What is RightRoots?
Where Does My Donation for a Candidate Go?
How Much of My Contribution to a Candidate Goes to the PAC?
Where Does My Donation to the PAC Go?
Who are the People Responsible for the PAC?
Who Chooses Which Candidates Appear On the PAC Site?
Where Can I View the PAC's Financial Disclosure Reports?
How can I Contact RightRoots?

What is RightRoots?

RightRoots is a one-stop resource to contribute to Republican candidates for federal office. RightRoots is the answer for those in the conservative community online who have been clamoring for a Republican counter to the Democrats who have, so far, out raised Republicans on the Internet.

RightRoots is an independent, federally registered political action committee (PAC) whose primary mission is to act as a "conduit" to raise money over the internet to help Republican candidates for federal office.

Independent political committees have the ability to act as conduits for candidate fundraising. They raise funds specifically for individual candidates, and pass those contributions through to the individual candidate. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), these contributions are reported by both the political committee and the recipient candidate's committee.

Every contribution a donor designates through our website for a particular candidate is passed directly to the recipient candidate (with the candidate paying a small percent to cover the credit card processing fee). Operating expenses (bank processing and accounting fees) are withdrawn from the contributions you make to candidates. While the amount varies depending on the credit card used, those fees usually total about four percent of the total you chose to give.

In most cases, credit card contribution systems employed by candidates charge between eight and fifteen percent, so your contribution through Right Roots usually results in more money actually getting to the candidate.

None. If you designate a contribution for a candidate, the only money deducted from that amount is the credit card processing fee. The PAC is supported only by contributions made to the PAC directly. As you complete the process of contributing, you will see an option to support the PAC (and we really hope you will). Only if you choose to designate an additional amount for the PAC does the PAC keep any of your contribution.

Any funds donated to the PAC are used to pay for maintenance and expansion of the site and to cover our legal and accounting fees. Our ability to cover these costs, and keep the site running as a resource for the GOP, is dependent upon any additional contributions you choose to make at the time you complete the checkout process. At this time, the staff operating the PAC do so on a volunteer basis and do not take any compensation.

RightRoots was created by Frank Donatelli, Craig Shirley, Michael Turk, Chuck DeFeo, Jason Torchinsky and Michael Palmer. They currently serve on the PAC's Board of Directors.

The initial slate of candidates, those visible at www.rightroots.com, was chosen by the PAC Directors based on the National Journal and Cook Political Report list of the most competitive races. The candidates included in the Rightroots slate were chosen by the bloggers that formed the coalition.

Due to time constraints, and our desire to help in the 2006 cycle, we were forced to limit the functionality we could provide and the number of candidates we could feature. We recognize there were a lot of good candidates running that could benefit from our site, but had to make a decision between helping where we could in 2006 or holding off until 2008.

For the 2008 cycle, the site will list every Republican candidate for federal office and allow anyone who is interested to create and promote their own slate of candidates.

RightRoots's Federal Election Commission reports can be found here: http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00422188/

How can I Contact Right Roots?

For questions about the PAC, including media inquiries, please contact info@rightroots.com.