Starting from a public fundraising campaign site (crowdfunding), Dukung Calonmu is to shift into a comprehensive digital campaign platform. Even though it hasn’t left the crowdfunding feature which is currently known as a donation, the Founder & CEO, Christian Hutabarat shared his vision and ambition with us.
He said his service pivot was based on in-depth observations regarding the current conditions in Indonesia. Fundraising platforms have not been fully accepted by political contestants.
“Such a concept is difficult to enter into Indonesian political culture because there are several obstacles that are encountered. Among them, political contestants are concerned about the small number of donations coming in. Then there is a concern that by raising campaign funds, there is a negative perception that they (political contestants) don’t have the capacity economically,” Christian said.
Currently, it is still difficult for political digital platforms such as Support Your Candidates to instantly disrupt habits or methods that have previously been embedded in Indonesian society for a long time. For that reason, Dukung Calonmu strives to present relevant features and services for users.
“Political contestants who are included in our scope are not limited to the special legislative circle, but also for those candidates for RT heads, BEM heads, student council leaders can take advantage of our platform. Starting from a small-scale success story, the hope is that Support Candidates can expand its coverage to medium to the national scale,” Christian said.
Dukung Calonmu will continue to actively communicate with regulators such as the KPU and Bawaslu, to ensure that the steps taken are in accordance with existing regulations. Meanwhile, to create a wider network and provide even more massive education, they work with organizations to communities ranging from small to large scale.
“We hope that support from stakeholders can help Dukung Calonmu to be better known and eventually used as a digital campaign platform that supports political contestants and the general public,” Christian added.
Two leading features
Because the function is not used for daily needs, Dukung Calonmu is currently not available as an application. It only use the website.
One of its features is dubbed the “Digital Campaign”, and includes several interesting options that can be used. For example, to create a campaign site, a candidate profile information center, to a center for interaction with the community.
There is also an “Online Election” feature, providing options such as easy voter registration, verification of registered voters with guaranteed security.
For the donation feature, Dukung Calonmu is to embed this choice in the Digital Campaign feature. For contestants who want to launch donation activities, they can take advantage of this option by managing the money accommodated in advance by Dukung Calonmu team, using a third party payment gateway.
After the donation has been successfully collected, the money can be disbursed through a verified account. Dukung Calonmu already has a number of users who are scattered in their locations. Not only in Indonesia, they claim to have users in the Netherlands.
“Through Dukung Calonmu, the wider community can find out more relevant information about political contestant candidates, build direct relationships and, if interested, can make donations according to the initiation of the political contestants,” Christian said.
For the monetization strategy that is implemented, Dukung Calonmu provides a subscription option (subscribe) within a certain time frame and also certain features that can be used. Meanwhile, Online Election is a price package, depending on the number of voters who will use it.
Claiming to be the first and only platform to present political campaigns online, there are several plans and targets for Dukung Calonmu to achieve, including conducting fundraising.
“Dukung Calonmu’s target next year is certainly to be able to develop even more, and also for the product itself, there will always be developments to improve existing products to satisfy or meet all the needs that are difficult for our users,” Christian said.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian
