A visiting US congresswoman, who met with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in Taipei on Wednesday, said she was impressed with the party’s concept of “piggy bank” fundraising.
Tsai told a visiting US delegation about the “piggy bank” strategy that the party uses to collect small campaign donations.
Pointing to a piggy bank, Tsai said that it is what the party uses in its campaign fundraising.
The DPP is a grassroots party that does not have a lot of assets and most of its funds come from small donations, Tsai told the four congresswomen from the US Democratic Party who arrived on Monday. Their visit is to conclude on Sunday.
The “piggy bank” idea emerged during Tsai’s presidential run in 2011, when three children donated the contents of their piggy banks to her campaign. That action inspired people from across Taiwan to follow suit, Tsai said.
A total of 140,000 piggy banks were received, which represented 87 percent of the funds she raised at that time, she said.
Most donations are less than NT$10,000, Tsai said, adding that such donations symbolize her party’s commitment to “transparency, accountability and standing with the people of Taiwan.”
“This year we are doing it again,” she said in her remarks before a closed-door meeting with the congresswomen.
The leader of the delegation, US Representative Lois Frankel, said she was impressed with the DPP’s approach.
“I think it’s a great idea,” she said, adding that she would take the idea back to Democratic US presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Frankel and the other members of the delegation — representatives Frederica Wilson, Michelle Lujan Grisham and Stacey Plaskett — on Tuesday also met with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱).
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