Barack Obama presidential campaign Fundraising

The campaign began accepting online donations on April 4, 2011, the day Obama announced his candidacy. In the first 24 hours after online donations began to be accepted, over 23,000 online donations of $200 or less were made. President Obama headlined his first campaign fundraiser in April 2011 in Chicago. He also headlined fundraisers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York in April 2011. On April 29, 2011, it was announced that Matthew Barzun, the United States Ambassador to Sweden, would serve as finance chairman. Many sources claim that the campaign may be the first campaign in U.S. history to raise more than one billion dollars. In March 2011, Campaign Chairman Jim Messina asked a group of 450 top donors to raise $350,000. The LGBT community has donated a record amount so far to the campaign. During the second fundraising quarter of 2011 (the first of the campaign), the campaign raised a record amount of $86,000,000. More than 550,000 individuals donated towards the campaign in the second quarter of 2011, which is a much larger number than the 180,000 individuals who donated to Obama's 2008 campaign during the first half of 2007.