It would be no exaggeration to say that the biggest strength of the Aam Aadmi Party was how it was able to enthuse the public to donate to its cause. Public donations and transparency in accounting irrigated the roots of the party as it was formed, came to a short spell of power and then eventually returned with a historic verdict in Delhi, winning 67 out of its 70 seats.
However, the recent slew of controversies, open letters and expulsion of the likes of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from key committees has damaged the image of the party and triggered a marked decline in the donations received by the party.
Even as Arvind Kejriwal spent this Sunday launching the party’s campaign to create the first “participatory budget” for the city by crowd-sourcing ideas and suggestions on where and when the taxpayers’ money should be spent, it finds itself in a tough situation as the average donation received per day has had a rather steep fall from its peak.
Over the last 500 days, the party claims to have collected over Rs. 64 crore from over 1.6 lakh donors spread across 122 countries. Managing to amass huge sums is no easy task in itself but the party is now only able to collect some Rs 12,500 per day as compared to Rs. 25,000 it had been collecting in donations on average since December 13, according to the data by aaptrends.com, a website that tracks and updates information about donations received by the party.
The fall, could be attributed to more reasons than one, but it does go on to show that the party’s image has indeed taken a beating in the minds of donors who are tightening their purse strings in the time of crisis.
On February 14, Arvind Kejriwal took oath amidst much fanfare after capturing 67 seats out of 70 in the assembly and this was the golden period of donations for the party as it collected on an average over Rs 57,000 each day in February through 456 donors.
This large inflow seems to have quickly dried up as soon as the party’s factions reported infighting and the party released an audio of a conversation with a journalist to attack Yogendra Yadav. This tape was discussed in an internal party meeting on February 26 as well and the issue came to light only around March 2.
Subsequently, the party’s average donation per day since then has plummeted to a meagre Rs 12,506 which further slid to Rs 10, 760 after March 11 when Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav wrote an open letter to the party volunteers only a week after being expelled from the Parliamentary Affairs committee.
The downward spiral hasn’t ended as the average donations collected per day has now come down to a little over Rs 1500 since the “rebels” of the party including Yadav and Bhushan organised a public dialogue called Swaraj Samvad.
The month is not over yet and the inflow could improve in the coming days, but this fall seems to be in keeping with some other erstwhile supporters publicly demanding back their contributions, including the person who claimed to have gifted Arvind Kejriwal his Wagon R and the artist who had designed the logo for the party.
Failing and falling
One could argue that the fall in donations is simply because the donation drive is not going on since there’s no immediate election campaigning to do but the party has already indicated that it is planning to contest the Punjab assembly polls.
Moreover, the party had been receiving a regular stream of funds even after the elections for both this year and the last year, which is not the case anymore.
This falling number of donors should be a cause of concern to the party as it signals disenchantment and deepening trust deficit. Would the collections go up as new fund-raising campaigns are launched for Punjab? Watch this space.
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However, the recent slew of controversies, open letters and expulsion of the likes of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from key committees has damaged the image of the party and triggered a marked decline in the donations received by the party.
Even as Arvind Kejriwal spent this Sunday launching the party’s campaign to create the first “participatory budget” for the city by crowd-sourcing ideas and suggestions on where and when the taxpayers’ money should be spent, it finds itself in a tough situation as the average donation received per day has had a rather steep fall from its peak.
Over the last 500 days, the party claims to have collected over Rs. 64 crore from over 1.6 lakh donors spread across 122 countries. Managing to amass huge sums is no easy task in itself but the party is now only able to collect some Rs 12,500 per day as compared to Rs. 25,000 it had been collecting in donations on average since December 13, according to the data by aaptrends.com, a website that tracks and updates information about donations received by the party.
The fall, could be attributed to more reasons than one, but it does go on to show that the party’s image has indeed taken a beating in the minds of donors who are tightening their purse strings in the time of crisis.
On February 14, Arvind Kejriwal took oath amidst much fanfare after capturing 67 seats out of 70 in the assembly and this was the golden period of donations for the party as it collected on an average over Rs 57,000 each day in February through 456 donors.
This large inflow seems to have quickly dried up as soon as the party’s factions reported infighting and the party released an audio of a conversation with a journalist to attack Yogendra Yadav. This tape was discussed in an internal party meeting on February 26 as well and the issue came to light only around March 2.
Subsequently, the party’s average donation per day since then has plummeted to a meagre Rs 12,506 which further slid to Rs 10, 760 after March 11 when Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav wrote an open letter to the party volunteers only a week after being expelled from the Parliamentary Affairs committee.
The downward spiral hasn’t ended as the average donations collected per day has now come down to a little over Rs 1500 since the “rebels” of the party including Yadav and Bhushan organised a public dialogue called Swaraj Samvad.
The month is not over yet and the inflow could improve in the coming days, but this fall seems to be in keeping with some other erstwhile supporters publicly demanding back their contributions, including the person who claimed to have gifted Arvind Kejriwal his Wagon R and the artist who had designed the logo for the party.
Failing and falling
One could argue that the fall in donations is simply because the donation drive is not going on since there’s no immediate election campaigning to do but the party has already indicated that it is planning to contest the Punjab assembly polls.
Moreover, the party had been receiving a regular stream of funds even after the elections for both this year and the last year, which is not the case anymore.
An average of 329 donors funded the party each day starting this year, in line with the average of 320 people since its formation, but that came down sharply since Kejriwal assumed the throne to only 29 people on average since February 14. Now, it is down to less than 10 donors each day.
This falling number of donors should be a cause of concern to the party as it signals disenchantment and deepening trust deficit. Would the collections go up as new fund-raising campaigns are launched for Punjab? Watch this space.