If you’ve donated to political causes recently, you’ve probably experienced several frustrating things: emails from candidates you’ve never heard of, messages claiming urgent “final notices” that never actually seem final, or groups pretending to be associated with candidates they really are not. We would not be surprised if you then wondered what ActBlue does about these misleading practices.
For over a year, we’ve been taking decisive action against organizations that try to deceive donors like you. To strengthen these efforts, yesterday we updated our policies about how campaigns and organizations can use our tools. These policy updates don’t create enforcement – they strengthen the tools we’ve been using to protect your trust and your donations. The updated rules expand the scope of prohibited activity and allow us to take faster action against bad actors.
What Our Stronger Policies Mean
Our updated Account Use Policy gives us clearer tools to address the practices that frustrate and deceive donors:
No More Impersonation: Organizations cannot pretend to be candidates – they must be affiliated with a candidate to use their name and image.
No More False Claims: We’re cracking down on fake voting records, non-existent membership programs, and unverified matching claims.
No More Misleading Messages: Groups must be honest about who they are and how they’ll use your donations.
Less Aggressive Tactics: We investigate organizations when donors complain about excessive or pushy fundraising.
We’ve been encouraged by the response so far. In just two days, we’ve heard from 20+ trusted partners and multiple donors who spotted potential problems and took the time to report them to us. It’s encouraging to see our community looking out for each other and working together to clean up bad behavior.
At the same time, we want to make sure we’re building something positive. We’re not trying to create a world where organizations spend their time policing each other instead of focusing on winning elections and building change. Our goal is simple: set fair, clear rules that protect donors while making sure organizations can do their important work. We’ll keep listening, learning, and adjusting these standards as needed to make sure we’re protecting what matters most.
What We’ve Already Done
This year alone, before today’s policy updates even took effect, our team has been busy protecting donors by:
Removing Bad Actors. We’ve delisted dozens of entities that violated our policies, including numerous PACs found violating our standards around spending and solicitations.
Stopping Problems Before They Start. We’ve denied onboarding to 30+ organizations that didn’t meet our standards.
Increasing Monitoring. We’ve placed dozens of PACs on our “watch list” for close monitoring of their practices and solicitation tactics. These are entities we’ll be reviewing closely under our strengthened policies.
Responding to Concerns. 50+ credible complaints from donors, staff, and stakeholders led to full investigations of existing entities on our platform, many resulting in the enforcement actions listed above. We reviewed hundreds of other complaints – some requiring gentle corrective outreach and others that ultimately were not violations.
Our Broader Commitment to You
This enforcement work is part of our comprehensive approach to protecting donors:
We Never Sell Your Information: ActBlue does not sell your contact information to anyone. Ever. When you donate through ActBlue, your information goes directly to the candidate or organization you chose to support. If you’re getting unwanted messages from other campaigns, that’s because some campaigns share and sell donor information, not because ActBlue sold your data.
We Keep Your Transactions Secure: ActBlue’s fundraising technology is built to handle thousands of transactions per minute safely and securely, ensuring your donations reach their intended destination.
We Investigate When You Have Concerns: When donors contact us about problems with organizations using our platform, we take action.
Looking Forward
We’re not stopping here. Our strengthened policies give us even better tools to protect you, and we’ll continue taking action against any organization that tries to deceive donors or misuse your trust.
Every donation you make through ActBlue represents your commitment to the candidates and causes you believe in. Protecting that trust—and protecting you—isn’t just our responsibility. It’s our honor.
Think you’ve received a message that violates our policies? Visit this page to learn more about reporting potential violations.
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