Small but mighty—How donations turbo-charged Možemo’s campaign in Zagreb
- beawhite
- Jul 14
- 6 min read
After winning big in 2021, Croatia’s progressive movement Možemo! managed to mobilise broad support once again at last month’s local elections in Zagreb, with voters returning them to the municipal government and re-electing Tomislav Tomašević as mayor. A major achievement of their campaign was becoming the party with the most small donors, underscoring their grassroots strength.
Following their fourth campaign in just over a year (coming after parliamentary, European and presidential elections in which they also achieved high fundraising numbers), the campaigners can finally take a breath. ECDA’s Bea White spoke to Marijana Rimanić, part of the coordination and communications team of Možemo! about why small donations have been so crucial for the campaign and how fundraising is ultimately more about connections than cash.
As campaigning in Croatia’s recent local elections got underway, Mozemo! faced crucial strategic decisions in Zagreb. While the movement has emerged from a grassroots democratic initiative, being the incumbents can be a double-edged sword. In this case, Marijana Rimanić explains, “it gave us the opportunity not just to talk about our program, policies and values but also to look back at what we had done in the previous mandate and show that we are capable of bringing fundamental change to the city.” With concrete results to show, the campaign team tried to put this into a narrative that was easily understandable and could translate onto both social media and conventional media. They focused on infrastructural improvements to make the city greener and improve public services, as well as the stabilization of management of the city finances—which had been on the verge of bankruptcy when Tomislav Tomašević first took over.
Overall, Marijana feels they were successful—the narrative caught on beyond their supporter base. “We tried to bring together achievements and promises,” she explains. If the previous mandate was about stabilization, the next one was all about development and progress “to finish what we started.”
At the beginning, the party relied entirely on donations for funding, as they had no special connections to media or big sponsors. As a result, they had to quickly overcome any hesitation about fundraising. “We were initially shy about asking people for money but realized people want to show support in this way and will donate as much as they want to,” says Marijana. “Not everyone has time to volunteer or get involved but this is the perfect way for people to show support beyond just voting.”
Through the campaign they managed to collect over 2000 individual donations and fundraised over 55,000 euros. While this didn’t surpass the total amount raised by other parties, it was by far the highest number of individual donations: seven times larger than all the other campaigns combined.
Eyes on the prize
Through previous campaigns, Možemo! had gained a large number of WhatsApp group contacts and social media followers, but it was its large email list—consisting not only of members but also a broader group of supporters and general voters—that turned out to be its secret weapon. Most donations came from newsletter outreach, with 10-15 euros the most common donation.
The party's email list—consisting not only of members but also a broader group of supporters and general voters—turned out to be its secret weapon.
“This was our target,” explains Marijana, “we never expected donations that would be a burden—either for supporters or for us as a party. The goal was always a bigger number of donors.”
Since the email list was the primary source of donations, they focused on growing this list. “People who receive your newsletter are the voters strongly connected to you,” says Marijana, “they are informed, able to be your ambassadors in their own circles—we ask them to spread the arguments and information. That can be hard to measure but it’s important to have this pool of people.”
Getting personal
The team tailored messages according to the medium—adapting it for newsletter, Facebook or Instagram.
Requests for donations on behalf of particular candidates, allowed them to reach slightly different audiences. “When it feels more personal, it works better,” explains Marijana. “This is also why I think that newsletter and emails work better than social media, where it feels more like a broadcast and you're only one thousands or millions seeing the post.”
Transparency build trust
In a previous campaign, Tomislav Domes, head of finances in Možemo!, sent a rare personal email to highlight the urgent need for donations to their European election campaign. Domes was in charge of ensuring all contributions were transparently managed and used efficiently. The mailing stressed that just €10 from supporters could help the party secure a second seat in the European Parliament.
This was also a reflection of the party’s commitment to transparency and responsible financial management, in contrast with the corrupt practices of political adversaries and previous political establishment. It was a message they deployed with caution, however, without making accusations but rather diligently following all the legal requirements such as not having anonymous donations, and collecting data about donations and reporting it. They made a point of openly communicating with donors and potential donors about these principles and practices—stressing the importance of legal compliance and why this information needed to be collected.
Gaining trust and confidence was crucial especially when asking for donations from people with limited means. “So we shared as much as possible about the process with people,” explains Marijana. In Croatia, lists of donors are publicly disclosed, something the party used to its advantage, encouraging people to appear on this list.
For Marijana, this was “a detail that speaks to the bigger picture, saying we are doing things by the book even if it’s a complicated and long process. It's also a message on how we are tackling the city finances and dealing with the parties' finances in general.”
Overall, they always tried to connect donations with policies and concrete plans, not just raising money for the sake of the campaign alone. “It's always better to say this is what we are going to do and this is why we need your help, not just asking people to give us their spare euros,” says Marijana.
Beating the backlash
The campaign faced a lot of attacks from political opponents during the campaign. “We used these attacks in the campaigns,” explains Marijana. “We showed how they wanted to get their hands on Zagreb—the biggest municipal budget in Croatia.” By reacting to the accusations levelled against them, “we realised people wanted to show solidarity especially in these moments of attacks.” In fact, “the biggest amount of donations arrived when our opponents attacked us.”
The number of donations also increased as the elections drew closer. Paying attention to the importance of good timing allowed the campaign to get a boost at critical moments, such as between rounds until the very last moment, but also not receiving donations too late when they would be ineligible and have to be returned—these deadlines always had to be kept in mind
The only way is up?
The story of this campaign is further proof that the real power of fundraising doesn’t lie in hitting big numbers but rather as a means to engage, mobilize and retain supporters.
So with the elections now behind them, how will the campaigners sustain the momentum they’ve achieved in Zagreb and across the country?
The list built up through successive campaigns has become a precious resource, Marijana explains: “We are seeing this list as a group of really engaged people. And we are building long-term relationships with them through newsletters. Between campaigns, we provide information about our work, in a way that can be easily digested. We are trying to keep them informed, engaged, and close to us. And of course, we do ask them to help us by joining, volunteering...”
Curious to know more about small-donor fundraising and how it could boost your campaign? Get in touch: Info[@]centerfordigitalaction.eu
Featured image: Možemo! official Facebook account
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