Maximize the Velocity of your Fundraising
Quickly processing your contributions and gifts in compliance with Federal Election Committee regulations is a strategic advantage for state-wide and national political organizations. CMDI empowers your campaign to use this advantage.
Caging is the process of picking up mailed-in donations from the Post Office, processing the payments, updating the mailing list and providing any needed FEC compliance services.
Are you prepared for your mail?
A highly-efficient, inbound caging process means that your team will have access to your funds faster. However, internally processing mail contributions isn’t as easy as it looks. Your finance team must anticipate:
- Unpredictable mail volume spikes
- Managing exception or non-compliant contributions
- Securely processing credit card donations
- Donation returns
- Other unexpected situations
CMDI is the solution.
Let CMDI manage your compliance caging. We have a unique, purpose-built caging facility and staff specifically assembled to serve political campaigns, committees, PACs, and nonprofits committees that need a competitive, operational edge.
Our caging staff has extensive knowledge of FEC rules and regulations that can not be found anywhere. Benefits include:
- Speed: During the height of the political season, our caging department can process almost 100,000 pieces of mail every 24 hours, so your donations are deposited within hours of their receipt.
- Assured Compliance: Our caging staff has extensive knowledge of the FEC rules that regulate campaign contributions. All donations are screened for exceptions, such as over-limit contributions or improperly written checks.
- Security: CMDI provides total chain-of-custody tracking and archival of every contribution received in our on-site, secure facility using biometric access, video surveillance, and 24-hour manned security. Learn more about our physical & data security.
The Compliance-Caging Process
1. Receiving
- • Mail is retrieved from a local post office box, on an agreed upon schedule, or packages can be forwarded to our facility directly. Once mail is picked up, the “chain of custody” begins.
2. Processing
- Mail is opened and sorted according to your specifications.
- “Exception” contributions, donations that cannot be deposited due
to check or compliance problems, are identified and forwarded to our
compliance team. - Contributions over the amount designated by client are pulled for review.
- Bank deposits and batches are prepared for data entry.
- Funds are electronically deposited.
3. Scanning
- Checks are scanned and digitally archived.
4. Data Entry
- New donation records are created or existing records are updated in Crimson.
- As each record is keyed, it is checked against possible duplicate records already on
- Credit card donations are manually processed in a PCI compliant manner.
5. Archival
- All physical documents submitted by donors are archived for 3 years.
- All data is backed up to tape on a rotating schedule of backups and stored off-site in vaults for certain period of time.
- All data entered into Crimson is also archived to a secure cloud.
