Vote With Your Purse 2.0: Women's Online Giving, Offline Power

In September 2008, WCF Foundation released its study on women as online donors, "Vote With Your Purse 2.0," which received coverage in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, ABC News and The Hill.
Key findings: 

• How and why women respond to online solicitations
• The impact the Web is having on women's political engagement and giving
• How fundraisers for causes and candidates alike can more effectively tap into women as a resource

Download the full report.  

WCF Foundation is also rolling out its online RESOURCE CENTER that profiles 10 Web 2.0 tools and how they are being utilized strategically to engage women in political giving.    

CLICK HERE to watch our September 22, 2008 webinar, "Opening Women's Wallets Online" which WCF Foundation co-hosted with Campaigns & Elections Politics Magazine and featured the following speakers: Celinda Lake, Tracy Russo and Mindy Finn.  

This study and website reflects our continued commitment to increasing women's political clout in the donating community. The Vote With Your Purse project launched in 2007, when we issued "Vote With Your Purse: Harnessing the Power of Women's Political Giving for the 2008 Elections and Beyond." This groundbreaking report, which garnered national media attention ranging from The Washington Post to The New York Times.com, shed new light on women's financial and giving power.

Key Findings

• Women's income has risen more than 60 percent in the last 30 years, but women represent only 27 percent of individual hard money contributions to candidates, party committees and PACs
• Increased giving by women would have a major impact on the 2008 elections. A 22 percent boost over women's 2006 election contributions would mean an additional $43 million from women-and would be directed largely toward women candidates
• Women drive charitable giving but don't associate political contributions with the social change of charitable contributions.
• Mobilizing more political giving from women will require an emphasis on the values that motivate women: impact, inspiration, information, inclusion and interaction

When women don't give, they don't get a voice. And without a voice, they can't effect change.

With every research initiative we launch, WCF Foundation's Vote With Your Purse program will strive to understand what women want-and how women give. It will serve as a blueprint for candidates, organizations and activists with a mission to drive women's political giving. And it will serve as a launch pad for women with a passion for social change-and the desire to build a powerful political force.

Vote With Your Purse is a program of the WCF Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization.