How to Hold Local Political Fundraisers

Money is the cornerstone of a successful political campaign.

All political campaigns need money to be effective. Getting a candidate or party's message to the general public requires advertising, polling and traveling, all of which can get very expensive, especially if the candidate is seeking a high office in a densely populated area. Numerous studies have shown that campaign spending is correlated positively with the campaign success, so much so that in most American elections, the candidate with the most campaign funding usually wins. Thus, a successful political fundraiser needs to be run efficiently to maximize monies raised.

Instructions

1. Determine how much it will cost to run the campaign for which you are raising funds. The biggest expenses will be advertising, staffing and travel, so estimate how much it will cost to run advertisements, hire campaign workers and travel from place to place. The cost of advertising varies by medium, while staffing and travel expenses depend on where you are campaigning. If you are running for mayor of a small town, you may not have any travel expenses and might only need a staff of one or two people, but if you are running for national office, you will be traveling nonstop for months at a time and will need to hire numerous staff members in every voting district in the country.

2. Set your goals. After ascertaining the cost of advertising, staff and travel, add the costs up to get a total. If you are hiring a political consultant from a prestigious firm to manage your campaign, expect to pay upwards of $500 an hour for their services as well as $300 per square inch of newspaper advertising and $150 per week in radio advertising at a minimum. Set your fundraising goal a little bit higher than what you think you will need, as situations may come up during your campaign that you did not foresee; for example, your local TV station may hike its ad rates. Once you have decided on a financial goal, set time-based goals, in which you aim to have a certain percentage of the total raised by a certain date prior to election night. For example, if your goal is to raise $1 million for a campaign on September 10, you might set goals of $150,000 by May, $400,000 by June, $650,000 by July and $1 million by August.

3. Establish a Web presence. Purchase a domain name from a domain name registrar, and put up a site that lists all your policy positions, previous accomplishments, and community involvement. Also have Paypal and credit card forms on your site, so interested supporters can easily donate online.

4. Seek volunteers. Although you may be able to raise some money on your own, more volunteers generally means more potential donors reached, and you want to reach as many potential donors as you can. Many high school students want to volunteer to build their resumes, and they are often a good demographic to recruit from for this reason. Once you've built up a team of volunteers, assign them to tasks such as cold-calling, door-to -door fundraising and letter writing.

5. Write guidelines for approaching potential donors, and give these to your volunteers. Telephone volunteers should be given lists of whom to call, to avoid contacting the same person twice. Door-to-door campaigners should have sheets with your basic platform on hand, so they can tell potential donors what you represent. Letter-writing volunteers should have a list of points and basic template for what they need to write to potential donors.

6. Set up an office out of which you and your volunteers will operate. You can rent an office or make one out of a room in your house: The important thing is to have multiple phone lines and computers set up so that volunteers can work in shifts from a main location.

7. Have the campaign manager or similarly connected representative personally contact especially promising donors. If you know a wealthy person who might contribute funds or have connections with a group with whom your platform is in sync, reach out to them personally. Volunteers can raise a lot of small- to medium-sized donations through conventional marketing techniques, but it is most likely that your biggest donations will come from personal contacts as well as from political organizations that will want to speak with you directly.

8. Write issues-based organizations with your stance on their issues. When writing a proposal to the pro-zebra Public Action Committee, talk about how you plan to support zebras through various policies, not how you want to abolish the estate tax or how you love all types of animals. The point when contacting institutional donors is to be as issue-specific as possible, so read up on their platforms before pitching to them, and pitch with the relevant parts of your platform in mind.

9. Write thank-you letters to anyone who donates. This will make donors feel appreciated and will increase the likelihood of their future support.

References

• Benjamin Katz & Mark Rackers: Political Campaign Fundraising

Resources

• DocStoc: Average Costs of Advertising
• Icann accredited domain name registrars