More details of the NDP's third quarter fundraising report show that the growth in their fundraising performance owes as much or more to large donors as to the smaller ones.



While the party did raise a non-election year third quarter party record of $735K -- from a non-election year third quarter party record number of contributors (12,720) in the $200 and under category -- it was the huge jump in the number of large donors over the party's typical Q3 showing (between 256 and 520 in earlier years up to 945 in 2009) that seems to have made the difference. Usually, the NDP only records large numbers of large donors in the fourth quarter or during an election campaign.



The 945 donors contributed a total of $342K, which again is unusually high for the NDP in the third quarter of a non-election year. While the party's biannual convention in Halifax would certainly explain a good chunk of the rise, no comparable bump was observed during their summer 2006 convention in Quebec City two years before.

Most parties struggle to raise money during the summer months, as a quick review of their quarterly performance demonstrates. It is usually the worst quarter of the year for every political party.



Once the contribution details become available, we will be able to see the dates of those contributions, and see the extent to which they correlated with the Halifax convention.

Still party officials are no doubt pleased with the 265% increase in the amount they could collect from large donors outside of an election campaign (from $86K in 2007 to $342K in 2009), during the slowest quarter of the year. It's just that they will have to more than double that performance in the fourth quarter in order to keep pace with their fundraising performance of 2008.

Labels: Party Finance