Hey everyone it's Jim Messina. The campaigns first Federal Elections Commission report is
due on Friday. But before we release it we wanted to give you the news first.
This report is about
how much we spent,
how much we raised and who we raised it from.
There is a lot of Washington chatter about this report
mostly focused on how much we raise overall and we'll get the that number,
but this report is really more about what kind of organization we're building,
who is funding that organization and what we're doing with all the money
you've been giving.
So let's get into it.
Organizers have been reaching out to supporters in all 50 states to reconnect
and to get new supporters on board for 2012.
More than 31,000 face to face meetings
and more than 290,000 conversations so far.
Small groups have been developing local organizing plans
at grassroots planning sessions nearly 650 sessions so far
and dozens more online.
As for the rest of the summer our summer organizers program to train first time
community organizers is going across the country in all 50 states.
And this Saturday we'll have a major day of action across the country
to register voters to bring new people into the political process so please
join us.
Here's how your contributions are helping us as we ramp up the campaign.
The most concrete example are field offices. We have already 60 up around the
country with many more on the way.
Here's what our budget's going to look like in the next few months. Your early support means we
can make more investments now, giving our organizers more time to build
relationships on the ground, reach more people and recruit more volunteers.
So how are we going to make all this happen?
Our campaign is based on two organizations. The first is Obama for
America.
The same grassroots political organization founded by the President
in early 2007
whose sole mission is to win the election in 2012 for
Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The Democratic National Committee is the national party. They obviously share our
goals, but they also have a broad goal of electing Democrats up and down the ballot
in partnership with all the state parties
and holding the folks on the Republican side accountable.
We work closely with the DNC to make sure that our goals are aligned. We've formed a joint
fundraising committee with the DNC called the Obama Victory Fund.
It's mostly focused on big events. So if you go to one of these big events around the
country
the proceeds are split between he DNC and the campaign as are the
expenses.
Now let's look at what we all did together in the first quarter. I want to get specific
so lets talk about Obama for America.
The most important thing isn't the dollar total, but the number of people who pitched in
to own a piece of this campaign. So let's talk about that first.
552,462 people
made a donation to this campaign in the first three months.
More grassroots support at this point in the process than any campaign in
political history.
Those people made more than 680,000 donations demonstrating
the strength of their commitment. Congratulations on this monumental
achievement.
We made history on the 2008 campaign with our historic number of
small dollar, everyday people
making donations of whatever they could afford.
If you look at the comparable point four years ago, you'll see that this
movement is even stronger.
And here's the part that I'm personally very proud of. 98% of all donations
that came in were $250 or less
and our average donation is about $69, substantially lower than
what our average donation in the 2008 campaign was.
Now let's step back and take a look at the larger budget picture.
Globally we raised more than $85 million.
More than $47 million for Obama for America and more than $38 million
for the DNC.
Again we did this from the bottom up.
We didn't accept one single dollar from Washington lobbyists or special interest
PACs.
A commitment no other Presidential campaign has made and which the
Republic National Committee refuses to make. We have reason to be
proud of what we've built so far,
but it's going to get tougher from here.
Our report this week will be more than 15,000 pages of information
about who's making donations and how we're spending our money.
GOP outside spending for 2012 could be as much at $500
million.
But these groups don't report anything.
We're not allowed to see any of those numbers.
This is a whole new ballgame
unlike anything we've never faced before. Thank you so much for all you've done.
For your donations. For volunteering. For talking to your friends and family about the work
that the President has done,
but your job,
my job, our job,
our job is to bring more people into is to bring more people into this campaign.
More people working together to make the changes we know we need across this
country.
Thank you very, very much.