Obama fundraising powered by small donors, new study shows Just 9 percent of donors to possible GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, by contrast, were at the lowest end of the contribution scale, the study shows. In fact, Obama raised more money in aggregate from small-dollar donors - $56.7 million - than Romney raised overall. The data cements Obama's reputation as unusually reliant on small-scale contributors to fuel his campaign war chest. An earlier analysis by The Washington Post produced similar findings, suggesting a persistent trend in Obama's 2012 fundraising strategy. The new findings also come in the same week that Obama decided to embrace the efforts of a pro-Democratic super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited funds to aid in his reelection. Advisers say the campaign has concluded that the eventual GOP nominee and allied conservative groups are likely to outspend Obama, despite his fundraising record. The 2011 data show that Obama has been even more dependent on small donations this cycle than he was in 2007, when he raised a larger proportion of his money from wealthy donors before grassroots supporters drove his fundraising. Obama had raised only 22 percent of $96.7 million in 2007 from donors whose contributions aggregated to $200 or less, the CPI study found. That number shot up to 48 percent in 2011. "The president has been able to capitalize on the 13-million person mailing list he assembled in 2008 to launch into small-donor fundraising at a much faster pace than four years ago," the institute said in a news release. The CPI study defined small donors as those whose total contributions in 2011 added up to $200 or less. The approach provides a more accurate reading of the number of donors who truly give only a small amount of money to a campaign, as opposed to those who give multiple gifts under $200. It's harder to accurately gauge Obama's reliance on upper end donors because this year he is able to raise money jointly with the Democratic National Committee, which can accept donations of up to $30,800 per donor. Obama's campaign committee raised $33.4 million from donors giving $1,000 or more last year, compared to $57.9 million from such donors in 2007. However, Obama also helped raise $89 million in a joint effort with the DNC, meaning the actual proportion of larger donors is much higher. On the Republican side, candidates other than Romney also posted relatively strong small-donor percentages last year, though none raised a particularly large amount of money overall. Of those remaining in the field, Newt Gingrich raised 49 percent of his money in 2011 from donors giving less than $200; Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had 48 percent; and Rick Santorum had 32 percent, the data show. Romney, by contrast, raised two-thirds of his $56.3 million from donors who gave $2,500, the maximum allowed to a candidate committee under Federal Election Commission rules.