MONEY

COMPREHENSIVE FUNDRAISING APPROACH

FINDING THE MONEY

How Much is Enough? Raising sufficient funds has not grown any easier over the last decade. The website Open Secrets operated by the Center for Responsive Politics, with the nifty catch phrase “Count Cash and Make Change,” presents the full picture on the rising cost of elections.

On their page “The Money Behind Elections” they point out that the 2012 U.S. Congressional races cost a total of $3.6 billion, up from $2.8 billion in 2006 and $1.6 billion in 1998. