Fundraising intelligence
The fundraiser directory, what events really cost, filing-derived legislator profiles, honest strategy, compliance tie-ins, and private ROI tracking. A planning tool — not a solicitation tool.
Fundraising buys a seat at the table, never a vote. Nothing on this page implies — or may be read as implying — that any contribution, ticket purchase, or hosted event purchases an official act. A contribution given or received in exchange for an official act is quid pro quo, and it is a crime. Profiles below describe filing patterns (who gives, when, how much) — never a "price of access." ROI tracking measures her own relationship outcomes against her own spend — her private bookkeeping, never a claim about what donations buy.
Public fundraiser invitations are ephemeral — faxed and emailed to invitee lists, rarely archived, with no filing requirement that would surface them in a dataset. As of 2026-10-01 no current public invitation met the verification bar, so the directory starts empty by design — she adds invitations she receives, stored only in this browser. Legislator profiles are derived from the real filed-contribution dataset (2023–2026); cadence and donor-mix figures are computed from the top-12 donor sample and labeled as such. Cost figures are labeled estimates with methodology unless marked VERIFIED.
Invitations she adds live here — searchable by legislator, date, region, and price. Every entry carries its source and date-stamp. Nothing is pre-loaded: the site never invents events.
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Add an invitation
Copied from the invitation as received. Stored only in this browser. Fields marked * are required.
What it costs to host and what it costs to attend. Figures marked ESTIMATE carry their methodology; figures marked VERIFIED are anchored to a primary source. Nothing here is a quote.
Hosting
Methodology: planning ranges compiled 2026-10-01 from published Sacramento-market catering menus (SAFE Credit Union Convention Center / Sodexo Live 2024: plated dinner $63–$84/person; Zinfandel Grille banquet $46–$48/person + tax + 20% service; Plate 38 3-course plated $48/person; Circa Restaurant $19–$41/person) plus standard venue/staffing conventions. All-in figures assume tax + 18–22% service. Ranges, not quotes — actual bids vary by date, headcount, and menu.
| Format | Typical headcount | Catering / head (all-in) | Venue | Realistic all-in budget |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coffee / breakfast (restaurant private room) | 25–40 | $40–$70 | $0–$750 room (often waived with F&B minimum) | $3,500–$7,500 |
| Luncheon | 40–60 | $55–$85 | $500–$1,500 | $6,000–$12,000 |
| Evening reception (heavy hors d'oeuvres + bar) | 75–150 | $70–$110 | $1,500–$4,000 | $10,000–$25,000 |
| Seated dinner (host-committee format) | 80–200 | $85–$140 | $2,500–$6,000 | $25,000–$75,000 |
| Leadership gala / golf day | 150–400 | $110–$180 | $5,000–$15,000 | $75,000–$200,000+ |
Fundraiser consultant: $2,500–$7,500/month retainer or ~10–15% of gross in peak season (market convention, ESTIMATE). Invitations/design/print: $1,500–$4,000. Valet, AV, photography: $1,000–$5,000 combined. Compliance (treasurer, filings): $1,500–$3,000/quarter for an active committee.
A $5,900 max-out ticket on a $60/head breakfast nets ~$5,840 per max donor; the same ticket on a $140/head dinner nets ~$5,760 — format barely moves the margin on max donors. Where format matters is volume: receptions scale headcount, dinners scale host-committee prestige. Budget the event against realistic yield (confirmed RSVPs × expected tier mix), not capacity.
Attending
Methodology: ticket asks are not filed anywhere — no public dataset prices them. Ranges below are consistent with the FPPC per-election caps (verified, table below), documented Sacramento tier structures (host / sponsor / patron / ticket), and the filing-derived medians (median per-record contribution: $1,104 Assembly, $568 Senate). Treat as planning ranges; the invitation is the only authoritative price.
| Office | Breakfast / coffee | Lunch | Reception / dinner | Host committee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assemblymember (rank-and-file) | $250–$500 | $500–$1,000 | $1,000–$2,500 | $2,500–$5,900 |
| Senator (rank-and-file) | $500–$1,000 | $1,000–$2,000 | $2,000–$5,900 | $2,500–$5,900 |
| Leadership (Speaker, Pro Tem, committee chairs) | $1,000–$2,500 | $1,500–$2,500 | $2,500–$5,900 | $5,900 (max-out) + leadership-PAC events to $25k |
| Constitutional officers (AG, Treasurer, etc.) | $1,000–$2,500 | $2,500–$5,000 | $5,000–$9,800 | $9,800 (max-out) |
| Governor | $2,500–$10,000 | $5,000–$15,000 | $10,000–$39,200 | $39,200 (max-out) |
FPPC 2025–2026 per-election limits (primary and general are separate elections). Source: FPPC contribution-limits chart (fppc.ca.gov), effective Jan 1, 2025 – Dec 31, 2026. Next adjustment published ~Jan 2027.
