Am I doing enough? Or, even doing it right? How to fix your fundraising, right now
To drive your movement forward, it takes these critical first steps to launch your fundraising
So much goes into making a campaign. It will get overwhelming fast, even for seasoned candidates. Before you even start to run, you need vision and a platform, along with an aggressive drive for success. But after your brain is drained, and you’ve used every ounce of beliefs and creativity, you will still need to get your finance director, build your organizing team, find your staff, and so much more. How are you going to find time for all this with no fundraising plan? You’re not crowdfunding. Your campaign is new or quiet. You haven’t quite gotten the creative juices flowing just yet. It’s a long road ahead and you don’t even know where the highway is. It’s a lot to take in, but many people have done it. Seasoned elites to first time candidates all run into the same issues and challenges as they run their campaigns. Politics is politics after all. But, even first time challengers to entrenched incumbents rise up, fund up, mobilize, and succeed. Just like the now Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It all starts with a plan.
Making a fundraising strategy at the beginning of your campaign is a smart, and necessary one. It is essential to kicking off your fundraising journey on the right foot. You can be successful. You can be very successful. You just need to know where to start and how to form your plan to win.
That plan should start with your GOALS.
How much do you want to raise? And what will those earning be allocated towards? When are your deadlines and do you receive matching funds? What are the criteria for meeting those matching funds? You will want to put some serious time and thinking into this part, answering all these questions, and more. Every part of your plan branches from here. You can use data from past races to guide your budgets and goals, as well as what strategies they used to fundraise. How much did this campaign raise to win? How much did that campaign spend to win? What did they do to get those funds, or what did they try that didn’t work? Do your research by taking advantage of all the free campaign information you can find online, as well as all of the data and reports available on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and your state’s State Election Commission (SEC) or Board of Elections (BOE) website. Social media is a great way to research how others are fundraising, as well as signing up for other candidate newsletters.
The best way to get this information though is to join a cohort of like-minded candidates to grow together and work to individually push efforts forward, as a movement. There are a few current options out there that offer opportunities like this. The Kickstart Fundraising Program offered by us at Sole Strategies is a candidate boot-camp that offers a cohort just like that, for example.
Your next step is allocating where that money goes. Time to BUDGET.
Unlike a business you are not trying to return a profit. The way you pay dividends to your stakeholders, your future constituents, is by bringing in donations and earning votes. You do that by making every dollar count, and spending it where it matters. Each part of your campaign will require a different part of your budget. Paying door knockers and walkers, paying for digital and traditional advertisements, and ballot fees should all be a part of your strategy. Renting a building to operate your campaign out of, as well as paying for fundraising event spaces are some of the ‘hidden fees’ that can get lost in your planning process. Like the resources mentioned before, it is best to find somewhere that clearly spells out for you what you need to expect to budget, or to find a group that offers compliance resources like the Kickstart Fundraising boot-camp.
Once you have identified your budget, and costs, you must choose your fundraising tactics. Choose is almost the wrong word. You’re more-so going to realize how to most efficiently approach the methods that have been proven to work, and how you’re going to best make use of those options. Research your district thoroughly and identify the wants and needs of your community.
Doing this will help you learn how to communicate with them the best, thus allowing you to reach out to them in a way that incentivizes them to financially support you. No one will separate with the money in their bank just because you asked, they want to know it’s worth it; They want to know you’re worth it. It is crucial to learn how to build and portray your value to someone, because 80% of donations are going to come from call-time that you do yourself as the candidate.
Not only do you need to know how you’re going to raise it, you need to plan out how you’re going to track it. Build a fundraising calendar so that you can keep track of all your events and earnings. Have a document that holds all the data of who, where, when, why, and how your donors donated. Develop a routine of immediately following up with donors to ensure all of the information is completely correct and would pass for matching donations requirements. Make monthly, weekly, and daily goals to track your progress, and improve as you go. Be mindful of key dates, and deadlines and make sure that your efforts align with them. These, and more, will fully flesh out a plan that allows you to pursue the funds you’ll need to drive your campaign. If that sounds daunting, those valuable resources like Kickstart can teach you how to approach all of this in the best way and how to crush your call-time.
Once you have that all accomplished, you will need to BUILD AND EXPAND on your fundraising network.
Implement strategies to get addresses, phone numbers, and emails of likely donors and the most efficient manners and times ways to reach them. Do you know anyone with good connections? Is your google contact list full of people who already know and support you? Now is the time to take your networking to new heights and see if you can get your hands on some of those contacts.
From there you need to grow, and then exponentially amplify from there. There are many tools available to political campaigns to do this. You can use organizations like Grassroots Analytics to get valuable lists for the people that you’re ideally looking to reach. These lists will drive your call-time and start getting the donations coming in for you as long as you’re dedicated and committed to your fundraising effort.
From there, if you’re doing everything you need to, and you’re tracking all of your call data and donor information, digital experts can then take all that valuable work you’ve done and exponentially grow it by analyzing the data, identifying matching audiences, and creating lookalikes to find more people who are likely to donate to you! Things like the “Go Viral” offer all of those options and even more ways to grow your network and donations.
Seems like a lot? I get it. It is. That’s why it’s critical to build a team of EXPERTS around you.
You don’t need to be a digital expert, you don’t even need to be a fundraising expert, you need to be an expert on yourself and your platform. Building a team of experts around you saves you a lot of stress and anxiety, and allows your team to approach and advise on the most difficult aspects when you truly need experts most.
They will free you to do what you really should be doing as a candidate;, making your call-time, knocking on doors, and managing the messaging of YOUR campaign. You need to be out doing what wins, while your experts make all the gears in the machine turn.
There are many groups out there that offer digital media services, or field organizing, or fundraising advisors, but almost never in one place. That only adds to the list of your headaches. There’s a better answer. When you choose to work with one-stop-shop like Sole Strategies not only do you get access to rock-star fundraising staff and call-time managers, but to crucial donor lists and connections that have been built over their years of efforts and movements, and will help drive real money to your campaign. All from the same place, you can then get experienced political organic strategists, and tried-and-tested AD design, targeting, and management experts that are driven to make your message succeed and to amplify your voice. Need more endorsements but don’t have the time for questionnaire after questionnaire? Is reaching out to the media and press taking up valuable call-time or time you would have spent supporting your community? Sole’s PR team has you covered. Petitioning is time-consuming and stressful. Door-knocking takes expert organization and communication. The Sole Strategy Field Organizing team is country-wide with experts where you need them when you need them.
Sole has a staff of trained political and industry professionals to guide, assist, and drive your campaign forward. You have a tough road ahead. Bringing in your experts could be the exact thing you need to break-through. Start reaching out to yours today!
