Plus Three Works with Hispanic Veterans Leadership Alliance
Posted on 07/24/2020 @ 02:49 PM
When the Hispanic Veterans Leadership Alliance (HVLA) approached us to build them a better website—to help them amplify their voices and create real change in America—we knew it was a worthy endeavor. The HVLA, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization consisting of leaders both military and civilian, is committed to changing the egregious discrepancy between the color of the faces in the military and the color of the faces of their superiors. They needed a website that could clearly communicate the problem: that there is lack of Hispanic representation among the senior ranks of the Department of Defense.
The new HVLA website needed a beautiful and intuitive design that would foreground the statistical narrative of Hispanic representation in the military. The argument is in the numbers: only 1% of all General and Admiral ranks are Hispanic; only 3.3% of Senior Executive Service Civilians are Hispanic; and only 8% of all military officers are Hispanic. This is especially unacceptable given that Hispanics constitute 18% of the U.S. population, and 7% of all current military members.
In addition to painting a picture with numbers, HVLA needed a way to engage potential members and advocates. They had devised a campaign strategy consisting of four parts: congressional outreach, national Latino organization engagement, media engagement, and Department of Defense engagement. As we know, the appearance of an organization’s website is crucial in establishing credibility. For HVLA’s campaign to take off, they needed a website that was professional, easy to navigate, and interactive. We made sure they had a design reflective of the gravity of their mission.
Plus Three’s approach to website building is a listen-first, act-second approach. We sat down (virtually) with Colonel Edward Cabrera of the U.S. Air Force (Retired), one of HVLA’s seven distinguished leaders, to discuss a path forward for the website. Colonel Cabrera told us what he envisioned for HVLA. We took notes, and then we went to work. Before long, we presented Colonel Cabrera with a composite image—a mockup—of our proposed website design. He gave us feedback and the process was repeated until HVLA was satisfied with our design.
Our work with HVLA is far from done. Once Plus Three has built a website for a client, we are available for all ongoing needs and requests. We’re not just a pretty face: our reliable online platform can host virtual town halls and rallies, engage millions of potential clients through marketing, and raise millions of dollars in funds—or more. We can help nonprofits strategize, too. We were thrilled for the opportunity to work with HVLA and are emboldened by their mission: to have our military leaders mirror the many faces of America.
How We Did It: Unity Rally Against Racism
Posted on 07/21/2020 @ 10:22 AM
Plus Three teamed up with the NAACP, the League of United American Citizens (LULAC), and the Urban League of Houston to host the Virtual Unity Rally Against Racism on Thursday July 2, 2020, the anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The virtual rally brought together people from across our nation to revisit this profound and ever-relevant piece of legislation, and to learn from our leaders how we can strengthen the Civil Rights Act, updating it for the unique challenges that face us today. By the end of the night, over 50,000 viewers had tuned in.
Featuring 22 speakers, including honorary chairs LULAC National President Domingo Garcia, NFL Hall of Fame Inductee Emmitt J. Smith, and Texas State Senator the Honorary Royce West, the Virtual Unity Rally Against Racism was an extraordinary gathering of some of the brightest and most passionate minds currently working for justice. These distinguished guests engaged eligible and registered voters while reminding them that actionable steps are required to make real progress. And the impact statements and soaring testimonies delivered by our religious leaders filled us with hope for a fairer tomorrow.
Our nation is crying out for change, turning desperately to our leadership for help and guidance. The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and countless others have brought into stark contrast the need for immediate reform throughout all strata of society. We hope that rallies like this provide foundations for tangible change.
At this pivotal juncture in American history, when we are all confined to our homes, it is critical that we have access to reliable virtual platforms to discuss and streamline our efforts in the fight against racism. Plus Three was honored to produce this virtual event and thrilled at its success. We are proud that our platform can be used to make the world a better and more accepting place.
African American Donors and African American Communities Invest More Than $40 Million Dollars in Democratic Presidential Candidates in 2019
Posted on 03/13/2020 @ 05:00 AM
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at a campaign event in Columbia, S.C. Credit: Travis Dove for The New York Times
Bernie Sanders has raised $10.5 million from the African American community. Closest rivals were Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg with $6.8 million and $6.0 million respectively. Vice President Joe Biden raised $3.6 million.
