Warning This Manual Cannot Be Directly Applied to Japanese Electoral Campaigns

For more details, please see notes.

Step Six: Making It Happen#

You have done the research, set the goal, targeted the audience, developed the message and figured out how you are going to deliver the message. You have also started to figure out how much time, money and people all of this will cost. Where will these resources come from? In this final step you will look at the roles of the candidate, campaign manager and other professionals you may have involved in your campaign. You will look at ways to recruit and keep volunteers. You will develop a campaign calendar and discuss scheduling. Finally, you will develop a campaign budget and figure out how the money will be raised.

The Role of the Candidate#

The most important person in any political campaign is the candidate and the candidate's time is the most precious resource that the campaign has. If the candidate or the campaign wastes that time, it can never be replaced. It is therefore important to understand the role of the candidate and the best use of their time.

That role is very simple: meeting and persuading people. The most effective campaigner and fundraiser is the candidate. Voters and likely donors who personally meet the candidate and hear the message are much more likely to vote for that candidate and contribute to the campaign.

All too often, candidates enjoy sitting around their campaign headquarters plotting strategy with their teams or meeting with favorite supporters. Such candidates are wasting their time and are doomed to failure.

At the beginning of this document it was suggested that your campaign hold a formal strategic planning session. Clearly, the candidate needs to be a part of this session and will have a great deal of impact on the basic strategy that is developed. Once the strategy has been decided, the candidate needs to leave the running of the campaign to the campaign manager and others and concentrate entirely on meeting and persuading as many voters as possible.

The Role of the Campaign Manager#

Therefore the role of the campaign manager is to run the campaign. This must be someone in which the candidate has complete confidence. After all, this should be the most important thing in both of their lives for the relatively short period of time that the campaign will last. In a sense, the candidate is the heart of the campaign and the campaign manager is the brain. A good campaign needs both to be effective but they have very distinct roles to play.

Too often candidates want to run their own campaign. They either do not choose a campaign manager or choose someone they think they can manipulate. In either case they end up spending too much time making decisions that should be left to someone else, which takes time from their main job, meeting voters and donors.

A campaign manager must make sure the candidate is scheduled to meet voters, they must deal with or otherwise supervise those who will deal with the press, the money, the other methods of voter contact and everything else planned (and unplanned) during the campaign.

Campaign Professionals#

Political campaigns, like anything else, benefit from experience. The more times an individual has been involved in past political campaigns, the better prepared they should be for the next political campaign. Having the advice, assistance or benefit of someone who has experienced the various phases of a campaign outlined in this manual can be very helpful to a candidate and a campaign. It is one thing to understand the ideas conveyed here and quite another to have experienced them in the heat of an intense campaign.

For that reason, political parties could greatly assist their candidates if they would maintain a list of experienced campaign managers and others who have shown promise working on campaigns. The parties should develop these individuals and give them opportunities to work in campaigns so they are prepared for future campaigns. The steps from hard working volunteer to assistant to qualified campaign manager are few.

Often there are people who have specialized in particular aspects of political campaigns. Political polling is one area that benefits from a great deal of experience and, if at all possible, a campaign should consider hiring someone who has this experience before they attempt to conduct a poll on their own. In the U.S politics has become very specialized and there are professionals who specialize in developing political direct mail, political television and radio advertisements, compiling voters lists, etc. All of these professionals can save the campaign a great deal of time (though they will cost money).

All of that said, there are too many people who are passing themselves off as "image makers" and the like. Often with very little campaign experience these individuals waste the candidates time talking about psychoanalyzing the voters or changing the candidate's way of dressing. These people do not want to do the hard work, day after day, of communicating a persuasive message to voters and lazy candidates who are looking for a quick fix often fall for their talk. They waste a lot of their time and money in doing so.

Campaign Structure#

By this time you should have the beginning of a campaign plan drafted. Now you need to think about the structure and staff needed to implement the plan. You have the candidate and the campaign manager. Who else do you need to complete the campaign staffing? To determine this you should begin by looking at the voter contact plan. There are two concepts you may want to consider.

