Funding of Parties

Russel Norman seems to be inventing figures with his claim the airport billboards cost $70,000 to $90,000 a month. Last election I got billboard prices for Wellington sites as part of the Blumsky campaign, and most were, off memory, around $2,000 a month. Sure the airport ones are bigger and more prime location so will be more than $2,000 a month but Norman’s figures are massively inflated.

He also makes the mistake of thinking a few large donations once every three years constitutes most of National’s income, so hence some big business is funding every activity. Sure business donations are incredibly useful and valued, but one should not under-estimate how much income a party can get from mass membership, like National.

In previous roles I’ve had access to some of the membership and financial stats, and they are confidential, so I am deliberately using figures which are not those numbers. They are roughly in the same ballpark, but should not be taken as an indicator of National’s funding in 2005. I actually have no idea of current membership/finanical stats. I am just using specific numbers as an example.

Let’s say National has 50,000 members. And the average donation from each member is $50. That is $2,500,000 a year just from your annual membership drive. Now let’s also say that you have a direct mail appeal annually to which 30% of members respond with an average $67 donation – that’s another $1.0 million.

Like I say, these are not actual exact figures, but they show how much value there is in having a broad-based party with a strong membership.

And that’s before you even look at the fund-raising done by those members. You have 50 or so strong electorates – if they raise $10,000 each through functions, raffles, movie showings, quiz nights etc that is another $500,000. And some electorates raise much more than $10,000 a year!

It is the support of so many members and hard working activists that allows National to pay for billboards like the airport ones which went up this week.