VICIdial for political fundraising — PAC + 501(c)(4) outbound

Political fundraising is its own dialer shape — different from commercial sales (donor conversion not product sale), different from voter contact (smaller volume, deeper script). Federal DNC doesn't apply but state rules + cell-phone consent still do, and FEC record-keeping means 7-year retention is the floor.

Federal + state posture

| Rule | Political fundraising posture | | --------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | | Federal DNC | Does NOT apply to political solicitations | | State DNC | Varies — some states carve out, some don't | | TCPA cell-phone consent | STILL required for autodialer + pre-recorded | | CallerID accuracy | Required (Truth in Caller ID Act) | | Live-agent calls | Most permissive — federal DNC is irrelevant | | Solicitation disclosure | Required up-front in many states |

The federal-DNC carve-out is the operational difference vs commercial. You can call DNC-listed landlines for political solicitation; you can't pretext-call about a "donation" while actually doing commercial sales.

Per-client isolation for PAC consultancies

If you're a fundraising consultancy running calls for multiple PACs / candidates / committees, segment hard:

• One VICIdial campaign per client
• One outbound trunk per client (so attribution + reporting per-PAC is clean)
• Per-trunk TCPA mode set to that client's compliance contract — see /features/tcpa-compliance
• Sub-users restricted to their client's campaigns

This matters for FEC reporting AND for protecting one client's donor list from another client's agents.

Conversion-by-script setup

The VICIdial pieces that support a fundraising script:

• Web Form Address per campaign — agent sees donor history, prior ask amounts, recent contributions
• Hot Keys for the common dispositions: PLEDGE, CC_CAPTURE, NOT_INTERESTED, CALL_BACK, ADD_DNC, WRONG_NUMBER
• Recording: usually ALLFORCE for QA + dispute resolution (challenged donations are real)
• Pause + resume workflow — donors who hit voicemail get retried at a different time-of-day slot
• Suggested ask amount — pulled from donor history via the Web Form Address

Recording — usually yes, for fundraising

Unlike voter-contact (where most campaigns don't record), fundraising usually records:

• Dispute defense — challenged donations are real; the recorded pledge is the evidence
• QA / coaching — script optimisation requires hearing the call
• FEC reporting — solicitation calls are part of the contribution audit trail

Set Recording Override = ALLFORCE. Two-party-consent states get the announce-beep. 7-year retention via /features/external-backups.

FEC record-keeping

For PACs, you need:

• Caller log per call (agent, timestamp, outcome)
• Donor records linkable to the specific solicitation call (who they were called by, what they pledged)
• 7-year retention on the records (FEC + IRS overlap)

VICIdial logs the call data; export nightly to your fundraising CRM (NGP VAN, ActBlue, Anedot, NumeroUSA, Aristotle) via webhook or scheduled export. The export script is ~30 lines — query vicidial_log joined to vicidial_list, post each row to the CRM's intake endpoint.

Compliance for c3 / c4 / PAC stacks

Fundraising orgs often run multiple legal entities:

• 501(c)(3) charity — full charity carve-outs from telemarketing rules apply for genuinely charitable purposes
• 501(c)(4) social welfare — telemarketing rules apply UNLESS explicit charity purposes
• PAC / Super-PAC — political-call rules apply

If you run a c3 + c4 + PAC stack on the same dialer, separate the campaigns + lists + dispositions. Cross-purpose TCPA exposure is real — calling a c3 donor about a PAC ask without clean consent is the kind of thing the FEC notices.

Plan sizing

| Operation | Plan suggestion | | ------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | | Single PAC, 5–15 callers | Starter or Growth | | Multi-PAC consultancy, 15–50 agents | Growth or Pro (2 dedicated vCPU) | | Major fundraising firm, 50–150 agents | Pro or Business (4 dedicated vCPU, 16 GB) | | Enterprise consultancy, 150+ | Business or Scale + per-state regions |

Fundraising is usually smaller-volume than voter contact but more recording-intensive.

Carrier choice

• Telnyx — multi-region, A-attestation, moderate per-minute. Most fundraising volumes fit.
• Bandwidth — direct US carrier; matters more for end-of-quarter ask waves where answer rate decides the haul.
• Local-presence DIDs: donors in some states (especially older donors) answer area-code-matching numbers more reliably.

Common mistakes

1. Cross-purpose call between c3 + c4 + PAC — call started as charity ask, ended with PAC pitch. TCPA exposure + IRS issue + FEC issue. Separate campaigns, no script crossover.
2. No recording on the pledge step — challenged donation, no evidence. Set Recording Override = ALLFORCE and accept the storage cost.
3. CallerID = PAC name without "paid for by" — some states require the disclosure in the call, not just the FEC filing. Build into the script.
4. State DNC ignored under federal carve-out — federal DNC doesn't apply but state DNC often does. Per-state campaign with per-state DNC list.
5. No FEC-friendly export of solicitation calls — comes home to roost during quarterly reporting. Wire nightly export to your fundraising CRM week one.

What VICIfast handles

| Concern | Who | | -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | OS + Asterisk patches | Platform | | Daily snapshots | Platform | | Audit log | Platform | | BLA AGI hook | Platform (you BYO key per client) | | 7-year recording retention | Both (snapshot rollover + your S3 lifecycle) | | Per-client trunk isolation | Platform (you configure per-trunk modes) | | FEC reporting | You (we export; you assemble the quarterly filing) | | State DNC list management | You (load + refresh per state) |

Get started

Start a 7-day trial → — no card. Most fundraising programs land on Growth or Pro; multi-PAC consultancies usually scope on Pro+. Contact us for FEC-audit-prep DPA review.