Plus Three in partnership with The Collective PAC analyzed the ActBlue Data file to identify African American donors using the Frequently Occurring Surnames in the 2010 Census report and based on U.S. Census Track data for African American propensity based on geography. We analyzed 13,017,593 contributions totaling $316,061,191 to Democratic Presidential Candidates in calendar year 2019 to find out what campaigns African Americans are investing in this cycle.
Our analysis of the 2019 end-year report from ActBlue found that African Americans contributed an estimated $40,848,906.22, from 1,941,271 contributions, averaging $21.03 per donation through December 31, 2019.
Plus Three analysis shows that African Americans continue to solidify their place among the ranks of core Democratic party activists. African Americans have always been the backbone of the Democratic Party given their record of high voter turnout in Presidential elections and now for the first time we can report their record level of political contributions.
The African American share of all Democratic giving is comparable to the share of Latino giving to like candidates. Combined African American and Latino donors have donated over $68 million dollars to Democratic presidential candidates this cycle. Together, African American and Latino donors make up a critical source of funding to campaigns across the country from the race for U.S. President all the way down to state and local races.
Of the 23 Democratic candidates who entered the race Bernie Sanders has built the largest base of African American donors. Sanders has raised $10,588,778.92 of his total fundraising from African Americans or about 25% of the overall total. This is very impressive both by total amount raised and percentage raised.
This analysis is of small dollar online contributions, through the ActBlue platform, but does not include any contributions made by check directly to a campaign. High dollar contributions up to $2,800 by African Americans, paid by check, are not factored into our analysis.
Overall African American Fundraising
Bernie Sanders is by far the leader in fundraising from the African American community. Sanders has taken in 25% of the overall African American fundraising across all campaigns. Given the nature of his grassroots support and small dollar recurring contributions, which drive the Bernie Sanders campaign, his January and February 2020 fundraising will likely extend his lead in the field – at least temporarily.
Total Amount of African American Giving by Democratic Presidential Candidate for 2019
African American Fundraising by Percentage
Total amount of dollars raised from the African American community is not the only measure we investigated. We studied the strength of each campaign at attracting African Americans and engaging them as donors and found that the top campaigns faired evenly. In fact, African American giving is in line with the 12.3% percent of the U.S. Black population. What is notable are the candidates that underperformed the average including Beto O’Rourke and Amy Klobuchar.
For Warren, Sanders, Castro, Harris, Booker, Biden, and Buttigieg about 1.5 of 10 donors to these campaigns are African American.
Percentage of Total African American Fundraising by Democratic Presidential Candidate for 2019
African American Giving by Month
The Democratic primary is a long one and fundraising for each campaign begins once they announce their campaigns. In some cases, candidates even begin to fundraise through an exploratory committee before they officially announce their campaigns. Elizabeth Warren kicked-off her fundraising in January 1, 2019, one month before Bernie Sanders made his announcement.
Total Monthly Amount of African American Giving by Democratic Presidential Candidate for 2019
While no longer in the race for President, Sen. Harris raised $2.99 million dollars and Sen. Booker each raised $1.24 million dollars from the Black community. The total amount raised by Sen. Harris ranks her 5th in overall fundraising from the Black community. Had Harris remained in the race she would certainly be in the top of the field in fundraising in this category.
Total Monthly Amount of African American Giving by Democratic Presidential Candidate for 2019
African American Surname Match
There are 162,255 total surnames which occur 100 times or more in Census 2010. In the Census 2010 data file, there is a distribution of self-reported race and ethnicity responses associated with each surname captured on the Census 2010 form. The possible choices are White (pctwhite), Black (pctblack), Asian or Pacific Islander (pctapi), American Indian or Alaskan Native (pctaian), two or more races (pct2race) and Hispanic (pcthispanic). Using the pctblack variable, we categorized surnames by African American prevalence.
From examining the count and proportion per 100,000 (Prop100k) name variables, these surnames which occur 100 times or more represents 294.9 million persons comprising 95.5% of the population. The majority Black surnames represent 35.39 million persons comprising 12% of the population.
The Top African American Surnames with the largest share in the Black subgroup shows the 10 names with the highest shares of identification with the Non-Hispanic Black or African American race group. For example, 87.5 percent of people with the name WASHINGTON identified themselves as Black. There is little overlap, highlighting the degree to which surnames vary among racial and ethnic groups in the United States.
Most individual surnames do not reflect the diversity of the population as a whole. In many cases, over 90 percent of people reporting a name identify with just one of the six Hispanic origin or race groups. In contrast, few surnames are equally common in multiple Hispanic origin or race groups (Frequently Occurring Surnames in the 2010 Census). The Non-Hispanic Black or African American Alone data shows something similar: almost all of the top 10 names show race patterns very different from the U.S. population as a whole.
Top African American Surnames with the largest share in Black subgroup:
Non-Hispanic Black or African American Alone
The range of distribution of African American surnames runs the full gamut from 0% to 100%. Being able to distinguish between two individuals with the same surname but different race posed the biggest challenge in our analysis. With the abolition of slavery, many black people had the opportunity to start their life anew and choose their own surname. Many Black people held on to the names given by their slave owners for many reasons – one being the hope to reunite with other family members who could only be able to identify them by these familiar markers. These are the names that so many black Americans still hold today.
Top 5 Surnames: Rank and count with race subgroups assigned:
In the case of Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, and Jones the top 5 surnames in the U.S. Census report, each of which has a large percentage of African Americans who also carry the same surname as their Non-Hispanic White counterparts, there are a total of 3,068,924 people. In order to ensure we could properly identify the majority of Black donors we used both a surname and geographic model based on African American propensity by zip code to narrow our list of donors and provide the most accurate reporting possible.
In the following table we have 50 of the top zip codes in the United States with the highest percentage Black population. As part of our analysis we use the geographic data to fine tune our model using boundaries for propensity by race in each zip code across the country.
U.S. Census 2010: African American Population Propensity by Zip Code
African American Population Propensity by Zip Code, Highest Percentage Communities
African American Giving by Geography
The African American population was highly concentrated in 2010: 62 percent of 1,941 counties in the United States had less than 5 percent of the population identified as Black. In 106 counties, Black or African American (alone or in combination) population comprised 50 percent or more of the total county population. All of the counties were located in the South except for the city of St. Louis, MO.
While African American population were not as concentrated in counties in midwestern states, in some metro areas, such as Chicago, IL, and Detroit, MI the proportion of African Americans was much higher than the national average of 13%. Also, in some metro areas in the West, such as San Francisco, CA and Sacramento, CA the proportion of African Americans was above the national average.
2010 U.S. Census: African American Population Distribution
U.S. Census, African American Population Distribution by Percentage
2019 African American Political Fundraising Distribution
The geographic base of African American giving follows very close to the population distribution according to the 2010 U.S. Census. From Southeast Texas, to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, Black giving follows the same geographic population distribution.
No matter which candidate African Americans contributed to the geographic distribution was prevalent. This distribution is also what allowed us to separate individuals with the last name Smith that are 23.11% African American and Johnson that are that are 34.63% African American respectively.
Total Amount of African American Giving to Democratic Presidential Candidate for 2019 by Zip Code
A New Road Ahead of African American Giving
The common misconception has been that African Americans don’t give. In fact, two-thirds of African-American households donated to organizations and causes, totaling $11 billion each year as reported in the Culture of Giving by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In other words, blacks are one of the largest group of givers in the country. Financial contributions from the black community have been well-noted and consistent for generations, with “tithing” being an intricate part of black giving and the values of community and mutually embedded in African traditional values.
The Democratic Party and candidates running for elected office are now required to understand not just how to align with voters at the polls on election day but also how to connect and engage with African American and Latino donors to help fund their campaigns. We have seen the success of certain candidates to diversify their fundraising through low dollar contributions online and where candidates have failed to do so we see weakness in their ability to stay competitive.
