Talk:ActBlue

Part of an edit requested by an editor with a conflict of interest has been implemented.

Hello, I work at ActBlue and would like to suggest some factual updates for this Wikipedia article. The organization has grown a lot in the past few years, so a fair number of the figures and other information in this article is out-of-date. I do not intend to actually edit any part of this article as I have a clear COI -- instead, I have provided suggestions below with up-to-date information about ActBlue for other editors to consider in accordance with all Wikipedia guidelines.

• Change "ActBlue is a payment technology system established in June 2004 that enables anyone to raise money on the Internet" to "ActBlue is a nonprofit technology organization established in June 2004 that enables Democrats, progressive groups, and nonprofits to raise money on the Internet by providing them with free online fundraising software. Its mission is to empower small-dollar donors."^[1]

1. I believe this clarifies who we are (a nonprofit) versus what we do (build technology). Additionally, "enables anyone to raise" could be misinterpreted to include Republican campaigns or other groups that cannot use our tools. This is why I have listed the groups that can use our platform.

• I would also suggest using updated figures in these two sentences so ActBlue's scale is accurately represented:

1. Current content: "ActBlue has grown quickly to become a major grassroots fundraising tool, with over 445 federal candidates and committees using the service during the 2014 election cycle.[2] As of April 2016, ActBlue had raised more than $1.1 billion for Democratic candidates and progressive organizations at various levels of politics, making it the largest fundraising tool in United States politics."
2. Updated content: "ActBlue has grown quickly to become a major grassroots fundraising tool, with nearly 8,000 groups using the platform in 2017.^[2] As of March 2018, ActBlue had raised more than $2.1 billion for Democratic candidates and progressive organizations at various levels of politics, making it the largest fundraising tool in United States politics."^[3]

• This sentence no longer accurately reflects who can use ActBlue: "The organization is open to all registered Democratic campaigns, candidates and 501(c)(4) organizations."

1. This is accurate: "The organization is open to Democratic campaigns, candidates, committees, and progressive 501(c)4 organizations. 501(c)3 organizations can also use ActBlue’s tools through its branch for nonprofits, AB Charities."

• This explanation is not very easy to understand: "ActBlue is a not-for-profit organization. ActBlue officially incurs costs of 3.95% of the gross contribution, and those fees are passed on to campaigns."

1. I would suggest changing it to something like this: "Groups that use ActBlue only pay a 3.95% credit card processing fee. As a nonprofit, ActBlue runs its own, separate fundraising program and accepts tips on contributions to pay for its expenses."^[4] , ^[5] , ^[6]

• In the past few years ActBlue has hit some major milestones and has been part of some historic moments in American politics. I would suggest adding these points to the History section:

1. "In February 2016, ActBlue launched AB Charities, an arm of the organization that makes ActBlue’s fundraising tools available to nonprofits."^[7]
2. "On March 7, 2016, ActBlue officially hit $1 billion raised for groups on the left over the lifetime of the platform.^[8] On January 4, 2018, it crossed the $2 billion mark."^[9]
3. "Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign used ActBlue and broke several fundraising records. Sanders received more contributions in a presidential primary than any previous candidate^[10] and outraised Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary."^[11]

• Lastly, the final two sentences of this entry are inaccurate and not supported by credible sources: "ActBlue is also known for accessing credit card- and PayPal- accounts of former donors without the donors' knowledge and setting up recurrent withdrawals without the account holders authorization. There are currently 42 unresolved reported fraud cases on ActBlue. Source: ScamGuard"

1. ActBlue has a robust customer service program that is well-documented. We attempt to respond to every complaint or issue; for public examples of this, please see the Tweets and Replies section of the @ActBlue Twitter feed.^[12]
2. As part of our customer service, we have contacted ScamGuard regarding the posts about ActBlue but the site is not an honest representation of consumer experiences -- they want businesses to pay to resolve the reviews on the site. Others have noted that the site is dishonest and not credible. ^[13]
3. Typically, for someone to be "known for" something in the public forum, that "thing" must be widespread and persistent. ActBlue processed over 16 million contributions in 2017^[14]. Even if the false "42 unresolved reported fraud cases on ActBlue" were accurate or true, they represent close to zero percent of ActBlue's business.

Thank you in advance for considering these suggestions, and please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions! BostonianMaggie (talk) 18:42, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. BostonianMaggie (talk · contribs) This user has declared a connection.

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The first sentence is inaccurate. See the Globe article referenced in the footnote.

Presently reads: "ActBlue is a nonprofit technology organization established in June 2004 that enables right-leaning nonprofits, Democrats, and Conservative groups to raise money on the Internet by providing them with online fundraising software."

Change to "ActBlue is a nonprofit technology organization established in June 2004 that enables left-leaning nonprofits, Democrats, and Liberal groups to raise money on the Internet by providing them with online fundraising software." Rev Lovejoy (talk) 01:56, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. You’ve spotted some vandalism that occurred earlier in the day. I have reverted it. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 02:32, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

The FEC shows that virtually all of the employees of the Dominion Voting Systems company, the one involved in the accusations of fraud in the 2020 Presidential election, went to ActBlue. That seems a relevant part of the organization and how they are involved in elections, and receive corporate money. The FEC information is below, and I think it would be a good addition -- but my experience has told me that Wiki has a bias toward liberal politics, verging on outright left wing, so I thought I'd post the idea here first.