The first concept is that the structure is determined by tasks in the plan and accountability for those tasks. The only positions that need to be assigned are Campaign Manager for oversight of all the operations, and someone to answer the phones and deal with general office functions. Other than that there are no rules.

Suppose, for example, that your voter contact plan calls for signature collection, 4 press conferences, and 5 literature drops to 60,000 households. In order to accomplish this, you will need to assign:

Headcount	Role
1	Campaign Manager
1	Office Manager (who answers phones, handles requests)
1	person responsible for drafting the literature and getting it printed (maybe half time position/maybe combined with press secretary position.)
2	people responsible for hiring temporary staff (same staff who handled signature collection and maybe election monitoring.)
60	temporary staff to distribute the literature of 500 pieces each in 2 days

On the other hand, if your plan's major effort will be persuading pensioners to vote for the candidate, then perhaps the structure would involve only:

Headcount	Role
1	Campaign manager responsible for oversight of the organizers
1	Office Manager
10	pensioner organizers in different locations responsible for signature collection, leafleting and meetings

You will notice that in this last structure that there is no press secretary, fundraiser, scheduler nor assistants for each job. The jobs are closely following the plan. There is no room in your budget for excess people. You need a lean operation that will get the task done.

The second concept is that each job is defined by tasks assigned, not its title.

You should not think about titles, but hire and define jobs by the tasks that need to be completed. Then the staff members know their responsibilities and are held accountable for the tasks they are assigned. It also allows you to realistically assign tasks so that one person is not doing too much and another person is doing too little. There are too many campaigns where someone is an "assistant" or "deputy" in the office, and they are unable to give you a clear answer on what tasks they must accomplish on a daily basis.

In designing your structure, do not forget people who will volunteer to work on your campaign. Many family members and friends will volunteer full time in a staff position out of loyalty to the candidate. Additionally, many people will volunteer their time if the task were interesting or fun. Traveling with the candidate, doing research on the opposition, helping with a rally, or stuffing envelopes at a party are all tasks that are easy to get unpaid help. Tougher jobs like signature collection, door-to-door and leafleting may need to be done by paid workers. Make sure you assign someone to be responsible for each task.

Volunteers (People)#

In developing your voter contact plan, you have probably realized that you cannot accomplish everything with the few people who started out helping on the campaign. If you are going to accomplish everything necessary you will need a lot of help and you probably will not be able to pay them. This is where volunteer support comes in. As your campaign begins persuading voters that you are the best candidate, it will also attract people who will offer even more support than their vote. These people will want to volunteer in the campaign and make sure you win.

People volunteer for many reasons. The first volunteers are often party loyalists who become involved out of a sense of commitment to the party. Some people volunteer because they feel strongly about a particular issue and either believe you agree with them on that issue or your opponent is really bad on that issue. Some people are just social and become involved with the political campaign because of friends or others who share their interests. Some people volunteer because they see this as an opportunity to get a job or some other gain. Finally, some people volunteer because they seek recognition.

Volunteers stay with a campaign because they feel that they are making a contribution, because they feel appreciated, because the work is interesting, because they are meeting interesting people, and because it is fun. Volunteers can burn out if they are given too much work but more likely they will leave the campaign because they became bored or feel that the work they are given does not matter.

Your first task is to determine how many volunteers you will need at which times to complete the objectives you have set for yourself. Again, you need to do the math.

For example, suppose you decide you want to deliver 3,000 pieces of literature in a particular neighborhood on a particular Saturday morning. You decide that one volunteer can deliver an average of 100 pieces of literature in an hour. Therefore it will take 30 volunteer hours to accomplish the job. You want to do the whole literature drop in three hours so you will need ten volunteers for three hours. You will also need to have the literature ready by Saturday, you will need to have some maps of the area and clear instructions for the volunteers and you will need to have someone responsible for overseeing the literature drop and knows what is supposed to happen. You may also have to provide transportation to the target neighborhood. Volunteers are just that, volunteers. You should recruit more than 10; say 15 or 20 in order to be certain of having 10 reliable volunteers at the appointed time.