Democratic party leaders, campaigns, and candidates need to diversify the leadership within their campaigns by:
- Hiring experienced and skilled political operatives and fundraisers that understand the African American and Latino communities
- Invest in African American and Latino engagement, including community outreach, voter registration, GOTV, and paid media via social and traditional media
- Invest in minority owned businesses that can help provide much needed guidance and perspective necessary to develop programs, media, and technology when doing community outreach and engagement in minority communities
We have had the technology and the know how to do this research since 2000. It’s time to dedicate more resources and research to tapping into the potential of African American and Latino giving. If political campaigns are so adept at voter outreach in the African American community, GOTV, and persuasion campaigns targeting black and Latino communities then it is possible to also fully account for fundraising by race and ethnicity and how these resources are being reinvested back into minority communities.
This year, the Trump campaign is opening 15 community centers in major cities across the country as it ramps up its outreach to black voters. These community centers will be staffed by volunteers passing out literature describing how Trump’s policies have benefited African Americans.
Investing in African American engagement in non-traditional outreach in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will be critical this election cycle. If the democratic party is relying on strong turnout of African American and Latino voters it must be ready to reinvest the contributions from African Americans and Latinos back into the communities from where they originate.
Research Team
Juan Proaño
Co-Founder of Plus Three
Juan Proaño is an entrepreneur, technologist, and business leader who is active in civic affairs and progressive politics. Proaño is the co-founder and CEO of Plus Three, a Florida based Technology company serving non-profit, advocacy, membership, and political organizations. Founded in 2002, Plus Three has raised more than $500 million online and delivered over 1 billion emails for its’ non-profit clients. Juan is also the managing partner of Latino Strategies, a marketing and consulting company focused on engaging the U.S. Latino market which he founded in 2017.
Under the leadership of NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon, Juan managed the Hurricane Katrina emergency response campaign (2005). The NAACP raised over $2.6 Million in hurricane relief funds from NAACP members and 5,000 first time donors to the organization – more money than had ever been raised by the organization online in just 17 days. Juan also managed the NAACP rapid response campaign seeking clemency for Stanley Tookie Williams which garnered 120,000 petition signatures that were delivered personally to Governor Schwarzenegger by NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon and California State Conference President Alice Huffman.
In his two decades of entrepreneurship, Proaño has founded and managed three companies in the technology sector which have operated throughout the United States and South America.
Quentin James
The Collective Founder & Executive Director
A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Quentin James is the Co-Founder & COO of Vestige Strategies, LLC. Most recently Quentin led a team of Vestige Strategies’ consultants in securing victory for Dr. Keith Rowley as Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago in 2015. Previously, Quentin was the Black Americans Director for the Ready for Hillary PAC. In that role, Quentin directed the PAC’s outreach to the black community across the United States, and helped recruit over 50,000 African American grassroots donors and over 3 million grassroots supporters.
Formerly the National Director for the Sierra Club’s Sierra Student Coalition, the nation’s largest youth environmental organization, Quentin directed the organization to train, empower, and organize youth to run effective campaigns that resulted in tangible environmental victories and developed leaders for the environmental movement. From 2009-2013, Quentin served as a National Board Member for the NAACP, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Quentin is the founder of Inclusv, a diversity hiring initiative and was named one of the 2017 NBC Blk28 under 28 and named one of the 2018 Root 100 Most Influential African Americans.
Pi-Isis S. Ankhra
P.S. 314, Founder and President
Pi-Isis S. Ankhra, founder and president of P.S. 314, Inc., with over 20 years of experience developing strategic initiatives targeted at leveraging private and public investments. She has secured over $150 million for a diverse range of community-based and major institutions, specifically within the fields of arts, education, social justice, and advocacy. Ankhra has partnered with a multitude of institutions including the Ford Foundation, Democratic National Committee, and the NAACP, among others, on planning, fundraising, and event production to highlight and promote core social justice issues. An award-winning documentary producer, her expert skill set includes media development, working on both short- and long-form content projects. In 1998, Vice President Al Gore’s Presidential Campaign engaged her to raise awareness and funds on a national scale. Immediately following the campaign, Ankhra was hired by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In 2001, Ankhra was selected as a member of the inaugural class of the District of Columbia Teaching Fellows Program. In 2005, Community Counseling Service (CCS) selected Ankhra as an Executive Director for its multimillion-dollar national capital and endowment campaigns and to launch and chair their Diversity Initiative, which would impact the organization at all levels.
Ankhra holds the M.A.T. (Master of Arts in Teaching) in Education from American University and a B.A. in International Business from the University of Maryland at College Park. She currently serves as Mentor-In-Residence of the Social Impact Cohort at New INC/New Museum and Faculty at New School University and the Soho House Impact - Open House Program.
Faisal Sikder
Data Research and Management
Is currently working as Staff Software Engineer and R&D supervisor at VIAVI Solutions. Faisal’s current research is on machine learning and AI algorithm development for resource constraint platforms. Sikder received his Doctorate in Computer Science from University of Miami. His research interests include big data & machine learning, wearable sensors and their applications, the Internet of things (IoTs), and distributed computing in the IoTs.
Growing influence of Latino donors is on the rise in the United States.
By Juan Proaño on 10/31/2019 @ 09:06 AM
Latino community on track to donate over $100 Million dollars to Democratic Presidential Candidates through 2020 elections.
Having worked at the intersection of technology, politics, and fundraising since 2002, I have always been fascinated by what data can reveal about human nature and our giving tendencies. My first assignment for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2002 was to build the first national voter file with 250 million registered and eligible voters in the United States with 40 years of voting history. This database and all of the online systems it supported went on to raise over $65 million dollars online and for the first time in modern history helped the DNC outraise the Republican National Committee. Since that time, I have worked on three (3) Presidential campaigns and many more federal and state level campaigns for Democratic and progressive candidates.
Given the importance of the 2020 Presidential election and the focus on Latinos, and issues important to our community, we analyzed 4,712,247 contributions totaling $131,273,383 to Democratic Presidential Candidates to find out who Latinos are investing in this campaign cycle.
Executive Summary
Matching the all-contributions list of the ActBlue Data File against the “surnames occurring 100 times or more” list from U.S. Census 2010, we matched all of the individual contributions with the surname list to determine how much Latinos are investing in the Democratic Presidential campaigns.
Using a probability-weighted or expected-value method based on the prevalence of Hispanics for each surname, the best estimate from this surname contributor list is that 713,678 contributions (transactions, not donors) garnered $13.54 million from Latinos from January 1, 2019 through June 30, 2019 to the presidential campaigns. This data shows that Latinos contributed 10.31% of the total contributor dollar amount in the Census 2010 surname list.
Using ‘best guess estimate’ of the Latino contribution rate for (1) surnames with suppressed Hispanic prevalence values inside the surname list, and (2) surnames outside (not matched against) the list could add an additional $1.35 million to the estimate above for every 1% that can be attributed to Latinos.
Estimating Latino Contributions to the 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates
ActBlue provides a semi-annual report of its itemized contributions to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This data is central to keeping transparency in the electoral process to ensure that no ‘dark money’ is influencing any candidate or subverting the U.S. election process. Presidential campaigns that use ActBlue for fundraising have their donations earmarked for their respective campaigns and can easily be distinguished for reporting purposes.
The FEC filing system is a place where anyone can see who is contributing to a campaign and at what levels. Additional data is available on all federal candidates, campaign committees, political action committees (PAC’s) and Super PAC’s.
This election cycle, the Democratic National Committee is using individual donations as a key factor in determining which candidates can advance in the Democratic debates. In order to reach the fifth debate in November, candidates must reach the threshold of 165,000 unique donors, and 600 unique donors in at least 20 states by October 25, 2019.
To date, only nine (9) candidates have qualified by meeting both the fundraising and polling threshold including: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, and Tom Steyer. Three (3) candidates who have met the fundraising threshold but have yet to meet the polling threshold are waiting to see if they may qualify including Tusli Gabbard, and Julian Castro. Beto O’Rourke met the fundraising threshold but dropped out on Friday, November 1st and is no longer seeking the Democratic party nomination.
