California Fair Political Practices Commission Frequently Asked Questions: Campaign Activity
A. No. So long as the individual hosting does not spend more than $500, the event meets the home/office fundraiser exception. Note: The home/office fundraiser exception does not apply to a state lobbyist (or a cohabitant of a lobbyist) or a lobbying firm. 23. Q. May a private service, such as PayPal, be used to collect contributions electronically? A. Yes, so long as for each contribution of $100 or more, (a) the service is able to provide the name of the contributor, and (b) the committee reports all the information needed to meet the statutory recordkeeping requirements, including the name, address, occupation, and employer of individual contributors of $100 or more. Even if the company deducts a fee from the amount of the contribution, the entire amount of the contribution must be disclosed. The fees charged by the private service are reported as expenditures. 24. Q. May a committee accept a contribution in the form of bitcoin, a type of digital currency? A. Yes. Effective September 21, 2022, committees may solicit and accept contributions of cryptocurrency, or virtual currency, in any amount not exceeding any applicable contribution limit. Please note that committees cannot receive cryptocurrency contributions directly. Committees may receive these types of contributions through a payment processor selected to act as a vendor on behalf of the committee. Please see our Cryptocurrency Contributions Fact Sheet for more information on accepting these types of contributions. 25. Q. If a committee receives a contribution of $100 from an individual, but the individual did not provide the required occupation and employer information, what should the committee do? A. The individual contributor should be contacted to obtain the occupation and employer information. If the committee is required to report the contribution before the information is received, the committee should indicate on its campaign statement that the information has been requested and the statement will be amended when the information is received. However, if an individual’s occupation and employer information is not received within 60 days of receiving the contribution, the contribution must be returned. 26. Q. A business donated the use of an employee to work on two ballot measure campaigns during the month before the election. The employee spent a total of seven percent of their compensated time working on one measure and seven percent of their compensated time on the other measure. Since more than 10 percent of the employee’s compensated time was not spent on a single campaign, is their compensated time required to be reported as a nonmonetary contribution to the ballot measure committees from their employer? A. Yes. If an employee spends more than 10 percent of their compensated time working on campaign activity (one or multiple campaigns) in a calendar month, a nonmonetary contribution from the business must be reported. In this situation, each ballot measure committee must report a nonmonetary contribution in the amount of seven percent of the employee’s compensated time. The value of the nonmonetary contribution is based on the employee’s gross salary; standard benefits (i.e., retirement and health care) do not need to be counted.
www.fppc.ca.gov FPPC Advice: advice@fppc.ca.gov (866.275.3772) FPPC EAEU • 016 11-2022 • Page 5 of 11
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