You need to do this type of calculation for every part of your voter contact plan and the more detail you can provide the better. This is why planning is critical. In low budget, labor intensive campaigns there is often one person, a volunteer coordinator, who is responsible for recruiting and training volunteers, making sure they have the materials they need and making sure everything goes as planned.

Volunteers can come from many different areas. The first volunteers will probably be friends of the candidate and party activists who have worked on past campaigns. These will probably not be enough to accomplish everything and you will have to find many more people as the campaign builds in intensity. You should look for people who have volunteered in other areas of their life. They may volunteer for civic organizations, neighborhood groups, their religious organizations, unions, schools, etc. If your campaign message speaks to a particular issue or group you may be able to persuade an organization involved in that issue to support you and provide volunteers. As your campaign talks to voters you should take every opportunity to ask people to help the campaign. Always have volunteer cards such as the one found in Appendix F available and ready for people who express strong support.

Worksheet 10: Budgeting Volunteers#

List all the voter contact activities your campaign intends to accomplish. Be as specific as possible, using real numbers.
- How many pieces of literature do you need to deliver?
- How many phone calls do you need to make and how many phones do you have available?
- How many homes do you want to visit in how much time?
Next, determine how many volunteers you will need to reasonably accomplish each task you have listed above. How much of the task can one volunteer accomplish in one hour and how many volunteer hours will it take to accomplish the whole job?
Finally, estimate how many volunteers you will need throughout the campaign. Often you will be able to use the same volunteers for different tasks at different times. In other cases a volunteer who is good at making phone calls may not be as good at putting up signs. Remember that you will need to recruit twice as many volunteers as you estimate you need for a particular task.

Scheduling and Calendar (Time)#

From the very beginning of the campaign you have probably been collecting various dates that will be important to your campaign. Election Day is one obvious important date. Others important dates may be filing deadlines and dates when you are required by law to make certain reports.

All of these dates should be kept on a master campaign calendar. Early in the campaign this may be a monthly calendar but as Election Day draws closer, you may want to develop a weekly or even daily calendar that provides more details.

We will add to this calendar any important events or meetings that the candidate must attend. Your campaign will have to develop a system for dealing with invitations. This system should include ways to decide if an event is important enough to attend and ways to decline invitations that the campaign decides are not important.

Next you will add all of the various voter contact activities. Here it is important to distinguish between activities that will require the candidate and those that will be handled by the campaign and volunteers. Because certain voter contact activities will happen over a long period of time and overlap with other activities, it is also necessary to develop a timeline of events that will provide more details about time, money and people involved in each activity.

In larger campaigns, the responsibility for all of this would be assigned to a scheduler. In smaller campaigns this maybe one of the responsibilities that the campaign manager will handle. Again, it is important that the candidate not keep their own calendar because this often leads to confusion about who needs to be where and when.

Worksheet 11: Calendar#

Develop a master calendar for the campaign that will include all the important dates and all the important activities of the campaign. Assign one person to be responsible for keeping the calendar up to date and distributing it to everyone in the campaign who needs to keep abreast of the activities. Develop a system for dealing with invitations, deciding whether or not the candidate will attend, and whether a letter of acceptance or regrets has been sent. You will also want to collect all the important information about the event, such as the contact person with their phone number, what the candidate will do at the event, directions to the event, etc.

Worksheet 12: Timeline#

The following sample timeline is an excellent tool for helping your campaign plan its voter contact activities. This sample timeline shows the last weeks of the campaign. Fill out a similar timeline for your campaign from beginning to the end. In doing so, you should consider the following rules:

You should start your voter contact planning from Election Day and work backwards. On the day the campaign period ends, what will you have needed to accomplish in order to win? How many posters will you have to put up? How many brochures will you have to have distributed? How many doors should you and your supporters have knocked on?
All of your voter contact activities should be quantifiable. Your voter contact goals should not include "establishing good media relations" because such a goal does not mean anything in real terms. How many events will you hold? How many press releases will you send out? You should quantify everything for two reasons:
1. Quantifiable goals will help you measure the progress of your campaign. If by December 10th your team has knocked on 5,000 doors, is that good or bad? If your goal is 6,000, it's good; if your goal is 60,000, it's bad. If you have not set a quantifiable goal, you have no idea.
2. Quantifiable goals will help your budgeting process. You cannot reasonable compare the relative costs and benefits of brochures ↔ posters ↔ radio ads unless you know how many of each you are talking about.
For each goal, plan the activities that will be required to reach that goal. If you plan to put up 5,000 posters by December 1st, by what date should you take your poster design to the printer? When should you recruit the people necessary to put up 5,000 posters?
Do not forget to plan for the resources you will need to accomplish each activity. As you look at your timeline, figure out for each week how many people and how much money you will need for the activities planned for that week. Where will the resources come from?
Plan your timeline within the framework of the election law. Does your specific election law specify certain dates by which certain activities must be accomplished and dates before which other activities are prohibited?

Date	Activity	Responsible Person
After Election Day	Summing up results and Payment of workers	Campaign Manager, & Campaign Team Finance Director
Election Day (ED)	Observers at 765 Polling Stations	Volunteer Coordinator
ED	Candidate Scheduled Visits with Press	Scheduler
Election Day minus 1 Day (ED - 1)	Volunteers distribute 1500 pieces of last minute literature in 3 swing districts	Volunteer Coordinator, 3 District Coordinators and 150 Volunteers
ED – 2	Observer Training Distribute last minute literature to volunteers	Volunteer Coordinator
ED – 2	Last Mailing in the mail boxes	Campaign Manager
ED - 6 through ED - 1	Phoning of known supporters reminding them to go vote	Volunteer Coordinator and 50 Volunteers
ED - 6	Printing of 1500 pieces of last minute literature	Campaign Manager
ED - 5	Second to last Mailing in the mail boxes	Campaign Manager
ED - 7 through ED - 1	Candidate goes door to door in last District - 300 contacts	Candidate, Three Assistants and Scheduler
ED - 7	Last Mailing sent	Campaign Manager
ED - 10	Second to last Mailing sent	Campaign Manager
ED - 14	Last Mailing of 1000 pieces goes to Printer	Campaign Manager
ED - 14 through ED - 7	Candidate goes door to door in second to last district - 300 contacts	Candidate, Three Assistants and Scheduler
ED - 17	Second to last Mailing of 1000 pieces goes to Printer	Campaign Manager

Computers#

Using computers can save the campaign on all three resources - time, money and people. Many of the most basic things you do in politics - analyze data, keep track of and contact people, and communicate a message - can either be done efficiently with a personal computer or aided with the use of a personal computer. You can use spreadsheet programs to analyze data from past elections. You can use database programs to maintain lists of voters and record who supports your candidate. You can maintain and quickly update a campaign calendar using calendar programs. For writing, use word processing and desktop publishing programs. Fax programs, e-mail and web sites can aid in communicating the message to the media and opinion leaders.

Once the campaign has decided what it hopes to accomplish and how it will achieve its objectives, it will be better able to determine how computers can make things easier.

The Coordinated Campaign - Working with Your Party#

Many of the tasks an individual campaign needs to accomplish can be done much more efficiently or less expensively if they can be coordinated with other similar campaigns. Coordinating these efforts and achieving these savings should be the role of a political party in an election cycle. Your campaign may be expected to help the party achieve its objectives as well. Your campaign should clearly understand what the party expects from you and what you can expect from the party.

Often candidates think that the central party organization should for some reason fund their campaign and their voter contact relies on the visit of the party leader to their region. In most cases there is not enough money at the national level to fund everyone's campaign and the national leader cannot go everywhere. Besides, a campaign that cannot raise its own funds and relies on the party leader to contact its voters is probably not organized enough or worth the effort.

The following are some of the areas where the party may help:

Message and Information#

Your political party should have an overall message of why voters should support its candidates. Assuming you agree with this message and your individual message corresponds to this national message, the party may be able to provide you with general material. Your national party may provide information about policy initiatives at the national level or negative information about your opponents. Sometimes parties have elected officials "adopt" first time candidates to help with problems, questions, and anxious moments.