| Candidate | Person / PAC per election | Small-contributor committee | Political party |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senate / Assembly | $5,900 | $11,800 | No limit |
| Lt. Gov, AG, Treasurer, Controller, SOS, SPI, Insurance Comm., BOE | $9,800 | $19,600 | No limit |
| Governor | $39,200 | $39,200 | No limit |
There is no public price-history series for fundraiser tickets — invitations are ephemeral and asks are never filed. The closest verifiable time series is the contribution-limit history: legislature cap $5,500 (2023–24) → $5,900 (2025–26). Ticket asks cannot exceed the cap, so the cap history is the honest price ceiling over time.
Derived from the real filed-contribution dataset — 118 legislators, cycle 2023-01-01 → present. Every profile is labeled: built from public filings + observable patterns — never private knowledge.
Method notes: average contribution = total ÷ filed records. Top-12 concentration = top-12 donors' share of the total (cycle median 17.5%) — a concentration measure, not a small-donor share (unitemized sub-$100 buckets are excluded from donor rankings by dataset design). Cadence = quarterly filing-date counts across the top-12 donor sample only — a timing signal, not a full transaction timeline. Donor-type labels are the dataset's heuristic classifications from filed names. Event-format preferences: not publicly documented for any legislator — never inferred.
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Fundraising is relationship infrastructure with real costs. Trade-offs, not a sales pitch.
Skip or stay home when: (1) your bill is before the member's committee that week — the appearance of a timed contribution can taint the bill; (2) the member is in a scandal cycle — host-committee names get screenshotted; (3) you've already maxed out to the committee this election — a second check is a returned check and an embarrassment; (4) the room will be full of your client's direct competitors and your presence adds nothing; (5) you're attending out of guilt, not strategy — fatigue spending is the fastest way to burn a giving budget.
Host when you need to demonstrate coalition breadth, introduce a new client to the member's world, or consolidate many small relationships into one room. Budget 3–4 months lead time and a realistic yield model (confirmed RSVPs × tier mix), not capacity. Attend when the goal is maintenance, intelligence (who's on the host committee), or a specific conversation the room makes possible. Neither when the timing creates an optics problem no relationship gain can offset.
Every dollar tracked against limits and budgets. Cross-links: Can I Do This? (rule engine) · My Compliance (her FPPC log).
A fundraiser ticket is a campaign contribution — not a gift. It counts against the per-election contribution limit ($5,900/person to a legislator, 2025–26 VERIFIED), must be paid from personal funds (never employer-reimbursed as a pass-through), and is reportable by the committee — not against your $10/month lobbyist gift ban. If you are registered to lobby that official's agency, you may not contribute at all (Gov. Code §85702). Use Log it → FPPC log on any directory entry and it lands in your compliance log as a contribution entry for your quarterly draft. Check the rule first →
Her registration scope
Tell the module your registration scope once — every fundraiser then auto-checks the lobbyist contribution ban (Gov. Code §85702). Stored only in this browser.
Client giving budgets
Caps per client per cycle. Spend logged below aggregates here with 80% / 100% alerts. Browser-local.
Spend log
Tickets purchased, hosting costs, sponsorships. Each entry can also drop into your FPPC log.
Evaluate her fundraising spend against her relationship outcomes, using her records. This tracks correlation in her own bookkeeping — it is never a claim about what donations buy. Browser-local only; export or delete any time.
A contribution buys presence in a room. Meetings that follow are the product of her work — the follow-up, the substance, the trust built over time. This ledger exists to answer "where did my giving budget go, and what did I do with the access?" — not "what did my dollars purchase."
Log an outcome
Spend vs. outcomes
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From your CRM
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Everything on this page lives in this browser (localStorage silobbyist_fundraising_v1) — never uploaded, shared, or used to train anything. Your FPPC log entries live in silobbyist_compliance_v1; your CRM in silobbyist_crm_v1; each page manages its own export/delete.
Methodology
Profiles: filed contribution records via Cal-Access / CalMatters Digital Democracy (data/money/money-index.json, build 2026-10-01, cycle 2023-01-01 → present, feed through ~May 2026). Directory: user-added invitations only — no public feed exists. Costs: FPPC 2025–2026 contribution-limit chart (verified) + published Sacramento catering menus and market conventions (estimates, methodology on-page).
No event-format preferences (not publicly documented). No ticket price history (asks are never filed). No small-donor shares (unitemized buckets excluded from donor rankings by design). No quid-pro-quo inferences — ever.
1) Click through each profile's source link. 2) Over $25k? Cross-check the committee in Cal-Access. 3) Donor-type labels are heuristic — spot-check before citing. 4) Rebuild the money dataset before the November 2026 general election.