Oakland Rising educates and mobilizes voters in the flatlands to speak up for and take charge of the issues impacting their lives. As a multilingual, multiracial collaborative with deep roots in East and West Oakland's neighborhoods, they prove that everyday residents working together have the power to change the way their city is run.
Overview
With a grant from Progressive Multiplier, Oakland Rising set out to strengthen their annual fundraising event. When their Oakland Progressives Party shifted to a PAC-focused gathering, they needed to find a new approach that could generate independent revenue for their 501(c)(3) work. The solution emerged in the form of an intimate house party program that would connect committed supporters with potential new donors in living rooms across Oakland. By creating a replicable model with clear tools and processes, Oakland Rising built a sustainable fundraising approach that requires minimal staff time while bringing in new supporters and strengthening relationships with existing ones.
Key Strategies & Tactics
Oakland Rising's house party program centered on empowering supporters to become fundraising hosts through several key elements:
Host Recruitment: Identifying and recruiting "superfans" who were already deeply committed to the organization's work, with flexibility to offer co-hosting options for those with smaller spaces or competing commitments
Planning Tools: Developing comprehensive materials including step-by-step guides, timeline templates, and guest list trackers to support hosts through the planning process
Fundraising Infrastructure: Creating individual ActBlue fundraising pages with QR codes for each event to make giving easy for attendees and those who couldn't attend
Senior Staff Engagement: Having the Executive Director or Political Director attend events to share the organization's story and make the fundraising pitch
Follow-Up System: Building a structured approach for post-event thank yous and reminders to convert non-attendees into donors
Lessons Learned
Target Your Superfans
The most successful hosts were people already deeply invested in Oakland Rising's work, making their personal appeals authentic and compelling.
Triple Your Guest List
Encouraging hosts to invite two to three times more people than their target attendance ensured full rooms and created multiple touchpoints for fundraising asks.
Persistence Pays Off
Securing host commitments and dates required consistent follow-up and maintaining a rolling list of potential hosts to keep events in the pipeline.
Start Simple, Then Iterate
The first two events ran without dedicated fundraising pages, but adding them for subsequent parties made a measurable difference in conversion.
Think Creatively About Hosts
Successful hosts came from unexpected places, including foundation program officers, demonstrating the value of thinking broadly about who might open their home.
Build for Scale
Creating detailed materials and processes upfront meant the program could run with minimal ongoing staff time and be replicated across multiple entities.
The Multiplier Effect
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Impact
The house party model solved a critical challenge for Oakland Rising's single-person development department by creating a fundraising approach that could run efficiently while building meaningful relationships. The program's success demonstrated that raising independent revenue doesn't require expensive events or extensive staff capacity. Instead, it relies on leveraging the passion of committed supporters and providing them with the right tools to bring new people into the movement. Beyond the immediate revenue generated, the house parties created opportunities for deeper engagement with Oakland Rising's civic programs, potentially converting first-time donors into volunteers and long-term supporters. The replicable nature of the model means Oakland Rising can now deploy the same approach across their c3, c4, and PAC entities, providing a sustainable path to financial independence regardless of which aspect of their work resonates with potential supporters. Perhaps most significantly, the program proved viable during a challenging fundraising environment when national foundations deprioritized organizing work in California, demonstrating the power of local, community-based revenue generation.