BNP Fundraising: A Success Story that has Terrified the Establishment
From Nick Griffin at the BNP Newsroom
The British National Party’s runaway success story with regards to fundraising has terrified the establishment to the point where all sorts of lies and rumours have been spread to halt the party’s progress, BNP leader Nick Griffin has said.
Writing in a special email news bulletin, Mr Griffin also dealt with many of the misconceptions and lies which have been circulated in connection with the Midas Consultancy and BNP fundraising.“Ever since our party was founded in 1982, our fundraising income — i.e. the funds we survive on and can deploy for elections and use to build our organisation — has been negligible, some would say a bit of an embarrassment, nothing like the enormous funds available to the treacherous old gang parties and not even a fraction of the funds needed to save our country,” Mr Griffin wrote.
“The badly limited funds available in the past to mount election campaigns and to build a winning party machine has held back the cause of British Nationalism for decades. Raising money has always been approached in an amateurish way and often as an afterthought.
Fundraising, as any professional will tell you, is a delicate and skilled profession. Successful fundraising involves timing, psychology, administration, procurement of materials, layout and design, preparation, demographics, general mood, temperament of target audience, data analysis and many other crucially important factors.
It is not a game for well-meaning amateurs. It is not as simple as posting off a letter asking for donations — keeping the financial wheels on the fastest growing patriotic political party in Europe is a highly complex and skilled undertaking!
It is common practise for ALL major political parties to hire professional individuals or organisations to provide some kind of skilled service that is beyond the ability of essentially political people.
To presume that ordinary political folk will be naturally gifted with advanced professional skill sets such as marketing, fundraising, training and so on is ludicrous.
For example, Margaret Thatcher hired the advertising/marketing firm Satchi & Satchi in order to provide expert advertising techniques for her election campaigns — the result was the best Conservative Party propaganda campaign ever conceived.
Similarly our most successful campaign — The Battle For Britain 2009 — was the result of our relationship with the Midas Consultancy.
At the end of 2007, the BNP contracted the services of an accomplished fundraising consultancy: the Midas Consultancy. Throughout 2007 up until December, the BNP's income from donations was at the usual low levels.
When December came the Midas Consultancy took the reins and within one month flat raised nearly as much money as the party had done in the preceding 11 months.
Within four weeks the Midas Consultancy virtually doubled our fundraising income for the whole year.
In 2008, with the Midas Consultancy running our fundraising, our total income from donations exploded from a meagre £150,000 (that's minus the figure raised by Midas in December) in 2007 to an enormous £662,217.
This huge fundraising increase allowed us to roll out a large and unprecedented campaign in the Greater London Assembly elections of that year resulting in the most momentous breakthrough to date with the election of Richard Barnbrook to the GLA.
In 2009, under the stewardship of the Midas Consultancy, the party's donations income again exploded to unparalleled heights, rising from £662,217 in 2008 to a gargantuan £1.6 million!
During 2009 this huge acceleration of our fundraising income allowed the BNP to open several new offices, employ new staff to cope with the strain of organisation resulting from our rapid growth, and also mount the BNP's first properly funded election campaign that resulted in the most staggering breakthrough yet for British Nationalism: the election of Chairman Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons to the European Parliament.
First in the GLA elections, and then in the European elections, the BNP's new fundraising power enabled the party to frighten the life out of the establishment, break new records such as the ability to flood Britain with nearly 30 million leaflets, and made possible the most amazing breakthroughs ever achieved by patriotism in Britain.
They say 'money makes the world go round', and that is true in Britain: the parties with the largest budgets normally outgun everyone else.
This upward rocketing of the BNP's electoral success and the rapid increase in the BNP's fundraising has not gone unnoticed.
The media, the establishment and our twisted opponents on the far-left have all noticed the rapid upturn in our success, and they fully understand the root cause: that for the first time professional fundraising, combined with the selfless dedication of our activists and supporters, has made possible real and tangible successes, the kind of successes that increase our credibility and propel us into centre stage and the mainstream.
