Apparently it is still a man’s world when it comes to donating to political campaigns. 
 
 A new report on political donation reveal that women lag significantly behind their male counterparts when it comes to opening their wallets for politicians and political causes. 
 
 The report, released Tuesday by She Should Run (SSR) and the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), found that women represented just 26 percent of the total given to candidates, political action committees (PACs) and party committees in 2010, down from 31 percent in 2008 and 27 percent in 2006. 
 
 Indeed, while the last three decade have seen women’s income rise more than 60 percent, women are consistently comprising less than one-third of all political donations. 
 
 According to Sam Bennett, president and CEO of SSR, women do not see the correlation between politics and their own desired social change in the same way men do, and they are turned off by the dirty nature of the political game. 
 
 “Women are far more motivated to want to see changes in their neighborhood and city on a social level than men are, but they have not yet made that connection [with politics],” Bennett told The Daily Caller. “In fact, women, far more than men, see the hard, sausage-making dimension of politics as something they are not willing to be engaged in. They find it distasteful.” 
 
 Ironically, while women are less likely to donate, female candidates are better fundraisers than their male counterparts. 
 
 The report reveals that in 2010, on average, female House incumbents raised about $100,000 more than their male colleagues, and female challengers raised over $74,000 more than male peers. 
 
 Bennett pointed to a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Political Science — “Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect: Why Do Congresswomen Outperform Congressmen?” — to explain the discrepancy between the fundraising numbers of male and female politicians. 
 
 “The truth of the matter is it is so rare to have a female in elected office in this country that she by definition — she by nature — is going to be a rock star. She is going to work harder by definition. She is going to be better at what she does,” Bennett said. “For her to have succeeded in the Wild Wild West of American politics, as a woman, she is a better performer, she works harder. And that is what you see in fundraising. Fundraising, counter to public belief, is not so much a reflection of talent, but of sheer hard work.” 
 
 While women are good fundraisers, they are not raising their money from other women. 
 
 According to the report, just four of the 2,215 candidates that ran in 2010 relied on donations from women for more than 50 percent of their campaign contributions. 
 
 Further, when women do donate they are slightly more likely to give to more Democratic candidates or endeavors. 
 
 Last cycle, women made up 34 percent of the contributions to Democratic committees, 23 percent of those to Republican committees and 18 percent to third party committees. 
 
 The mission of SSR is to encourage more women to get involved and run for office. According to Bennett, the hesitation of women to get involved in politics is detrimental to their issues receiving attention. 
 
 “When women run they win at equal rates as men, and when they run they now raise more money than men. What’s the problem? They are not running. What’s the problem? They aren’t giving politically.” 
 
 The report explains that the best way to get women involved is to make the connection between women’s political dollars and the issues about which they are concerned. 
 
 Bennett predicted, however, that more women will likely get involved this cycle due to the large number of pro-life bills that passed in 2011 and 2012 by state legislators, seeing the issue as motivation to get involved. 
 
 Follow Caroline on Twitter ||||| What is Vote With Your Purse? 
 
 Vote With Your Purse is a nationally acclaimed research study that examines trends in women’s political giving and financial power, women’s political fundraising results in election years, as well as provides concrete ideas on how to tap the “power of the purse” for the 2012 elections and beyond. She Should Run has identified a historic opportunity to fundamentally change women’s approach to political giving. 
 
 Lesson Learned: Women, Money, and Politics in the 2010 Election Cycle. 
 
 While women’s votes have been critical in deciding federal elections since the 1980’s, women still face significant barriers towards realizing equality in politics and public life. In 2010, our nation experienced the first backslide in electing more women to office in over 30 years. In the same year, it also experienced a decrease in women’s political giving, after securing very marginal increases in past elections. 
 
 
 
 She Should Run, working with the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), found that women still lag drastically behind men in political giving. In 2010, women made up just 26% of recorded federal political contributions to candidates, political action committees (PACs), and party committees. More importantly, this is down from 31% in the 2008 cycle and down from 30% in the 2006 cycle. 
 
 
 
 This report reveals a probable correlation between women’s political giving and their representation in Congress. It is telling that women’s political giving went down during the same cycle that women’s representation in Congress decreased. Our nation cannot afford these declines, given that women make up approximately 17% of Congress, yet represent over 50% of the population. 
 
 
 
 The time is ripe for women to increase their political giving to match their economic and voting power. 
 
 Key Findings 
 
 Only 27% of total contributions to individual candidates were made by women, representing a 6.3% decrease from 2008 
 
 If women voters across parties give as little as $5 to one female candidate, it would be enough to run a female candidate in every House race with a budget of over $1 million each. 
 
