Czech Pirates ask for monthly donations like a subscription

After its failure in the municipal elections, the Czech Pirate Party has launched a fundraising campaign called “A Hundred for Czechia” and is urging supporters to set up a monthly contribution just like a Netflix subscription. The offer starts at 100 crowns a month, with 500 crowns billed as the “most popular” option, though supporters can give any other amount. In return, the Pirates promise only a “better Czechia”.

“Our main problem is that we don’t have as much money for campaigning as other parties. So we are launching a new fundraising project in which people can subscribe to a better Czechia by sending a small donation every month,” said Zdeněk Hřib.

Money between elections

The party announced the campaign right after the municipal elections, in which it lost significant ground in Prague, and its number of councillors also fell in the rest of the municipalities. The Pirates usually collect donations during election campaigns, but now they want a regular income in between as well, especially as there will be no elections next year. It was a planned move: the party registered the domain back in late August.

Hřib explains that the party has to turn to small donors because “the Pirates are not looked after by developers or other interest groups”. Political marketing expert Miloš Gregor of Masaryk University points out that since its founding the party has stressed its independence from businesspeople to whom it would owe a debt for their money.

An 84 million shortfall

The Pirates do also receive money from the state budget. By a rough estimate, this year they are entitled to about 30 million crowns in the permanent contribution and in contributions for seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, the regions and Prague. They received roughly another 50 million as a one-off payment for last year’s Chamber of Deputies election. With three million for the work of the political institute, state support this year comes to about 84 million crowns.

Gregor notes that parties have a guaranteed basic income from the state, but those amounts have not been indexed for a long time. Campaign spending limits remain at the 2017 level, and rising costs, he says, push parties to hide part of their real expenses through accounting tricks. “To think that parties can run campaigns for the same money as almost ten years ago is naive,” he said.

Overcoming distrust

Winning support from people outside the party is not easy, the expert believes. Parties have a poor reputation in Czech society, which he links in part to the experience of Communist one-party rule. The willingness to donate is also lowered by the awareness that parties already receive money from the state. If any party manages to change that attitude, it will gain more stable funding.

Regular donors also give the party a way to stay in touch with them and to approach them before elections. “When someone gives you a hundred a month, it means you have tied them to you and can work with them: you have their contact details and you can mobilize them,” Gregor summed up.

Besides the Pirates, the Greens in Czechia are also calling for regular monthly contributions, and their German counterparts use a similar model. Supporters of the German Green party who pay at least ten euros a month receive a members’ magazine several times a year.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz