Plus Three Launches Upgrade Of Fund-Raising Software

One of the key companies behind the Democratic National Committee's IT infrastructure--more commonly referred to as Demzilla--on Monday launched the latest version of its open-source fund-raising software. Version 3.1 of Plus Three LP's Arcos software lets fund-raising organizations and political campaigns treat their constituents more like consumers, thanks to business-intelligence features designed to enable more direct marketing.

The Democratic National Committee, Plus Three's largest customer, is using Arcos technology to store and track campaign donors much like customer-relationship-management software does for large companies. The committee has on file about 166 million registered voters that it can use to target people who might be undecided or leaning away from the party, says David Brunton, Plus Three's VP of sales and marketing.

Missouri's Democratic Party is using Plus Three's technology to make the most of the data it gathers from volunteers collecting information door-to-door. State branches of the party are the ones closest to the voters, says Jim Kottmeyer, executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party. "The plan is to send batch downloads to the national database," he says. In return, Missouri will receive reports that analyze the voter data it contributes to the national campaign effort.

"There are 2.4 million voters in the state of Missouri. We have to know which ones to talk to," Kottmeyer says. "Politics is all driven by voter-specific information these days."

The Republican National Committee also has a voter data repository, called Voter Vault, although a party spokeswoman declined to give specifics regarding its technology.