 In 2010, women made 30% of the total individual contributions to Democrats and just 25% of the total contributions to Republican candidates 
 
 Women made just 21% of the total contributions to PACs in 2010, down 1.8 percentage points from 2008 
 
 Women made 38% of the 2010 individual contributions to the Democratic National Committee, while women made 24% of contributions to the Republican National Committee 
 
 Despite the gender gap in political giving, female candidates are good fundraisers. In 2010, female House incumbents raised approximately $100,000 more than their male peers and female challengers raised over $74,000 more than male peers 
 
 Why Don't Women Give? 
 
 Data from past Vote with Your Purse reports explains women invest in political campaigns at lower rates because they do not think their money matters in showing support for a candidate and the issues they champion. Furthermore, women do not connect political leadership with positive, productive social change or view political giving as a civic responsibility. 
 
 Based on these findings, She Should Run has developed the following suggestions for candidates working to increase contributions from women donors: 
 
 Emphasize the impact they will have on specific issues 
 
 Better inspire women by describing political giving as a civic or social responsibility, like voting or volunteering 
 
 Provide multiple sources of independent information about their platform 
 
 Include women in the process by making more transparent how the money will be used 
 
 Provide opportunities for women donors to interact with campaign supporters and staff, and, of course, the candidate 
 
 Download the Reports: 
 
 Vote With Your Purse: Lesson Learned: Women, Money, and Politics in the 2010 Election Cycle 
 
 
 
 Released: April 2012 Vote with Your Purse: Harnessing the Power of Women's Political Giving (Update) 
 
 
 
 Released: June 2009 Vote With Your Purse: 
 
 Harnessing the Power of Women's Political Giving for the 2008 Election and Beyond 
 
 
 
 Released: June 2007 
 
 Special Thanks 
 
 Vote With Your Purse would not have been possible without our donors, including among others: ||||| Gov. Jerry Brown campaigns on behalf of Proposition 30, his tax measure. The nonprofit Americans for Job Security donated $11 million to oppose the measure in what California authorities called "campaign money laundering." (Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times / ) 
 
 WASHINGTON — Tax-exempt advocacy groups that played an aggressive role in this year's election are coming under increasing scrutiny from state regulators, who are cracking down on organizations seeking to engage in campaigns without revealing their financial backers. 
 
 The pressure in states with stringent campaign finance rules contrasts sharply with the federal level, where nonprofits that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence races this year have not been required to disclose their donors. 
 
 This month, California's Fair Political Practices Commission forced an Arizona-based group to reveal the source of $11 million it gave for two ballot initiative campaigns. The funds were traced to a Virginia nonprofit that also does not reveal its donors. That hasn't satisfied the commission, which has begun an investigation to uncover the original source. 
 
 Shortly before election day, judges in Idaho and Montana required the disclosure of contributors to two nonprofit organizations that had drawn the attention of state regulators with their political activity. 
 
 "Frankly, if we didn't take a stand on this, we might as well just pack up our campaign disclosure law and send it away," said Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. "The fact that federal campaign laws are deficient or you've got a deadlocked Federal Election Commission — that doesn't mean the states are powerless." 
 
 Ysursa sued a group called Education Voters of Idaho, which gave more than $200,000 for ads backing three state ballot measures, accusing it of failing to comply with the state's sunshine law. After the court order, the organization revealed it had received money from New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Albertsons supermarket scion Joseph P. Scott, among others. 
 
 The clashes between state elections officials and advocacy groups are a byproduct of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which lifted the ban on direct political expenditures by corporations. That triggered a surge of election activity by groups incorporated under the tax code's section 501(c)4 as social welfare organizations, which are allowed to engage in issue advocacy. 
 
 At the federal level, political action committees are required to report their contributors, but so far the nonprofits are not. 
 
 The Federal Election Commission, which has six members split evenly between the major parties, is frozen in partisan gridlock on questions regarding nonprofit activity. The Internal Revenue Service said this summer that it had begun examining some of the groups, but had yet to take any public action. And efforts to pass new disclosure laws have so far foundered in Congress. 
 
 But the picture is different in many states, where lawmakers have toughened disclosure rules to require any organization making a political expenditure to report its financial backers. 
 
 Disclosure opponents have systematically challenged the state measures in court, arguing that the Supreme Court has said a group must have politics as its "major purpose" in order to be considered a political committee. 
 
