CASE STUDY:
Historic Fundraising for Ohio's Abortion Ballot Initiative
We’ve all heard the horror stories: “Digital fundraising just isn’t what it used to be.” “The environment is bad for grassroots donations.” “It’s really hard to raise money online these days.” And with ActBlue reporting that digital fundraising is down across Democratic campaigns, it’s hard to dispute that narrative.
But there are bright spots — and abortion ballot initiatives are more radiant than ever.
Liftoff is immensely proud to have run a first-of-its-kind grassroots fundraising program for Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights (OURR), the coalition behind the ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the Buckeye State’s constitution. Historically, ballot initiatives have not been strong online fundraisers. This can change, and we’re sharing some key takeaways and lessons to ensure others can benefit from this success
First, here’s the bottom line: In just six months, OURR raised $1.5 million online from over 26,000 donations — despite significant obstacles in their way. Future ballot initiatives, especially those on abortion rights, can benefit from the lessons we’ve learned. Continued investment in digital fundraising programs will allow for digital to be a substantial and growing piece of ballot initiative fundraising.
We can’t stress enough that ballot initiatives, more than other kinds of campaigns, require teamwork and partnership. The coalition in Ohio — led by ACLU of Ohio, Abortion Fund of Ohio, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, New Voices for Reproductive Justice, Ohio Women’s Alliance, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, Preterm-Cleveland, Pro-Choice Ohio, and URGE — were true believers in grassroots fundraising and delivered the necessary resources for the program to succeed.
Ballot initiatives are unique, and digital programs need to be built to match. Nearly all ballot initiatives feature two phases: a petitioning phase to get on the ballot, in which funds are dedicated toward signature collection; and a campaign phase, in which the campaign must persuade and turn out voters.
The petitioning phase is expensive, and this creates an inevitable tension between investing in future fundraising efforts — which over the course of the campaign will generate significant ROI — and the obvious need to get on the ballot. While Liftoff began supporting this ballot initiative in February, online fundraising efforts, significant email and cell acquisition, did not begin in earnest until six months before Election Day.
Digital fundraisers need to understand this natural tension, and embrace the challenge of short runways and scarce early resources. At the same time, ballot petitions need to find sources of early funding for digital fundraising that do not compete with petition-gathering. OURR’s program shows that early investment would generate significant returns.
Now, here’s Ohio by the numbers:
Digital still works. In January 2023, OURR faced a disengaged electorate in an odd-numbered year, without the immediacy of the Dobbs decision to drive donations. However, digital fundraising succeeded, and Ohio saw 20% more donations in support of this ballot initiative than similar abortion ballot initiatives in states like Kansas.
Early investment is crucial. While the initiative raised significant funds, even more fundraising was clearly possible. The modest initial investments made in email and cell acquisition at the start of the campaign were quick to return, breaking even at just two weeks. For context, many campaigns are currently content with 3-6 month break-even windows.
It doesn’t take a massive list. OURR’s email program consistently saw donation rates up to 5x higher than candidate campaigns. With an active list size of just ~30,000 subscribers, strong engagement and repeat donors were the drivers of this program. Knowing that donors were passionate about this cause, we relentlessly optimized landing pages and reached an average 41% conversion rate on donations.
Texting is a standout performer. OURR benefited significantly from a robust peer-to-peer fundraising program. This allowed instant success in rapid response moments, and it offered a real-time tool for message testing. Even with investment in cell data only possible starting in the summer, texts accounted for 23% of funds raised in the final three weeks of the campaign.
Moments matter, and ballot initiatives need to create their own moments. Every campaign needs major moments that resonate with donors, but ballot initiatives have to try harder than candidate campaigns to get them. While digital programs are often unfortunately still siloed on many campaigns, modern ballot initiative campaigns are poised to leverage synchronized, multi-platform pushes to create and capitalize on fundraising moments.
The connection between communications and digital fundraising is non-negotiable. Ballot initiatives can’t fly under the radar like usual if you want to raise significant online funds. By working in lockstep with the coalition, we ensured that every media appearance amplified our message and supported our fundraising goals. We even created a set of easy-to-remember shortcut URLs for coalition members to drop on national TV, and trained spokespeople to use them (It’s a lot easier to say “AbortionBallotOhio.org” than “ohioansunitedforreproducitverights.win”).
We sought out media appearances that would maximize eyeballs and donations. Appearances on shows like Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, Symone Sanders, as well as influential platforms like Pod Save America and John Oliver, were designed to elevate the initiative's visibility. Over the course of the campaign, OURR leaders participated in 23 MSNBC interviews and countless national print interviews.
Message discipline built into every media appearance. No one from the coalition engaged with the press without thorough preparation. We ensured that every spokesperson was an authentic, on-message spokesperson for the initiative — turning every interview and appearance into an opportunity to advance our cause.
What works for candidates doesn’t necessarily work for ballot initiatives. Fundraising moments that capitalize on local and national events, timely legal decisions, or opposition moves can make a significant impact. While digital programs often are unfortunately still siloed on campaigns, ballot initiatives are especially well-positioned to integrate messaging across channels for maximum effect.
Elevating the organization raised the most money. Most candidate campaigns will tell you that their best performing emails are signed by the candidate themselves. With ballot initiatives, there isn’t a person on a ballot – and we found that using the institution as an email signer significantly outperformed team members and most surrogates and elected officials.
Donors like to know where their dollar is going. Appeals that emphasize yard signs, sponsoring volunteer work, ad buys – with imagery of said ads – or other compelling campaign visuals were among the top performing of the campaign.
In-state donors are incredibly passionate. In the early days of this program, we tested appeals to both national and in-state prospects. The in-state prospects were 5 times more likely to activate than out-of-state prospects. And while OURR was fortunate to earn donations from all 50 states, fully 87% of email openers were from the Buckeye State — and Ohioans donated 3 times more dollars than out-of-state donors.
Let the opposition write your content for you. Most of our top-performing content focused on exposing what the anti-abortion movement was doing. We supplied reporters with clear examples of falsehoods in opposition messaging, and these news stories fired up OURR’s donors.
Conclusion
The success of OURR's digital fundraising campaign shows the power of early investment, strategic communications, and grassroots mobilization. As the advocates for change look to future campaigns, it's clear that the strategies we've developed are not just for a single campaign, but can be a blueprint for how ballot initiatives can harness the power of digital fundraising to drive significant change.