Caging

How do you maximize the velocity of your fundraising?

Processing your contributions and gifts quickly and in accordance to Federal Election Committee regulations is a strategic advantage for state-wide and national political organizations.

U.S. Postal Service Proposes Cutting 120,000 JobsA highly efficient inbound caging process means that your team will have access to your funds faster which maximizes your strategic options.

Processing contributions by mail internally isn’t as easy as it looks. Your finance team has to be prepared for:

  • unpredictable mail volume spikes,
  • managing exception or non-compliant contributions,
  • manually processing credit card donations securely,
  • donation returns,
  • and any number of other unanticipated situations.

The term caging is a derivative of the casino teller or financial teller cage and is related to services involving the control and protection of funds.

 

Solution

CMDI compliance cageLet CMDI manage your compliance caging. We have a unique, purpose-built caging facility and staff specifically assembled to serve Republican committees who need that competitive operational edge.

Our caging staff has extensive knowledge of FEC rules and regulations that can not be found anywhere. The benefits of outsourcing your caging to CMDI include:

  • SPEED – During the height of the political season, our cage is processing almost one hundred thousand pieces of mail every 24 hours. That means that your donations are hitting your bank account within hours of their receipt.
     
  • ASSURED COMPLIANCE – Our caging staff has extensive knowledge of the FEC rules that regulate campaign contributions and all donations are screened for exceptions such as over-limit contributions.
     
  • SECURITY – CMDI provides total chain-of-custody tracking and archival of every contribution received. Learn more about our physical & data security.

 

The Compliance Caging Process

  1. FEC Compliance CagingReceiving: Mail is retrieved from a local post office box on an agreed upon schedule or packages can be forwarded to our facility directly. This is where the “chain of custody” begins.
     
  2. Processing:
    • Mail is opened and sorted according to your specifications.
    • “Exception” contributions that cannot be deposited due to check problems 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 file, thus greatly reducing the chances of creating duplicate records.
    • 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 in off site in vaults for 3 years.