At Plus Three, we use this public data to provide insight and shine light on how Latinos are engaging in political campaigns and specifically which campaigns they are donating to. The perception has long been that Latinos are not donors to political campaigns and are not heavily invested in the outcomes of elections when measured by giving tendencies or voter turnout.
In this report, we put this theory to the test.
Methodology
The ActBlue file “Mid-Year Report 2019" has 25,725,487 records with a total contributor receipt amount of $457,407,771. We prepared the dataset by removing all campaign committees, PAC’s, Super PAC’s and Non-Presidential campaign data. This yields a gross contributions dataset containing 4,712,247 transactions (totaling $131,273,383.49)upon which we based this analysis.
Surnames Occurring 100 Times or More from Census 2010
There are 162,255 total surnames which occur 100 times or more in Census 2010. In the data file, there is a distribution of self-reported race and ethnicity responses associated with each surname captured on the Census 2010 form. The possible choices are White (pctwhite), Black (pctblack), Asian or Pacific Islander (pctapi), American Indian or Alaskan Native (pctaian), two or more races (pct2race) and Hispanic (pcthispanic). Using the pcthispanic variable, we categorized surnames by Hispanic prevalence:
From examining the count and prop100k variables, these surnames which occur 100 times or more represents 294.9 million persons comprising 95.5% of the population. The 10,762 majority Latino surnames represent 41.8 million persons comprising 13.5% of the population.
Estimate 1: “Conservative Estimate”
Latinos contributed an estimated $6,919,339.10 from 361,945 estimated receipts. Latinos gave on average 5.14% of total contributions.
The average contribution amount across all ethnicities to Presidential campaigns is $27.86, but for the Latino community the average gift is $19.04. We see other subtle characteristics in how Latinos interact with each Presidential campaign and where campaigns are leveraging their policy platform to engage and solicit Latinos — and where campaigns are falling behind or failing altogether.
Estimate 2: “Best Guess Estimate”
Latinos contributed an estimated $13,540,405.62 from 713,678 estimated receipts. Using this model Latinos contributed an average of 10.31% of total contributions.
We used the percentage likely attributable to a surname of Hispanic origin (PCTHISPANIC) to measure the total contributor receipt amount by surname for all 43,269 surnames with pcthispanic > 4%. This is an expected-value estimate where the probability weights are the prevalence of Hispanic origin by surname as given by the variable PCTHISPANIC.
Latino Fundraising by Month
The U.S. Presidential campaign started in earnest on December 31, 2018 when Elizabeth Warren formed an exploratory committee to investigate a potential bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020. While Warren was introducing herself to the American public as a Presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders was picking up where he left off in 2016 with the support of millions of people across the country. In Sanders first month of fundraising for the 2020 campaign, he raised $1,325,912 from Latinos and he has continued his torrid pace of fundraising which reached $4.72 million dollars (from Latinos) at the end June 2019.
The fundraising period and the rate of contributions is a key measure in determining if a campaign is growing its’ base of Latino donors or if its’ pool of Latino donors is shrinking after a fast start. Beto O’Rourke posted the best month of any Presidential candidate in March when he announced his campaign for President having raised $1,550,035 dollars from Latinos in that single period.
Only three (3) candidates have shown the capacity to grow their base of Latino donors: Sanders, Warren, and Castro. Most other campaigns have a maintained a certain level of support but the numbers show no rate of increase from month-to-month other than the end of quarter burst of fundraising. In the case of Joe Biden, it might be too early to tell if his Latino fundraising peaked when he announced his candidacy or if it will taper off much like that of the O’Rourke campaign.
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Latino Giving and Contributions by Month
The number of contributions and giving by Latinos skews significantly to the Sanders campaign. Sanders least productive month in May is better than peak month for every other campaign except two: Beto in March and Buttigieg in April.
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Overall Latino Fundraising
First, let’s take a look at the total raised from Latinos by each Democratic candidate between January 1, 2019 and June 30, 2019:
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Bernie Sanders is by far the leader in fundraising from the Latino community (outpacing Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren). Sanders has taken in 34.9% of the overall Latino fundraising across all campaigns. Given the nature of his grassroots support and small dollar recurring contributions which drive the Bernie Sanders campaign, Sanders will continue to outpace his rivals and even further strengthen his fundraising position among Latinos over the course of the campaign.
