WASHINGTON–Bernie 2020 set a record grassroots fundraising haul with nearly one million donations in the second fundraising quarter.
Overall the campaign booked $24 million in the second quarter, raising $18 million and transferring $6 million. This quarter’s fundraising reflects a growing and persistent grassroots movement in support of Senator Sanders’ presidential bid driven by working people. The average donation was $18 and nearly 99.9% of donors can give again, showing durable and energetic grassroots support that will continue to back the campaign in the many months leading up to the first caucuses and primaries.
Sanders held exactly zero big dollar fundraisers and rejected money from Wall Street executives and the fossil fuel industry. 99.3% percent of donations were $100 or less. The most frequent donations by occupation and employer came from teachers and Walmart workers. Since the launch of the campaign, there have been nearly 2 million individual donations.
“This is a movement built by working people all across this country,” said campaign manager Faiz Shakir. “While other candidates court big money at fancy fundraisers, this campaign is supported by teachers, retail workers, and nurses who are putting what little money they have behind the one candidate who can bring about the transformative change this country needs. Our strength is in numbers and we have a million person movement committed to this campaign who can give over and over again.”
Other numbers to note:
The campaign received almost 200,000 individual donations since the day of the first debate
The 2016 campaign did not get to 2 million donations until December of 2015 — eight months into the campaign
The most common employer was Walmart. Others in the top 10 include Amazon, Starbucks, Target and the US Postal Service. More than 225,000 donations from people in the first five states during the second quarter.
The fundraising haul comes as Bernie 2020 lends its traditional fundraising channels, like email and peer-to-peer texting, to support issue advocacy causes and local activism. In the last few months, Bernie 2020 has emailed and texted supporters to warn them of ICE raids and inform immigrants of their rights, turn out people to support workers on picket lines at McDonalds, the University of California, Delta and American Airlines, Wabtec, Amazon, General Motors, Disney, and Nissan, and fundraise for local abortion rights groups after the Alabama abortion ban.
“You don’t need Wall Street or fossil fuel money to harness a movement,” Shakir said. “In fact, by rejecting the influence of corporate money we have built a campaign that not only speaks to the working people and their issues but supports them in tangible ways. This is what a Bernie Sanders presidency would look like.”