A team effort: how Germany's Green party broke small-donor fundraising records

When snap elections were called in Germany in early 2025, campaigners had to react fast. Despite the short timeframe, the German Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) managed to roll out a record-breaking fundraising campaign ahead of the vote. Party fundraiser Sophia Lüneburg explains some of the factors behind this success – including anticipation, preparation, and an integrated approach to digital fundraising.

On 6 November 2024, Germany’s ruling coalition collapsed. Originally scheduled for autumn 2025, a general election was announced for the end of February. This was the situation we, the fundraising team of the German Green party, suddenly found ourselves in. With plans and deadlines out the window, we suddenly had four months to run a campaign and raise as much money as possible to give us a fighting chance in the election.

Even in our wildest dreams we couldn’t have anticipated what happened next. Over those four months we were able to raise approximately 7 million euros from more than 100.000 individual donations, making it the most successful small-donor fundraising campaign in European party history.

Our candidate was Robert Habeck, former vice chancellor and minister of climate and economy. The “Team Robert” campaign focused closely on him. But in the end, it was very much a team effort in every sense. These four months presented a significant learning curve for us. We hope some of what we learned can now be useful to progressives across Europe. Because at the heart of our fundraising campaign were small donors contributing to a cause they believed in, and this cause unites us: to stand up for democracy, to follow our values and make this world a better, safer place for generations to come.

Embracing the time in between elections

While the fall of the coalition came suddenly, it did not hit us totally unprepared. As every campaigner knows, the next election starts when the last one finishes. Previously in 2024, we fundraised digitally for the European election for the first time on a larger scale. Straight afterwards, we built on what we learned to develop strategies and processes for the general election. We invested in digital infrastructure, knowing our email list and digital fundraising would be a big part of the next campaign. We started working across departments, sharing ideas and knowledge with each other.

In this way, we were able to launch our campaign one day after the government fell. We sent out one simple message via all our channels: “Join Team Robert and be part of his campaign”. And either via a redirect after signing up or as a call to action to our existing list, our first ask after joining was to donate and help the campaign get off the ground.

Embracing our list as center of our universe

We grew our list from over 90.000 in November to over 250.000 people in February using petitions, our website, social media, events, and the networks of our politicians. This also meant getting everyone on board: our list had to be a key component of the campaign. This strategy benefited us all. People who signed up after a petition were more than happy to also share it on their social media. People who read our emails were invited to local volunteer events. People who donated once were keen to help again, for instance when we needed bigger halls for our tour events because more and more supporters kept showing up.

We provided the infrastructure; they were the network. And because we knew not everyone would be able to contribute in the same way, we made sure to let them know that if they did not have time to hang up a billboard, donating would make an impact just as meaningful, and vice versa.

We hit the one-million-euro mark only a month into the campaign, entirely coming from small donors. Especially with other parties making headlines with big donors, we clearly communicated that we relied on our “team” instead of millionaires. And the overwhelming response showed us that people truly wanted to be part of a movement. Donating is a way of funneling emotions and enabling people to take action in a meaningful way. This was one of our key insights after this campaign.

Embracing personality

Our campaign was very focused on Robert Habeck as our candidate. He maintained high popularity throughout, which was very helpful. And while at key moments in the campaign fundraising asks came from Robert directly, most of the time they came from us – the fundraising team.

We asked for donations via our list between one and three times a week. We always signed the emails in our name. We sent out a picture to our “team” telling them: we keep asking you, because we don't want to wake up after the election wondering if we could have done more. We named our opponents clearly. We used political momentum to convey the urgency of the situation. We met our donors halfway, using the data available to us to respond to their interests and capabilities. But we always made sure they knew who was asking, establishing a connection and trust.

Embracing challenges and overcoming them – together

We were able to accomplish much more than we expected when we launched the campaign. That did not mean we had no challenges to overcome. But most of these challenges are not unique to us – instead they are broadly applicable across the field of fundraising.

One very successful aspect of our campaign was online advertising. Following the ban on ads across social platforms, this is a challenge we have to face in the future. Another lingering issue is that we are underdogs in terms of funding. Whether as a result of the consequences of regulation or billionaires buying social media platforms and supporting the political extreme, countering populism is and will remain a challenge. This is why we believe those in the progressive camp – including not only parties but NGOs as well – should learn from each other and collaborate to achieve our goals.

The unpredictability of politics and today's world keeps us on our toes as fundraisers and campaigners. To cope with this reality, we need clear communication, as well as approved and functional processes and structures. A campaign depends on trust and teamwork. This was a crucial part of our success and the record number of donations we were able to collect. And given how suddenly you can be thrown into turmoil, hitting the ground running was vital. Because as we know, after one election ends, the next one begins.