Latino Fundraising Percentage
Aggregate amount of dollars raised from Latinos is not the only measure we investigated. We studied the strength of each campaign at attracting Latinos and engaging them as donors and found three campaigns that excelled above all the rest: Sanders, O’Rourke, and Castro.
Julian Castro did the best by far at bringing Latinos into his campaign as donors. 1 in 3 donors to the Castro campaign is Latino which far exceeds that of every other campaign. One might simply conclude that Castro raised more from Latinos given the fact that he is Latino, but that is only part of the story. While California and Los Angeles were the number one state and city for Latino fundraising, it was followed closely by Texas and San Antonio. For Castro, and to a certain extent O’Rourke, being from Texas benefited their campaigns when it comes to Latino fundraising. Let’s keep in mind that Texas has 11.9 million Latinos or 40.4% of the Texas population.
More concerning however is the fact that the top polling candidates (Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris) all faired poorly among Latinos (falling below the average in Latino fundraising). An inability to connect, engage, and solicit Latinos may portend weakness among a constituent group that will be critical in winning the primary and general election in 2020.
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Top 100 Contribution Amounts by Surname
The U.S. Census publishes “Surnames Occurring 100 or more times” after it completes each census. The surnames are provided by census respondents and was first published in 2000. In the 2010 U.S. Census, new methods of processing this data led to significant improvements in the reporting available. With over 162,255 total surnames, which occur 100 times or more, it might seem like a daunting task to organize. Given that the Latino community is one of the fastest growing constituencies in the United States it makes it somewhat easier. For example, 3 of the top 10 surnames in the Unites States are Latino with over 1 million occurrences. U.S. Census Top 10 Surnames:
Latino Giving by Surname
It is likely that you may know someone named Maria, Juan, Hector, Sylvia, or Gloria, but its more likely that you know someone with the last name Garcia, Rodriguez, or Martinez since more than 1 million occurrences of these surnames are reported in the United States by the U.S. Census (2010).
Make no mistake, not all Latinos in the United States are the same, we come from different places and have our distinct values, identities, and politics. Most Latino families heritage can be traced back to Mexico, but many are from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Argentina, and over 33 different countries. It is also true that not all Latinos are immigrants as two-thirds of all Latinos are born in the United States. The 2017 U.S. Census counts 58,846,134 Latinos or 18.1% of the U.S. population.
Latinos also have their own value system and it’s these ideals that brings them into the political sphere. Just like each candidate for President is different, each Latino is different and invests in each campaign relative to the ideas and politics of a candidate.
Understanding how Latinos are engaging these Presidential candidates and how they are engaged gives us a viewpoint into understanding what drives these investments. Who are Latinos choosing to invest in allows us an opportunity to understand the makeup of these donors, where they are from, to whom and how much do they choose to contribute, and what they do in their everyday lives.
Latino Giving Surname Sphere
This interactive data sphere provides detailed information on over 10,000 Latino surnames and how much each has donated to Democratic Presidential campaigns.
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Latino Giving Surname by Average Gift and Amount
Latino giving by surname contributions and average gift amount varies. Rodriguez, Garcia, and Martinez and the other top 10 Latino surnames contribute more than $1.1 million dollars combined.
Click here for the full interactive version.
Latino Giving by State
Latino giving also follows some obvious norms like population count and Hispanic propensity in a state. It’s no surprise that Latino giving is in line with the largest Latino populations by state (with over $2 million dollars coming from California).
Click here for the fully interactive versions.
Latino Giving by Zip Code
Latino giving reaches across the country from Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, California, and even Alaska. Latinos giving is centered in population areas that are predominantly Latino. There are over 2,000 zip codes in the United States where Latino population is greater than 50%.
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Latino Giving Comparative Analysis to Minority Population.
Latino giving parallels that of the minority population in the United States with over 60% of the Latino giving coming from California, Texas, and New York (over $1 million each) and 17 other states donating over $100,000.
Fundraising by Occupation
Latinos run the gamut when it comes to their careers and occupations in the United States. Contrary to the data visualization below, not all Latinos who contribute to a Presidential campaign are “Not Employed” but rather are students who chose to donate in increments as small as $1.00 or persons who prefer to not provide their occupation.
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Fundraising by Period
It is also possible to see a timeline of all the Latino contributions as they come in. Latinos who make the maximum contribution of $2,800 and even $5,600 are few and far between but they do exist. More prevalent are the small dollar donors who continue to donate over time to their preferred campaigns.
Click here for the fully interactive version.
Conclusion
Latinos in the United States are coming of age politically as they become more directly engaged with campaigns and elections. The 2020 election will be a milestone for Latinos as they look to invest more than $50 Million dollars in campaigns for Democratic Presidential candidates.
While most candidates are just introducing themselves to Latinos, Bernie Sanders has been running for President for 4 years now. The combination of Sanders name recognition and his continued efforts to appeal to Latinos wherever they live and work is a testament to his campaigns approach to reach out into every community and ask for their vote and financial support.
It is also important to recognize that a majority of Democratic Presidential campaigns are falling behind or failing altogether to engage Latinos and win their financial support. Having a diverse base of support is critical to winning the primary and general election, but it is also important for the purposes of funding a viable campaign that can make it through the primary and be competitive come the general election.
If we take a look at the campaigns that are currently winning the fundraising race, we can see how early investments by Latinos are helping these campaigns keep up with and exceed their fundraising goals. Staying above the 6.0% Latino fundraising threshold will be critical for the most competitive campaigns to continue to exceed their fundraising goals while remaining viable in the primary and general election. A diversified approach in fundraising makes financial sense.
Continued investments by Presidential campaigns in Latino staff, outreach, and minority hiring is an excellent first step. Taking a “general market” approach to communicating and engaging with Latinos will separate winning and losing campaigns especially in population rich Latino states like Florida, Texas, Neveda, New Mexico, New York, and California. What is at stake this election is unprecedented for the country but also Latino communities that have been under assault by this administration and their own government for too long now. Latinos are ready to roll-up their sleeves and open their wallet’s to help the next Democratic President get elected.
With the Latino vote at stake in the most competitive swing states and millions of dollars in contributions from Latinos the Democratic party and campaigns that ignore Latinos do so at their own peril.
Research Team
Juan Proaño
Author and Data Analysis
Juan Proaño is an entrepreneur, technologist, and business leader who is active in civic affairs and progressive politics. Proaño is the co-founder and CEO of Plus Three, a Florida based Technology company serving non-profit, advocacy, membership, and political organizations. Founded in 2002, Plus Three has raised more than $500 million online and delivered over 1 billion emails for its’ non-profit clients. Juan is also the managing partner of Latino Strategies, a marketing and consulting company focused on engaging the U.S. Latino market which he founded in 2017.
In his two decades of entrepreneurship, Proaño has founded and managed three companies in the technology sector which have operated throughout the United States and South America.
Paulina Sosa
Data Visualizations
Is a current doctoral student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Public Health Informatics program, specializing in data analytics, visualization, and machine learning. Sosa is also President Elect for the Latino Caucus for Public Health, and the campaign manager for the advocacy arm, Latinx Voces en Salud.
Paulina also works as the Assistant Editor at the American Journal of Public Health of APHA, and is working as a research assistant at the Global Public Health Observatory of Johns Hopkins. Sosa has worked both as a data analyst at the PAHO/WHO Influenza Team, and prior to attaining her MPH, worked in policy analysis with Texas State Representative Rene O. Oliveira, U.S. Senator John Cornyn, and in a number of city-based community engagement initiatives with the City of Austin.
Faisal Sikder
Data Management
Is currently working as Staff Software Engineer and R&D supervisor at VIAVI solutions. Faisal has a research and development in machine learning and AI algorithm development for resource constraint platforms. Sikder received his Doctorate in Computer Science from University of Miami. Research interests include big data & machine learning, wearable sensors and their applications, the Internet of things (IoTs), and distributed computing in the IoTs.