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_employer=dominion+voting — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sychonic (talk • contribs) 22:57, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on WP:Reliable sources, and it is important that these sources be secondary and independent. Your suggestion constitutes WP:Original research based on primary-source documents and inferences. If any strong reliable sources have made this connection in the mainstream media, then it can certainly be added to the article. Jlevi (talk) 23:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Can not claim a tax write off for a 501c4 and is classified as a progressive donation website from individuals while internet articles claim Walmart and walt Disney has more rights for donations of money. The individual voter has more voting rights than Walt Disney and Walmart but walt Disney and Walmart decide to fund these elections. If corporations are citizens why can't they vote also if they live down the block and pay two dollars an hour, just go away please.

Facts about donation https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money/ https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/corporations-and-fixing-campaign-finance

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2023 and 14 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kenia Cameron (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Emraeah.

— Assignment last updated by Emraeah (talk) 19:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I reverted the James O'Keefe allegations. He produced one of his video attacks this past spring, targeting ActBlue.

The sources in the most recent addition are a) the right-wing activist group John Locke Foundation (which publishes under the title "Carolina Journal") and b) a press release from Senator Rubio. Hardly reliable sourcing.

The allegations have not been covered or investigated by any reliable sources, as far as I could tell with a few minutes of web-searching and searching a few news wire archives. O'Keefe famously manufactures hooey, see Project Veritas. It isn't responsible to put the allegations in a wikipedia article without any reliable backup.

It is possible that there is something notable in the allegation. It may be that O'Keefe and his imitators (he has encouraged people around the country to do the same thing he did) have uncovered a genuine problem in the campaign finance aggregator system. Which may or may not be specific to ActBlue. It is also quite possible there is nothing to it.

But repeating an allegation against ActBlue based on no reliable sourcing and coming from known-unreliable sources does not belong here. It is malpractice. So I encourage the IP editor to find reliable sources. And maybe the other editors watching this page can do likewise. -- M.boli (talk) 15:23, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

M.Boli you are the one who is attempting to hide at least Three sources uncovering OBVIOUS FRAUD by ActBlue.

- James O'Keefe (as you mention)

- Senator Marco Rubio (as another editor tried to add, but you prevented)

- The Carolina Journal (as another editor tried to add, but you prevented)

Quit with your corrupt fraud coverup-- Looks like you're part of the corruption & fraud problem. 173.224.9.144 (talk) 13:30, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Removed again. Still no reliable sourcing. No news reportage. It seems quite possible that O'Keefe and others find anomalies looking through the FEC donor database. It would be good if there were a reliable, knowledgeable source checking it out. We have only the bald assertions of O'Keefe and his followers that the supposed anomalies are proof of "money laundering" or the other allegations of nefarious activities. Are similar anomalies observable from WinRed data, or other parts of the campaign donation ecosystem? Not a clue that anybody has even looked.

If campaign finance experts or news reporters study this, we might get some reliable sourcing describing the anomalies and what they might mean. If the IP editor(s) who keep re-inserting this stuff into Wikipedia put some work into it, they might find some reliable publications which address the question. Put the finds here. I'm willing to help with editing and writing. But merely re-inserting the same-old doesn't cut it. -- M.boli (talk) 15:52, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

@M.boli

Why does user M.Boli consider themselves the decider of what is or is not a "reliable source"? User M.Boli is clearly biased against any source that they do not personally approve. I belive User M.Boli is in violation of the 3 edit rule

User M.Boli seems to have a political animus of any criticism towards ActBlue, which is under investigation by multiple journalists and the Federal Election Committee. User M.Boli seems to be hovering over the ActBlue page-- I suspect User M.Boli is probably associated with ActBlue and are attempting to hide criticism of the organization.

Regarding M.Boli's politically motivated edits, please see edit "15:26, 27 October 2023‎" By M.Boli on page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ActBlue&action=history

The edit in question which I have tried to add is the following:

70.113.228.130 (talk) 15:52, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Add that ActBlue is being investigated by congress for lenient donor and for funneling fraudulent donations to such campaigns as the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-administration-committee-probes-democrat-fundraiser-actblue-reports-illicit-cash-flows 2603:8080:3EF0:68F0:504E:15AA:529B:2030 (talk) 03:00, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure that congressional investigations mean all that much. We probably want to wait for actual evidence of fraud before creating a section about it Superb Owl (talk) 01:06, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I removed the Take Back Action Fund section I was initially OK with as it seems to have been debunked.

"In 2019, the conservative Take Back Action Fund released a report alleging that 48.4% of contributions raised through ActBlue listed no employer information, compared to 4% of contributions on WinRed."

