[Lnc-business] Colorado Membership Recruitment Effort

[Alicia Mattson]

I am not convinced that this is not a special agreement with a state.

My question about who is paying the credit card processing fees was not
answered, so I presume that means that the LNC is eating that cost.  Let's
suppose our discount rate is 4%.  If the LNC processes a $50 payment and
sends a full $25 to the state, our own credit card processing fees just
doubled to 8%.  In addition to that amount, which can potentially add up to
non-trivial money when you get a lot more states involved, we're also
expending our staff time on the state's fundraiser, with all that invested
time eating into the $25 - $2 credit card fees = $23 donation that the LNC
received.  Our staff has to track the numbers, cut checks to each
affiliate, etc.  Our staff routinely tells us they don't have time to do
the things that the LNC has directed them to do, and this is tasking them
with an extra arrangement not even agreed to by the LNC.

This free labor and free credit card processing deal is only being offered
to FEC filing affiliates, not to all our affiliates.  In this instance, it
was first offered to only one state right before a critical deadline in
which they are competing with other states, and once other states found out
that it was available they will have little time to plan and make use of
it.

All of this feels like a special agreement to me.

-Alicia


On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 1:16 PM Nicholas Sarwark via Lnc-business <
lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> As you are aware, there is a deadline for convention delegate allocation
> that comes up at the end of this month.  Many of your state parties, as
> well as mine, are doing what they can to sign up additional national
> members.
>
> A Colorado member contacted me around October 5 with a plan to solicit
> registered Libertarian voters to encourage them to join both the Colorado
> and national Libertarian Party at the same time. The challenge he had was
> not soliciting the potential members, but having a way to make sure that
> they would also be able to sign the pledge to become sustaining members of
> the national party and not violate any FEC rules.
>
> Since there is not a legal barrier to transfers between FEC reporting party
> committees, I suggested he contact Dan Fishman to figure out how to get the
> Colorado effort a mechanism to process these new memberships and renewals.
>
> The solution he came up allows the LNC to collect a minimum of $50, with
> the prospective donor being clearly informed that $25 of their donation
> will be given to the LPCO, which allows them to recoup their marketing
> expenses. Since the Colorado group is soliciting the extra amount to be
> sent back to LPCO, there is no cost or loss to the party for sending that
> amount back, but it's logistically easier for the new member to only have
> to fill out one web form.
>
> Prior to this request, there was not a way for an FEC filing state to
> solicit joint donations to the national party.  Now there is a mechanism to
> do so and Mr. Fishman also informs me that the same form can be adapted for
> any other FEC filing state affiliates. I do not interpret this as a special
> agreement with with the state affiliate, just an implementation of a single
> form that will allocate the donors funds as the donor wishes.
>
> The Colorado team took the initiative to recruit new members and have
> started their work to mail and call people, including a link to the web
> form that was implemented. I will be instructing Mr. Fishman to activate
> that link as well as to make a similar form available to any other FEC
> filing state affiliates who request it.
>
> Yours truly,
> Nick
>