Candidates running under Small Donor Elections must agree to a number of provisions before having their small donations matched. They must report all of their donations and expenses publicly. They can only accept donations of $250 or less, and only from individuals and not special interests (with the exception being that candidates can accept up to $500 total in seed funding from any source, and up to $5,000 total in in-kind donations from any source). Only Portland donations are matched, so candidates have an incentive to spend more time talking with and listening to community members. But how do you know if the candidates are following the rules?
The Office of Small Donor Elections has set up a website to share information with the you about the candidates who are running under SDE and their fundraising*. The website also includes the fundraising information on candidates who did not join the program, so that Portlanders can compare the fundraising of SDE-candidates and non-SDE candidates. Transparency is important to our program. The public has a right to know how candidates are financing their campaigns.
If you visit OpenElectionsPortland.org, you can review:
- How much the candidates have raised
- The percentage of their donations that are small (less than $25), medium ($25-$100), and large ($100-$250).
- Where their donations are coming from
- How much they have received in matching funds
We are the first small-donor matching program in the nation to have this kind of public website. Please take the time to dig into the data and check out OpenElectionsPortland.org.
For a PDF version, you can also click here to see the donations that the SDE program has matched:
*For candidates who are not running under Small Donor Elections, information about their contributions and expenditures can be found on the state's public website, ORESTAR