Material Design#

Often national parties will be able to help you design your campaign materials so that they match the national message. The party may contract with printers and other vendors to produce all or much of the materials, thus gaining a saving in price for all its candidates. You also may be able to re-use national party materials, simply adding your name or local information.

National Materials#

The national party can provide posters, leaflets and platforms, and you may ask if it is possible for them to keep a blank space so your campaign can print or put stickers of your candidate's name. Sometimes national leaflets are printed on one side and your campaign can print on the back (to save money for your campaign.) In addition, you may ask for buttons, posters, and calendars that you can sell or give to people who are contributors or volunteers. (Be careful not to violate Election Law provisions that say no gifts to voters.)

Press#

The national office should also let you know about national press events that your campaign can use to get local attention. The party's response to a national crisis would be valuable to have in a timely manner to get press attention at the local level.

Visits#

The visit of the national party leader can often draw local attention to your campaign, however this should not be your only strategy. Too often local parties and local candidates expect the national party and the national leader to come do their work for them. This is just a sign of laziness and probably means that it isn't worth the effort from the capital.

If the national leader does come, you will have a lot of work to do preparing for the visit. You will have to make sure you have a good turnout of supporters and press so that the trip is not a wasted effort or worse, an embarrassment. Make sure that the visit does not cost the campaign too much in time, money and people. All of the benefits of a visit can be squandered if it pulls the campaign off schedule or uses too many non-budgeted resources.

If the national leader cannot come, you may want to request a surrogate or other major figure come and endorse your candidacy. Many candidates will be busy with their own campaigns, but others will not have much of a race and can make a short day trip. For all events with national party leaders, local candidates should be on the dais and introduced during the event. These are also good opportunities to collect names and phone numbers of potential supporters.

Endorsements#

At your next event, get photos of your candidate with national party leaders that can be used in campaign materials. Just as important is getting a commitment of party leaders to help your efforts. For example, if one of your targeted groups is working women, ask if a well-known female legislator can draft a letter to your constituents about the importance of electing your candidate.

Building a Coalition and Outreach to Civic Organizations#

Civic organizations can play an important role in your election campaign. While the development of civic organizations may be relatively low, there has been active, positive political participation by civic organizations in various election campaigns.

You should make a list of the civic groups in your district that could be supportive; think not only of officially registered groups, but also "informal organizations" such as church groups, work places, and universities that you can reach through opinion leaders. Using your demographic targeting may give you ideas for possible supportive groups.

Cultivation of civic organizations should be done in the early stages of the campaign, when the candidate has time to meet with their leadership to ask for support. You must allow time for your relationships to grow for the civic support to be effective.

Civic groups may help your campaign in a number of ways.

Endorsement#

Simply by announcing that an organization supports your candidate can often be a boost to your campaign. You may be able to use the organization's name on your posters or literature. This support is particularly effective if the organization is well known and respected.

Mobilize Membership#

Once the endorsement is made, ask the group to contact their membership either by phone or through a mailing or newsletter to announce their support and recruit supporters for concrete campaign tasks such as signature collection, door to door canvassing, etc.

Press Events#

There are a number of press activities civic organizations can provide your campaign. For example, they can organize a press conference announcing their support of you, and at this time they can speak out against your opponents. It is often more credible if a group or someone other than the campaign delivers a negative message about the opponent. Civic organizations can send out press releases repeating their support as issues of specific concern to them arise during the campaign.

Research#

A civic organization can provide information in their area of expertise and help research the impact of legislation on the community. In addition, they can draft position papers, provide "talking points" to a candidate, or even help prepare speeches on issues they are concerned about. Civic organizations can also help with opposition research by identifying when your opponents have made statements or voted against their interests.

Public Events#

When a civic group is holding an event, ask them to circulate a sign-up sheet for people interested in supporting your campaign; a group can even hold an event on your behalf. If your campaign is holding a rally, fundraiser, or press conference, ask the group to turn out their membership for the event.

