Fenty 2010: Are Bigger Donations Better?

In his column this week, LL broke down the more than $2 million raised by the Adrian M. Fenty fundraising juggernaut.

LL indulged his math and computer nerdness and pulled the Fenty 2010 data filed last week into a spreadsheet, then, with assists from CPers Will Atwood Mitchell and Ryan J. Reilly, he began coaxing whatever facts and figures he could out of the numbers. In the online column, you'll find breakdowns of the haul by ZIP code and industry, plus a look at how commercial interests pad their fundraising totals and the government employees who pitched in.

A couple of additional interesting items you can find in the print column, however, haven't made it online just yet due to technical difficulties.

One breaks down the Fenty haul by donation size. Back in 2006, after all Fenty was lauded for pulling in lots of small donations thanks to his door knocking and populist message. But what about this time around? Since taking office, Fenty raised the ire of plenty of folks who feel he's betrayed that popular support.

A look at the numbers would confirm that impression:

• In 2006, his average donation amount was $518.30; this time around, it's nearly doubled, to $960.60.
• Where $100 was the most common donation amount in 2006, the plurality of donations thus far for 2010 are the $2,000 maximum.
• In 2006, Fenty raised 28.5 percent of his total from donations of $500 or less; this time around, that's dropped to 12.7 percent. Looking at the take from donations of $100 or less, the proportion has gone from 5.5 percent to 1.6.

LL also broke the numbers down geographically. In 2006, Fenty raised about 60 percent of his money from inside the District; for 2010 thus far, only 47 percent of his money has been from D.C. Maryland is the next biggest state, with 28.8 percent ($587,181), with Virginia at 10.7 percent ($218,680), New York at 4.8 percent ($98,470), and Florida at 1.4 percent ($28,850).

There's a few caveats here: First, the Fenty 2006 data is based on only about 78 percent of that campaign's total haul. That's because LL can only crunch numbers filed electronically, and the Fenty campaign didn't start using the city's e-filing system until it had already submitted three reports. (On the other hand, there's reason to believe that omitting the early reports would tend to weigh in favor of the big corporate donations that Fenty picked up later in his campaign, when it became clear he would trounce biz darling Linda Cropp.) Second, LL hesitates to draw conclusions based on Fenty 2010's take so far, if only because Fenty hasn't embarked on his legendary door-to-door canvasses just yet. There's plenty of time to gather small donations, but he'll have to collect a hell of a lot of them to match his numbers from last time.

And get this: LL is committed to open-source reporting! If you'd like to examine the numbers yourself, download LL's spreadsheet, in Microsoft Excel format. Put your findings in the comments!