How to Improve Campaign Skills

Developing stronger grassroots campaigning skills effectively improves one's satisfaction and experience during campaign seasons.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

How to Keep your Audience interested

1. Before calling or visiting with your next prospective donor or supporter you should recognize the assumptions about you and your caller going in- a) the person you are calling is either with you or undecided about your issue - that people who are "with you" or on your side of the issue does not preclude them from hanging up on you; why would someone with the same view as you hang up? The main reason would be because they hear you as a bit too competitive or confrontational. People who are undecided will hang up on you quicker for that reason, however, if you approach them with the same interest in their views as in sharing your owns, you'll find people generallly come around instead of hanging up; or shooting you down.

2. Upon understanding an effective approach to your donor or supporter the next step is to explain what their return on their investment will be. Everyone enjoys publicity, therefore, couch your interview question, or pledge request with the enticement of visibility at a rally or as a list member; their stronger affiliation through contribution or dialogue effectively negates the doubt of a financial obligation or contribution. Tell them when the next rally or public forum will be and that their investment is access to greater information; their interest will pan out or it will become incumbent on you to get them more interested in the campaign, or issues.

3. To the less interested person you must be prepared to instill the interest with some closed questions; while the questions are important they should be brought up in your mind well ahead of the time; write them down on note cards; that I can say I believe you would agree that stopping the developers from closing down the mom and pop store down the street is important for local business and community, for example, is a typical sort of way to ask a question that builds rapport and stakeholdership; the rest is simply building that rapport and awareness raising; the last step of course is to apply the participation fund raising strategy from step 2.