Outreach#

Civic group leaders can often help introduce you to other groups and opinion leaders. Use their contacts to persuade other groups to support or endorse your campaign.

Rules for Working with Civic Organizations#

In your work with civic organizations, bear in mind the following rules:

Ask for concrete, quantifiable contributions to your campaign. One thousand petition signatures will help you a lot more than the vague promise of support.
Verify that the civic group is really doing what it said it would do. You do not want to fail to register your candidacy because you relied on the promise of 100,000 signatures that result in only 50,000 signatures.
Remember that your relationship with civic groups is a two-way street. If you do not go out of your way to help your supporters, they may not be there the next time you need their help. A good rule to follow with civic organizations is "under promise and over deliver".

Worksheet 13: Working with Civic Organizations and Your Party#

Make a list of all the civic groups and other organizations that should be supportive of your campaign. List the contact person with each organization, the phone number, and any other information that would be helpful in making contact with the group.
Reviewing your list of voter contact and other campaign activities, decide how these organizations and your party could best be of assistance to your campaign. Keeping in mind that coalition building is a two-way street, what will each of your partners expect from you in return for their assistance?

Campaign Budgeting (Money 1)#

Just about everything you do in the campaign will cost something. You should estimate how much each of the tasks you hope to accomplish will cost and develop an overall budget for the entire campaign. Your campaign budget should not be a wish list, but a realistic list of what will be needed to implement your campaign plan. Written budgets are the only tools for tracking expenditures, providing goals for fundraisers, and keeping the candidate and campaign from spending without thinking.

Review your timeline and calendar to determine at what point in the campaign you will need the money. By organizing your budget month-by-month or even week-by-week, you will be able to anticipate what amounts you will need at what time. You will thus avoid the age-old problem of cash flow difficulties, and your fundraisers will understand what money is needed at what time.

Having high, medium, and low budget plans is useful in case your fundraising does not go as well as anticipated. You can better plan and save money for spending priorities like voter contact activities.

Campaigns everywhere need to spend the bulk of their funds on voter contact activities. Administrative costs, including office machines, office staff, and phones, should be less than 20% of your budget. Voter contact costs, including television, printed materials, and door-to-door workers should consume 70% to 80% of your financial resources. Research, including polling, should take up less than 10% of your budget.

Worksheet 14: Developing a Budget#

Review all of your voter contact and other campaign activities and determine an estimated cost for each item to determine an overall budget.
Review the calendar and determine when you will need to make payments to develop a cash flow budget. Add all of these dates to the master calendar.

Campaign Fundraising (Money 2)#

Fundraising is the process of systematically collecting names of potential contributors and then identifying why that potential contributor would give money, how much they can give, and who is the best person from the campaign to ask for the money. Every campaign budget needs a companion fundraising plan to understand what amount of money needs to be raised and when.

The candidate and the campaign should target donors in the same way that they target voters. There are two important factors to remember about people who may contribute to your campaign. First, unlike voters who can only vote once for your candidate in this election (and therefore are equal to all other voters), the contributors can give varying amounts. The second point is that while voters have to live within the district, contributors can live almost anywhere. So while you will probably receive a lot fewer donations than you do votes, you are able to look for these contributors just about anywhere.

Just as with recruiting volunteers, there are different reasons why people will contribute. For each type of contributor, you will need to expend varying degrees of time and effort required gaining their support.

The first group is family, personal friends, and close professional colleagues. These people will give because they know the candidate personally.

The second group is people who will directly benefit from the election of the candidate. These may be people who have a financial relationship with the candidate, a financial stake in the election of the candidate, or those who believe their own personal power will increase through the election of the candidate.

The third group is people who share the candidate's ideological view. Often these are members of the same organizations that the candidate is a member of or organizations that the candidate associates themselves with.

The final group is people who disagree with your opponent or want to see your opponent defeated. These people may not agree with your candidate but see your campaign as a vehicle to make a point about how bad your opponent has been on a particular issue or for some other reason want to stop your opponent from winning.

