CONSULTANT as FEC text: $91.8M itemized

A catch-all professional word

Employer and occupation fields accept CONSULTANT without a specialty. That is useful for a donor who does not want to name a firm and useless for a researcher who wants NAICS 5416. The $91.8M total is the word, not a consulting-industry census.

People who typed McKinsey, a boutique, or SELF-EMPLOYED are in other rows. This page does not pull those receipts in.

6,522 donors, 224,551 receipts

6,522 donors produced 224,551 CONSULTANT contribution lines. Repeat giving explains receipts exceeding unique donors. The dollar total, $91.8M, sits near REQUESTED in the ranked table — coincidence of magnitude, not a shared population.

No party split is attached to this industry headline. Campaign-consulting firms as PACs or vendors are other FEC categories.

Not the same as SELF-EMPLOYED

SELF, SELF-EMPLOYED, and CONTRACTOR are neighboring free-text keys. A person can use CONSULTANT one year and a client name the next. Those receipts will not automatically combine on this page.

Occupation breakdowns show when occupation is CONSULTANT and employer is a corporation. Those lines may harvest to the corporation instead of this generic title. Vendor lists on campaign expenditure schedules are not this industry row. CONSULTANT here is the donor's own employer/occupation text on an individual receipt. A campaign that paid a consulting firm is a different FEC document. The $91.8M figure does not measure that vendor market.

Donor table

The CONSULTANT donor table lists disclosed names and amounts. A large gift is a contribution record. It is not proof the donor was paid by a campaign, and it is not a lobbying registration. LobbyVault does not infer a client list from the title.

If you need registered lobbyists, that is a different disclosure system (LDA). This row is FEC individual receipts only. McKinsey-style firm names, if typed, leave the generic CONSULTANT bucket. The 6,522 donors are people whose grouped label was the generic word. The 224,551 lines are their itemized gifts. Named-firm pages are the other half of a complete search.

Source

FEC.gov via LobbyVault: $91.8M, 224,551 contributions, 6,522 donors, top employer CONSULTANT. Unitemized and non-federal activity are omitted.

Follow committees from the table for recipients. Lobbying registrations (LDA) list clients. FEC CONSULTANT lines do not. Crossing the two systems is research; it is not something this $91.8M rollup performs. Keep the citation limited to itemized individual receipts.

Clients, campaign vendors, and LDA confusion

CONSULTANT does not encode a client list. The $91.8M total, 224,551 contribution lines, and 6,522 donors mix management consultants, IT contractors, and people who declined to name a firm. Lobbyist registrations live in the LDA system, not in this FEC industry row. Campaign-vendor firms as PACs are committees. Unitemized gifts and state races are omitted.

SELF-EMPLOYED, SELF, and CONTRACTOR remain neighboring free-text keys. A person can rotate among them across years. Occupation pages show when occupation is CONSULTANT and employer is a corporation — harvest may send the line to the corporation. Open the CONSULTANT donor table for names and committees. The word is self-reported FEC text, not NAICS 5416, from FEC.gov via LobbyVault. SELF-EMPLOYED, SELF, and CONTRACTOR remain the other ways independents describe work. Adding them to CONSULTANT without a methods note misstates FEC.gov storage as indexed on LobbyVault. If the research question is campaign vendors, start on expenditure schedules and committee disbursements, not on this CONSULTANT donor table. The $91.8M figure is the donor's own typed word on an individual receipt, covering 6,522 people and 224,551 lines. Named consulting firms, SELF-EMPLOYED, SELF, and CONTRACTOR absorbed other independents. LDA registrations list clients; these FEC lines do not. Crossing the systems is allowed in a notebook if the notebook says so. This page will not. Occupation pages show CONSULTANT as occupation with a corporate employer, and those mixed lines may have harvested to the corporation. Unitemized gifts and state races are omitted. Cite $91.8M as the generic CONSULTANT string from FEC.gov via LobbyVault, not as a professional-services NAICS total and not as a vendor-market size.

Questions

How much have CONSULTANT donors given federally?

LobbyVault attributes $91.8M to the CONSULTANT FEC string, from 224,551 contributions and 6,522 donors. The label is not a NAICS professional-services total and does not include named consulting firms as separate employer keys. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.

Does this mean campaign consultants?

Some rows may be political consultants; many will not be. FEC text does not encode client type. The $91.8M figure is every itemized receipt grouped under CONSULTANT, regardless of specialty. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.

Is CONSULTANT merged with SELF-EMPLOYED?

No. They are different strings. SELF, CONTRACTOR, and firm names are also separate. Combining them is a research recode, not the FEC file. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.

How many unique consultant donors are there?

The rollup counts 6,522 donors and 224,551 contribution lines. Repeat gifts raise the receipt count. This is not a headcount of all U.S. consultants. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.