Obama supporting group cuts staffing, fundraising

[DonViejo]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS


KEN THOMAS AND JOSH LEDERMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Organizing for Action, the advocacy group supporting President Barack Obama’s agenda, is scaling back its fundraising efforts and cutting its paid staff in half as focus shifts to the approaching midterm elections, three Democratic officials said.

Formed last year from the remnants of Obama’s vaunted re-election campaign, OFA raised more than $30 million in its first 15 months as it worked to build support for Obama priorities like health care, immigration and climate change. But the group’s aggressive courting of big-dollar donors has troubled many Democrats who worry that OFA is siphoning sorely needed dollars from Democratic campaigns just as the party is bracing for a difficult election.

As of May 31, OFA will no longer solicit high-dollar contributions, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. Kathy Gasperine, the group’s development director and a former Obama fundraiser, told top contributors it would “not be giving significant priority to seeking out new major donors.”

“During the remainder of 2014, we will work to strengthen our relationships we have with our national leadership, continue our robust digital organizing, and utilize our megaphone to continue to activate our network into issue advocacy,” Gasperine wrote.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/20/obama_supporting_group_cuts_staffing_fundraising/

[DURHAM D]

1. Good move.

They are officially non-partisan anyway.

[okaawhatever]

2. OFA was the only group who ran ads for the ACA in my area. I do think OFA helped with ACA and by

extension helped the Dem candidates. I remember thinking how F'ed up it was that the only ads for health insurance came from a non-profit group that had nothing to do with ACA.