According to the Institute for Free Speech the difference was likely simply that WinRed has a 'retired' option and ActBlue doesn't. JSwift49 19:45, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

This section was not well-sourced (few if any were WP:Perennial sources), were made by Republican politicians (so not particularly notable in this instance) and without evidence of wrongdoing by courts or reputable journalistic outlets or academic papers. I did not turn up any search results of articles mentioning this controversy in almost 8 pages of search results. Seems pretty NPOV and WP:UNDUE Superb Owl (talk) 02:03, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Here I’ll help you

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2024/10/10/actblue-lobbies-up-amid-gop-probes-00183322

https://www.newsweek.com/actblue-democrat-pac-money-laundering-virginia-attorney-general-1933976

https://www.fastcompany.com/91178268/actblue-is-a-democratic-fundraising-juggernaut-and-now-conservatives-are-coming-for-it Helpingtoclarify (talk) 04:09, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Superb Owlyou never responded. Two reliable sources. What is the issue. I don’t have the context of your search that produced 8 pages but Google is notorious for showing you what it wants you to see. Please respond. Helpingtoclarify (talk) 00:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

There seems to be a right-wing meme going around -- twice it has been added to this article -- that Democrats are benefiting from charitable contributions pursuant to the Los Angeles fires. This is bull-crap. The donations are going through ActBlue Charity, a 501(c)(3) organization that serves as a fundraising platform for other 501(c)(3) charities. ActBlue takes a small percentage for this service. It is a little more pricey than PayPal, for example, but not wildly out of line. The charities in question are things like United Way of Los Angeles area. This is all perfectly normative.

The articles complaining about Democratic politicians promoting these charitable donations imply that ActBlue is profiting. It isn't. As a separate non-profit corporate entity, ActBlue Charity can't funnel any excess profits into politics.

The different between ActBlue the political action committee and ActBlue Charity the non-profit was not well-explained in this article. I added a bit to explain it. Probably more and better references could and should be found.

But for the time being I'm suggesting we simply revert these edits as they occur, and refer the editors to this talk page.

And, of course, others may disagree. So I'm opening up this talk page discussion. -- M.boli (talk) 21:48, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

"ActBlue takes a small percentage for this service. It is a little more pricey than PayPal, for example, but not wildly out of line." What exactly do you think a profit is? 2601:201:8C01:E2F0:ED5B:F6C9:5DAF:CBBC (talk) 07:29, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

ActBlue and WinRed are conduits in federal campaign finance law. One result is that all donors -- no matter how small -- are reported to the FEC in the itemized reports of campaign contributions. The names are then made publicly available.

People who donate up through $200.00 directly to a candidate committee (without using these conduit fund-raising platforms) are not required to be itemized and named in campaign finance reports.

I think this information is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. But it isn't well-documented. I inserted a paragraph to this effect, but it was deleted because the sourcing wasn't good enough.

I'll re-insert the information again, with more sourcing. I haven't found many that clearly and succinctly lay out the discrepancy in a few sentences. But here are some:

• Primo, David M. (2019-08-18). "Personal Data About Small-Donor Democrats Is All Over the Internet". New York Times. Quote: Under federal law, candidates must publicly disclose the personal information of only those donors who give them more than $200 in an election cycle. And: ActBlue is what is known as a "conduit" for campaign funds. The name and address of contributors who donate to candidates through conduits must be disclosed, according to federal law, regardless of amount. A problem with this article is it was written before WinRed, so it mentions only Democrats and ActBlue.
• Lee, Michelle Ye Hee (2019-09-10). "Trump's critics are targeting his donors, sparking fears of a backlash against disclosure". Washtington Post. Campaigns and other committees are required to turn over to the Federal Election Commission the name, address, job title, employer and donation amount of anyone giving at least $200. The information is then published on the commission’s website. And: ActBlue, a payment platform being used by all the Democratic presidential campaigns, is organized under a unique political committee structure that is required to release information of all donors using the service — including those who give far less than $200. This reference includes WinRed: Republicans have launched their own online payment platform, WinRed, to capi­tal­ize on Trump’s loyal small-donor base. WinRed donors’ information also will be made public.

My original citation was a press release from Institute for Free Speech describing a lawsuit asking the FEC to address this anomaly. I picked that source because it had the clearest short description, but also included a {{bsn}}.

In the campaign finance laws (written long before online fund-raising platforms) Congress protected the identities of small donors. A main purpose of the law was to be transparent about people potentially buying influence (larger donations), while protecting the average small contributor.

People have been using this new-found ability to identify small donors in various ways. Aggregating small contributors by zip code, they provide information on grass-roots support for candidates or parties. Using the data in detailed form, they can be used to target individual people for embarrassment or retaliation.

But for purposes of this article I think it is sufficient to describe campaign finance reporting discrepancy.

@Doug Weller:: you reported my edits when you reverted them. Is there some problem beyond your edit summary about sourcing? I don't know where your report was posted, so I can't see it.

I'll wait a bit for responses here, in case anybody objects, and then put another writeup back with better sourcing. -- M.boli (talk) 17:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Um, no, I didn’t report anything. See the history. . Doug Weller talk 18:12, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I apologize! That was a weird thing to accuse you of.

My own edit summary said "(reported)" at the end, referring to campaign finance report. I had a brain glitch and read that as something akin to a reverted tag. -- M.boli (talk) 18:40, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

No problem at all. Doug Weller talk 18:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)