Our opponents' response to our new fundraising prowess has been hysterical and vicious: starting in the pages of Searchlight magazine, a vast anti-fundraising rumour and smear campaign was launched and has not let up in its intensity. The head of our contracted fundraising consultancy and his young family has been subjected to a disgusting campaign of media intimidation which includes attacks on his children.
Several other business interests and innocent individuals connected to the Midas Consultancy have also been systematically attacked by the far-left as well as the usual Searchlight plants, extremist cranks and malcontent liberals from our own side of the political fence.
Even our hardworking staff in our highly efficient Belfast administration centre have been targeted for exposure by the media, with an endless conveyor belt of smear attacks.
All of these disgusting and underhand activities have one simple objective: to scare off any professional firms from ever working for the party.
Remember, to drop professional fundraising would drag the party back to where we were, small and incapable of mounting fully funded national campaigns or capable of expanding our political administration structures. No funds available equals no prospects for the BNP.
The BNP's fundraising success has even drawn the paranoid attention of the Electoral Commission, who, flabbergasted by the seemingly unbelievable ability of the BNP to draw huge amounts of donations from its supporters, launched a brief investigation into our finances because they couldn't believe we raised such huge amounts without the backing of wealthy individuals!
The BNP now has a comprehensive fundraising machine that could rival any political party in Europe. We have a bulk-mail postal operation with around 55,000 supporters signed up and an electronic fundraising operation based around our website and email bulletins, again with 50,000 signed up.
Thanks to the professional advice provided by Midas, the BNP operates our own successful, fully staffed call centre which has provided £260,000 in profits (from which contrary to the lies of troublemakers Jim Dowson and Midas have not been paid a penny in commission or any other fees) to the party in just over one year. The modern and professional call centre signs up lapsed members, recruits enquiries, upgrades existing memberships and take subscriptions for our publications and so on.
Between these different arms of our fundraising machine, the hopes and aspirations of our members and supporters become a reality because we have the ability to fund campaigns that would otherwise exist only in our heads.
When the Equalities Commission attempted to financially cripple the BNP in the run-up to the general election, the Midas team instituted the 'fundraising workshops' which imparted how to use meetings to raise much larger amounts than we have done traditionally.
This caused a lot of suspicion and scepticism at the time, but doubts quickly evaporated when local branch meetings started to raise enormous sums using the Midas formulae, with collections increasing from a few hundred pounds into the thousands.
This Midas innovation salvaged the BNP's general election campaign from the financial strain imposed by the Equalities Commission attack and allowed us to stand in over 300 parliamentary seats for the first time.
Make no mistake: given the massive pressure we have been put under through the ongoing legal attacks on the party, it would have not been possible for us to survive this long without our fundraising machine.
However, while our fundraising apparatus is now well established and efficient, it is not a fountain of endless cash. We raise funds, but we cannot perform miracles, so we must be fully aware of the serious nature and damage groups like the Equalities Commission can and are inflicting on this party.
In short, they are attempting to bleed us dry. If it were not for our fundraisers the legal attacks would have sunk us a long time ago.
The present and ongoing anti-fundraising smear campaign — which was started by Gerry Gable and Searchlight and has been taken up by an unholy alliance of 'hardline' extremists and civic nationalist liberals — has reached a climax at present. With some of the 'knockers' there is little doubt that their stabbing us in the back is motivated by reckless personal ambition but for the leftist opponents at the heart of this black propaganda campaign the aim is simple: to bankrupt the party before next year's crucial PR elections in Wales and Scotland, where we could potentially gain a seat in both — but only if we can provide the fundraising to mount impressive campaigns like we did in the European elections.
And, of course, if we can fend off the horrendous legal bills the Equalities Commission and other legal assailants keep hitting us with.
