmanton
  • Laconia
  • Meredith
  • New Hampton
  • Sanbornton
  • Tilton

Optional Step 4: Advanced Giving

Strengthening candidates and officeholders

When you contribute to the DNC directly, you may be missing an opportunity!

Those officeholders who raise the most money have more influence over the direction of the party, its platform, and are more likely to get leadership positions in the House or Senate Caucuses. They also often gain more influence over their state party. Large donors and “bundlers” lower the direct costs of fundraising. Their ability to raise money also demonstrates popular support for their positions and policies.

If there are Federal or State House and Senate candidates that you want to boost, you could allocate your $30 monthly donations as follows:

  • House Candidate A: $4.50 per month
  • Senate Candidate B: $4.50 per month
  • NHDP: $9 per month
  • Belknap County Committee: $6 per month
  • Town Committee: $6 per month

Why is this? Simply: It costs a lot of money to build the infrastructure for an increasingly 24/7/365 campaign environment, and especially to develop and retain good staffers. People who work for state parties, federal officeholders, and even the DNC usually make far less money than they could in the private sector, e.g. lobbying for Big Oil, but they still have to eat, pay rent, and have a family. The Democratic Party relies more on small-dollar donors than the GOP. Many small donors (vs. a few billionaires) means higher overhead costs per dollar raised for data management, accounting, regulatory compliance, and advertising.

Improving the information environment

Local news is expensive and low-profit, and as a result the quality of unbiased coverage tends to be low. This leads to an increasingly uninformed electorate being victimized by the trillion-dollar-per-year right-wing propaganda machine.

Consider charitable or non-charitable giving to organizations that provide high-quality and accessible news coverage without a paywall:

Boosting Preferential Voting

If you want to help break the cycle of voting for “lesser of evils” candidates every 2-6 years, it is critical to support preferential voting. The most common approach seen in the US is ranked-choice voting, although there are other systems that are potentially simpler and more effective.

Look for organizations that are working to advance preferential voting in your state, or in “battleground” or “swing” states (NC, GA, PA, MI, AZ, NV, WI, NE).

Some are set up as non-partisan 501(c)(4) nonprofits, and some are organized as political committees or PACs due to specific state laws and their lobbying strategy.