How to Manage a Campaign

This article well help to assist those who are interested in managing a political campaign, whether it be for a local school board or a major national position

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Motivation
• Manpower (with the majority preferably being volunteer, depending on budget)
• A passion to lead

1. First and foremost, it helps to truly believe in your candidate and what he/she stands for. While it is entirely possible to manage a campaign from the viewpoint that it is strictly a job, enthusiasm for the candidate makes this job all the more rewarding.

2. Begin to assemble a campaign team. Utilize family, friends, craigslist and other career posting sites to get the word out. If it were to be assumed that you are running a campaign for political office, you will need a few key staff positions (manager - that's you!, treasurer, scheduler, media consultant, political consultant) and many, many volunteers.

3. Have a meeting with your campaign team. Listen to the candidate and their goals. What do they want to accomplish with this campaign (besides winning)? How will they accomplish it? Why are they running? The more you and your campaign team begin to understand every aspect of your candidate's thinking, the more successful your campaign will be.

4. Come away from this meeting with lots and lots of notes. Develop a campaign game plan and strategy (you can collaborate on this with your political consultant if you have one). Time frame, campaign goals, and basic strategy are all very important. Reconvene with your campaign team after this has been set and present to them the plan.

5. Hit the streets. Word of mouth will be the most effective tool your campaign has. Make sure you do everything within your power to inform all potential voters of your candidate. Be passionate, friendly, and informative. This is where the volunteers come in. Organize a schedule for people to effectively canvass. Make sure there are not too many people in one are and not enough in another. Working with volunteers will be on of the more challenging aspects of the campaign, as they tend to want to just go out and do their thing. An organized plan for how long, where, and when they canvass is extremely important.

6. As the campaign picks up steam, provide motivation and guidance to everyone involved. Check up on every staff member and make sure they are doing their job correctly and effectively. Provide motivation to them along with the candidate. The campaign is entirely a team effort, and it is your job to serve as coach. Motivate the team, push them along, and win the election!

Tips & Warnings

• Spend as much time as possible working on the campaign. This is one job where the amount of time you put in directly affects the success of the operation.
• Tell everyone you know about it. You'd be surprised the things that can happen when you casually mention it to everyone you know. Networking is extremely powerful. You may stumble across people who are interested in the campaign that possess useful skills. They may be willing to even volunteer their time.
• Depending on your budget, you may need to serve as the "campaign haggler" as well. Getting the best bang for your buck will allow you to do more with your budget than you previously thought possible.
• Don't try and do everyone's job for them. You are part of a team, and you hired every staff member because you are confident in their abilities. If you try to do their delegated task for them, you are abandoning your job, that of manager.