His fundraising pot easily eclipses his republican rival John McCain who had only raised $316m by October and almost equals and could still beat the combined total of nearly $900m raised by President Bush and John Kerry in the 2004 election.

Obama is so successful he became the first candidate to opt out of the public financing system, meaning he had no limit on how much he could spend on his campaign and could continue fundraising until voters hit the polls. In contrast, McCain decided to take public financing in September, meaning he could no longer fundraise and was limited to$84m in the September-October period, ahead of the November election.

What can charity fundraisers learn from this?

Obama’s fundraising efforts were unique in many ways. It of course had traditional
high-level support, especially from celebrities. A fundraiser for Obama headlined by Barbra Streisand and attended by Steven Spielberg, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jodie Foster and Leonardo DiCaprio raised $9m alone.

But John McCain also benefited from traditional donors. His level of celebrity support may have been low, but when vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin entered the scene in September, McCain raked in $10m in just two days from Conservative voters, the highest McCain had ever made in a month.

Obama’s real and unprecedented success came through garnering small donors through the Internet. He raised a big proportion of his money through increments of only $200 or less. The average contribution was $86.

But how did he raise so much through faceless donors behind a computer screen?
Obama embraced the internet from day one. This strategy was at the heart of his plan to win the Democratic nomination. When he announced his campaign in February 2007, his Internet site was already fully developed and ready to go – with functions that allowed
visitors to donate money.

The Democratic campaign team also ploughed their work into social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook which helped mobilise young people, a group which has traditionally been uninterested in politics. Apparently, even Obama’s decision to run wasinfluenced by a MySpace page created by supporters not connected to any official campaign, who quickly attracted 160,000 signatories.

The Obama ’08 campaign even had an official iPhone application that provided informationon Obama’s positions on important issues, local and national campaign news, along with photos and videos from the campaign trail.

Fundraisers should take these lessons to heart. It takes around ten minutes to set up a simple MySpace or Facebook page, and setting up a giving facility online is increasingly easy. The public now use the internet for almost every part of their daily lives, from shopping and dating to entertainment – charities need to follow suit.

The results could dramatically change the success of your charity.  Just look at what Barack Obama achieved….