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Chief executive officers (CEOs), Information Technology heads, top investment bankers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists -- these are the sort of people involved in the fund raising exercise of the party which targets the common man -- the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
As many as 40 such professionals, termed as "ambassadors" by the party, are part of the donation camp which is trying to woo the High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs).
Party sources revealed that the team includes name such as V Balakrishnan, former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Infosys, Mohandas Pai, chairman of Manipal Global Education, former Star TV CEO Sameer Nair, Manisha Lath Gupta, former executive vice-president of Axis Bank and Meera Sanyal, ex-chairperson of Royal Bank of Scotland who is also the AAP candidate for Lok Sabha elections from South Mumbai constituency.
"These are the people who bring credibility with them and hence, infuse confidence into the HNI segment which the party is targetting to raise funds," said Nisha Singh, who heads the team.
Singh is an independent ward councillor in Gurgaon, who earlier used to work in big firms such as Siemens, Barclays and Google.
Party sources said that as 'ambassadors' come with a reputation in the industry, the fund collection exercise becomes easier. A list of people it will reach out to has already been prepared. Then, these professionals, with their own contacts in the market will spread the word and those interested in donations can contact the party.
The party has a target of raising Rs 35 crore from the HNI segment and collect at least Rs 1,00,000 from each corporate. The party expects to reach out to at least 3,500 millionaires. HNIs are those individuals who have investable assets worth Rs 10 lakh or more.
At present, the party has collected Rs 10 crore since the fund raising campaign was started from 12 December. AAP looks to collect Rs 200-300 crore to fight the Lok Sabha elections.
"We look to target anyone who does not have corrupt background or bad reputation in the market and for that a check is done before approaching them," said Kumar Gaurav, part of party's fund raising team.
At present, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore are the three main cities target cities. However, it wants to go beyond and next on the radar is Hyderabad.
The party says that the class which is most excited about the party is entrepreneurs. "These are the people who know first hand, the difficulty of being a businessman in the country and we are getting good response from such people," said Singh.
The next stage would be to target the small and medium entrepreneurs (SME) sector for which it would look to go to places such as Aurangabad.
In Mumbai recently, the party had organised a meeting which was attended by 200 HNIs.
Apart from this, the party is organising a campaign to raise funds in Gurgaon on Friday to raise funds Rs 10,00,000 from a gathering of around 200 people.
