What Happens When Donors Feel They Have Been Deceived: They Dispute Their Donation
- Zack Arnold
- Apr 10
- 2 min read
Picture this: the election you have been fundraising for is over, and you have practically spent all your money. You may have even incurred debt - a normal strategic practice for campaigns to finance their operations. One day, a few weeks after the election you get an overdraft notice from your bank, and you have no idea why. You check and see that it is from your online fundraising platform. Does this happen?
After Kari Lake’s failed Arizona Senate run, her campaign faced a roughly 1 in 7 chargeback rate, a disturbingly high and likely unprecedented amount. In an interview with The Intercept, a former ActBlue employee stated Lake’s campaign’s chargeback percentages “reek of malpractice”. Similar issues were also seen in Trump’s 2020 campaign. In 2021, The New York Times reported Trump and associated Republican Party committees had to refund over $12 million to donors related to pre-checked recurring contribution boxes: one that had opted in to weekly contributions and a second dubbed ‘a money bomb’ that resulted in a second contribution.
Imagine if your campaign’s donors disputed one in every seven contributions you received!
According to credit reporting agency Equifax, a chargeback “occurs when a debit or credit card issuer reverses a transaction in response to a customer dispute involving: fraudulent charges, billing errors or other legitimate complaints.” Campaigns such as Kari Lake’s and Trump’s have received chargebacks from donors where donors were opted in to recurring donations without their consent.
Ultimately, by being transparent with your donors, and being diligent with your compliance and record keeping, you will put your campaign in the best position to minimize the risk of situations like this. Having an experienced team focused on the intersections of compliance and fundraising such as tailoring asks to be persuasive and transparent, and ongoing compliance monitoring, is key. With so many other vital operations of a campaign competing for resources and attention, handing that responsibility off to trusted professionals is wise.
Looking for an experienced team of fundraising and compliance professionals with a proven track record of success? Let’s talk.