 Advocates for more campaign finance reporting have countered — largely successfully — that the high court has repeatedly endorsed disclosure and has not limited it to political committees. 
 
 "If you look at the federal issue, you would be inclined to throw up your hands," said Derek Cressman, vice president for state operations at Common Cause, which advocates for more transparency. "The progress that some states are making proves that these disclosure issues are problems we can solve." 
 
 Take the case of Americans for Job Security, a Virginia-based nonprofit that has been a serious political player for at least a dozen years, spending millions on ads without disclosing its backers. 
 
 In 2008, the FEC's general counsel concluded the trade group met the definition of a political committee that is required to report its donors, and requested approval to pursue a formal investigation. But the commission deadlocked, and no action was taken. 
 
 Early this month, Americans for Job Security played a role in one of California's most closely watched election-year dramas — unmasked as the source of an $11-million donation to oppose Gov. Jerry Brown's tax increase measure and support another measure intended to curb the ability of unions to raise money for political activity. 
 
 The money had first been routed to an Arizona group called the Center to Protect Patient Rights, which sent it to another nonprofit also based in Arizona called Americans for Responsible Leadership, which in turn gave the money to the conservative Small Business Action Committee in California to run ads about the ballot measures. 
 
 State authorities called it "campaign money laundering." 
 
 Ann Ravel, chairwoman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, said the contribution may have violated a rule implemented in May to prevent donors from anonymously shuttling money through nonprofits with the intention of spending it on California campaigns. If found in violation, the nonprofits involved could face millions of dollars in fines. 
 
 The Small Business Action Committee could also be forced to pay $11 million to the state's general fund if authorities prove it knowingly failed to report the original source of its funds, Ravel said. 
 
 The committee and Americans for Responsible Leadership have denied breaking any rules. 
 
 State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) said he planned to introduce legislation that would require more complete disclosure. 
 
 "How can anyone allow organizations of whatever kind to come into this state and not disclose the true source of money?" he said. 
 
 A similar fight is playing out in Montana, where a group called American Tradition Partnership has been locked in a battle with the agency that enforces the state's campaign finance rule. 
 
 In October 2010, Montana's commissioner of political practices concluded that the group's activities, which included sending mailers attacking Democratic and moderate Republican lawmakers, meant it had to file reports as a political committee. ATP sued, challenging the disclosure laws as unconstitutional and arguing that it is an educational group. 
 
 ATP has remained active in state politics, sending out a mock newspaper this fall that featured gubernatorial candidate Steve Bullock, the state's attorney general, in a photo array of sex offenders as part of an article that slammed his handling of the state's sex offender database. 
 
 The legal wrangling between state officials and ATP is ongoing, but has already pulled back the curtain on the group's contributors. Shortly before election day, the state judge hearing the case released a cache of the group's financial documents that state prosecutors had subpoenaed from Wells Fargo. The documents, which the PBS show "Frontline" and the investigative website ProPublica had requested, showed that ATP donors have included nonprofits linked to Republican activists in Colorado, as well as some major GOP donors. 
 
 In Maine, state ethics officials are investigating the National Organization for Marriage, which has refused to release the names of donors that financed its efforts to defeat a 2009 measure to legalize same-sex marriage. 
 
 The nonprofit groups under scrutiny say they are caught between conflicting state and federal regulations. 
 
 John Foster, the Boise-based lobbyist and political consultant behind Education Voters of Idaho, said he set it up as a 501(c)4 because its activities fall squarely within the IRS definition of a social welfare organization. Donors gave money for education reform, not earmarked for political campaigns, he said, so the group should not have to reveal names. 
 
 "We are very proud of our donors, and the prospect of releasing them publicly was never an issue for us," Foster said. "It was always about whether we get to decide who we are, or whether a state regulator gets to decide who we are." 
 
 "The rules are not entirely clear," he added. "This just highlights the continuing need for a realistic, constitutional approach to campaign finance reform in this country." 
 
 matea.gold@latimes.com 
 
 chris.megerian@latimes.com
– Less than a third of political donations come from women, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed the money given to candidates, political action committees, and party committees in 2010 and discovered that only 26% of federal contributions came from female donors, a dip from 31% in 2008, and 27% in 2006, reports the Daily Caller. “Women are far more motivated to want to see changes in their neighborhood and city on a social level than men are, but they have not yet made that connection [with politics],” says the president of the group She Should Run, which co-released the study. “In fact, women, far more than men, see the hard, sausage-making dimension of politics as something they are not willing to be engaged in. They find it distasteful.”