The signal most important reason why people do not give to political campaigns is that they were never asked to give. Too often candidates feel they "know" that someone will not give or cannot afford to give and therefore do not ask them. This is often just an excuse to avoid asking and thereby avoid raising money.

For each potential contributor, you should determine how best to ask for money. Will that person give at a meeting with the candidate or a friend of the campaign? Would they like to attend an event? Should they be sent some general information and followed up with a phone call or meeting with the candidate?

In many cases, the best person to ask for money is the candidate. Candidates need to know that they are not "begging" for money. Rather they are asking their supporters to "invest" in the campaign, a campaign in which they are often investing a lot of their own time and money. If it is worth it to the candidate to get elected, why shouldn't it be worth it to the supporters?

Of course, the most difficult part of fundraising is asking. The person asking should practice beforehand with a member of the campaign who then brings up every excuse not to give. By "practicing" this way, the fundraiser is more prepared.

In your fundraising activities, you should bear in mind the following rules:

If the contributor does not support an issue or your party, try to keep the conversation on the issues and concerns you both have in common.
Ask for a specific amount. It is better to ask for a slightly higher amount and flatter them, than to ask for a very low amount and get smaller contributions.
Ask how and when the money will be available to have someone pick up. This "collection" is the most important piece, because you do not want people ducking away from commitments two months later. The faster you can get the money into your hands the better.
Never ever forget to say thank you. This is best (and the cheapest) way to make sure the contributor knows that their contribution is appreciated, no matter how small.

Events or parties are used by many campaigns that often involve a national leader or a celebrity. People are more likely to give if the event sounds fun, interesting, and has an attraction. You will avoid big fights if you work out with the national office whether the funds raised at the event will go to the national effort, will be split with your campaign, or will go entirely to the campaign.

Fundraising letters are a great way to get information on the candidate to potential contributors. You may not want to ask for money in the letter, because it is very easy to say no and throw out a letter. It is much harder to say no and throw out a person, so write in your letter that someone from the campaign will be following up with a phone call or meeting request. This way your campaign can ask for a specific amount, and respond to any concerns the contributor has. The campaign should follow up on the letter just days after the letter arrives so do not mail out more letters than someone can follow-up with.

The exception to this is if you are sending out fundraising letters to very small contributors, where you will not be embarrassed if the press writes a story about how you are relying on contributions from citizen donations. Also leaflets and mailing should always say at the bottom, "Our campaign relies on small contributions and volunteering from citizens like you. If you will like to help call 123-4567 or stop by your office on Peace Street". There will not be hundreds of responses, but you may get a number of contributions.

Never pass up an opportunity to raise money.

Worksheet 15: Developing a Fundraising Plan#

Start by having the candidate list every member of their family, all of their close friends, and any close professional colleagues. They should also want to list anyone who would directly benefit from their election. The candidate should then write the amount of a contribution they could expect to receive next to each name. Every person on this first list must have some amount of money next to their name.
Begin putting together lists of people who are active in organizations that represent your target audience. These may be neighborhood organizations, unions, business organizations, etc. You should also consider lists of organizations and people who may want to see your opponent defeated and would consider your campaign a vehicle to make this happen. For this list, determine who can best ask these individuals to contribute to your campaign and how much each person can be expected to give.
For all of these lists, determine what must be done to access money from these potential donors. You may have to acquire lists with phone numbers, find members of the particular group who already support your campaign, etc.
Determine how best to solicit contributions from the targeted donors. This may be a personal call from the candidate, a call from a member of the organization, a phone call or letter from the campaign, or attendance at an event.

The Constant Campaign#

There are a lot of tasks that must be completed over the course of the campaign. A few of these tasks must wait until the campaign is underway. Many of these tasks, such as all forms of voter persuasion, will be more effective if they are done closer to Election Day. However, voter persuasion and many other tasks can be made much easier if they are started well in advance of the actual campaign. Some of the tasks, such as analyzing past elections, can be completed years before the campaign begins.

