Where Does My Donation Go?

How your contribution goes from you to the candidate or cause you want to support

Updated over a week ago

WinRed’s technology provides tools for campaigns, candidates, and committees to raise money. Your donation goes straight to your candidate. WinRed just helps it get there, and our setup makes it easy to fundraise with multiple campaigns at once.

WinRed charges a 3.94% processing fee for every transaction made. Only candidates and organizations you choose to donate to will receive money.

When you make a donation on WinRed, you are donating to a specific candidate or organization, but your donation will first pass through the WinRed PAC for federal committees. For donations to state level committees, WinRed Technical Services is used as a vendor to process donations.

Why WinRed?

WinRed is the #1 fundraising technology used by conservatives. We allow donors from across the country to easily and securely connect with causes and candidates that they support.

WinRed does not raise money on behalf of any candidate or organization, or choose candidates to support. We provide the tools and infrastructure for candidates on the right to fundraise and win.

How do I know who I am donating to?

Every WinRed donation page tells you what campaign or committee is receiving money from that page. This can be found right below the button amounts.

If there are multiple candidates and committees, you will be able to press the “Click here for details or to edit allocation” which will show every organization that will receive money from a donation on that specific page.

You can adjust your donation allocation by changing the amounts in each box. The default is for the donation to be split evenly across all candidates on that donation page.

If the donation page is for a Joint Fundraising Committee, you will be able to see the recipient committees and how each donation is split in the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

Federal Level Committees

Why is WinRed registered as a PAC?

WinRed is a registered political action committee (PAC). This legal structure allows us to process contributions from individuals and pass them along to campaigns and organizations that use our platform.

WinRed does not make contributions to campaigns or committees, it only acts as a conduit and ensures that donations are securely processed and sent to the intended recipients within 10 days.

The contributions are not considered PAC donations. According to federal law, these donations are made by individuals and all contribution details are reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Election Commission (FEC), or other necessary state agencies.

The campaign finance legal structure combined with our fundraising technology empowers donors across the country to directly support candidates and causes that align with their values.

How your donation goes from WinRed PAC to the candidate or organization

The WinRed PAC is a conduit PAC, meaning it only passes donations along to the intended recipient. Therefore, your donation is directly going to support the candidates or organizations you want to, not to the PAC.

WinRed is required by law to forward your contribution to the candidate or organization within 10 days of receiving it.

How to verify your donation made it to your candidate or organization

We are legally required to pass along every donation to the intended candidate or organization, but if you'd like to verify for yourself you can do one of two things:

  1. Ask the candidate or organization
    We are required by law to pass funds on to the candidates you’ve allocated your donation to within 10 days, but most organizations receive payouts much sooner.

  2. FEC Records
    Your donation made through WinRed will appear on the FEC’s website once the candidates and organizations you contributed through WinRed file their report. Please note this is updated only when that candidate or organization has to file their FEC reporting.

State Level Committees

WinRed Technical Services will require any nonfederal candidate or committee wanting to utilize the WinRed Technical Services platform to raise funds into its own merchant account; such funds will not be earmarked (as that term is understood in 11 CFR § 110.6(b)(1)) through WinRed, the federal political action committee (“PAC”) associated with the platform.

Thus, any funds received by nonfederal candidates and committees through the WRTS platform will be deposited directly into the candidate or committee’s merchant account, and the candidate or committee will serve as the merchant of record for credit card payments. Funds will not be commingled with any other WinRed user’s funds and will not be conduited through the WinRed federal PAC.

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