The BNP's diverse fundraising operation has been the target for a sustained smear campaign, from Searchlight, malcontents, disgraced former employees, troublemakers and the media.
All these groups would love nothing better than the BNP returning to the 'good old days' where our tiny and meagre resources rendered our cause impotent and a laughing stock.
The campaign against the BNP's fundraising takes many forms, from internal malcontents preaching 'self-sufficiency', legal warfare (such as the Equalities Commission), malevolent pressure on our fundraising consultant, poisonous lies originating in Searchlight — all these are a coordinated and deliberate attempt to sabotage the BNP's newly found fundraising prowess, undo all the organisational advances of the last two years and literally to destroy the party.
Please refer to the FAQ below to answer some of the common questions and rumours that have arisen from the leftist inspired anti-fundraising smear campaign:
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why can't we do it ourselves?
A: Because professional fundraising is a complex and skilled profession that requires years of experience to master the various techniques and methods that accompany it.
To say that after two years of roaring and unparalleled success we should ditch our proven consultant and hand the financial safety of the BNP over to well-meaning but totally unskilled political amateurs is absurd in the extreme and perhaps a touch sinister as only our enemies would benefit from such a backward step.
Other political parties hire experts — we are no different.
Q: Has it been successful?
A: The figures speak for themselves. This is why so many people are questioning the motives of those who say we should never utilise the skills of friendly outside consultants and professionals for the benefit of our sacred cause.
Why not? Time is running out for our country and we do not have the luxury of being the 'odd one out' on the political landscape and not exploring the benefits professionals could bring to our cause.
Q: Are the fees justified?
A: There has been a lot of hype and downright lies about the fees paid to the Midas Consultancy (Richard Edmond's farcical statement being a recent example) and there is a need to put these fees in perspective.
Firstly, in reality the Midas involvement with the BNP doesn't cost us a penny because Midas only takes a fee from funds that we would never have seen anyway without the fundraising techniques and methods of the Midas Consultancy.
Secondly, in exchange for fees of £165,000 over two years, Midas has generated a fundraising income for the BNP of £2.3 million — and saved us over £156,000 through their procurement techniques and expertise. Not a bad deal by any yardstick!
Let us also remember that Midas came on board with a one off goodwill appeal for us that netted the party £136,000 in December 2007 and January 2008.
How many people have ever done that for us before?
The Midas fees, originally 7.5% of funds raised, were later capped at a flat fee which equated to less than the percentage, and this fee is significantly less than the industry average for such a service.
Q: Isn't a fundraising pack in the post every few weeks too much?
A: Possibly, but until we reach a membership level of 20,000 it is necessary and we must consider the enormous success that has been achieved via the funds raised by the fundraising packs.
Think of all the breakthroughs that have been achieved over the last two years and then ask yourself: aren't they worth it for the small sacrifice of receiving a fundraising pack every few weeks?
If you don't appreciate the fundraising appeals, then by all means read them and then bin them, or better still, pass them onto someone else.
But always remember, these appeals are the party's lifeline and many thousands of people do appreciate them and do donate to the party.
People may be not always be able to donate every time, but many, especially elderly members and those who are not in touch with an active group, say that the appeal letters keep them in touch with the party's plans and progress, so they are always happy to receive them.
This is a key reason for the party's record renewal rate last year. Every few weeks is the optimal time gap established by the fundraising industry that will generate a stable income for any organisation.
Remember: if they didn't work, we wouldn't use them. The advice from Midas is that when we reach a stable membership base of 20,000 we will be able to be self-sufficient and can then scale back significantly on the fundraising appeals.
This is why we recently launched an experiment where local branches and groups keep all the money that they raise by direct recruitment of new members.
The sooner were there the better, but until we do we should be grateful that we have the fundraising ability to keep us afloat and able to make real progress.
If you can help the British Resistance then please donate any amount to help us fend off the Equalities Commission legal attack on the party. Click here to send a small gift.
Yours sincerely,
Nick Griffin, MEP