Elected officials, potential candidates, and political parties would benefit greatly if they would start viewing the political campaign as an ongoing, constant process. The next campaign begins the day after the last election. Leaving all of the work of campaigning until the election cycle begins makes all the work that much more difficult and decreases the chances that any of this work will be done well.

Below is a partial list of tasks that your campaign may have to complete and suggestions about whether or not you can begin the task before the actual campaign begins. You may want to add to this list or adapt it to your particular situation.

Campaign Task	When to Start
Research election laws	The party and potential candidates should know the current law early in the campaign and keep abreast of any changes.
District targeting	Political parties should select districts where they want to concentrate their efforts well in advance of the campaign and evaluate this targeting as the election progresses.
District research	Political parties and potential candidates should begin gathering information on election districts well in advance of the campaign.
Voter research	Political parties and potential candidates should begin gathering information on voter preferences as soon as possible and monitor changes throughout the campaign.
Research past elections	As soon as the last election is over or well in advance of the campaign.
Research this election	The campaign should access the current political situation as soon as it is known and monitor it throughout the campaign.
Candidate selection	Political parties should begin recruiting and researching potential candidates well in advance of the campaign.
Registering the candidate	There is often a limited window within the law of when the candidacy can be officially registered.
Putting together a campaign committee	Once the candidate has decided to run, they should begin putting together a group of individuals that will help make the campaign happen.
Research candidates	The campaign should conduct detailed research on all aspects of their candidate as soon as the candidate decides to run.
Research opposition candidates	As soon as the opposition is known.
Setting a goal	The campaign should determine how many votes it will need to win as soon as possible and monitor for any changes to this number throughout the campaign.
Targeting the voters	The political party should determine whom their base voters are well before the campaign begins. The campaign should decide which voters is their target audience as soon as possible and monitor this throughout the campaign.
Developing a campaign message	Political parties should have a basic message that they are constantly delivering and monitoring the impact. The candidate and campaign should develop a message as soon as possible.
Developing a voter contact plan	Once the campaign has completed the research and developed the message, it needs to decide how it will deliver this message.
Developing a campaign timeline	The campaign should begin developing a basic timeline as soon as possible and add to it as the campaign progresses.
Writing a campaign plan	The campaign plan should be written as soon as possible.
Developing a campaign budget	Once the campaign knows what it intends to accomplish, it should develop a budget of what will be needed in terms of time, money and people to achieve these goals.
Fundraising	Once the candidate decides to run they should begin raising the money needed. This will most likely continue throughout the campaign.
Monitoring the cash flow	The campaign will have to constantly monitor how the money is being spent.
Hiring campaign staff	The candidate should hire staff as soon as they are needed.
Opening a headquarters	The campaign should open a headquarters when it is needed.
Developing a press strategy	The press strategy should be part of the overall voter contact plan and should be developed more specifically as soon as possible.
Speech writing	Speech writing should be done as needed.
Building a coalition	The political parties should begin developing a coalition with civic organizations well in advance of the election. The campaign should make contact and begin working with civic organizations as soon as possible.
Getting endorsements	The schedule for endorsements is often in the control of the organization that may provide the endorsement. Still, the campaign needs to know this schedule and do what is necessary to earn the desired endorsements.
Scheduling the candidate	Scheduling is done as needed. The campaign should develop a system for responding to invitations and maintaining a schedule as soon as possible.
Staffing the candidate	Staffing will be done as needed. In most cases, the candidate should have someone with them at all times.
Dealing with vendors	Once the campaign plan is written, the campaign will need to start dealing with vendors to accomplish the objectives.
Recruiting volunteers	Recruiting volunteers should begin early and happen throughout the campaign. Political parties should maintain a database of past volunteers and activists.
Developing campaign materials	Once the message is developed and the method of voter contact is decided upon, the campaign should start developing materials.
Implementing the voter contact plan	Once the voter contact method is decided upon, the campaign must put all of its effort into implementing the plan. There should also be contact with voters well in advance of the campaign.
Responding to voter requests	Responding to voter requests should be on going for both the party and the campaign.

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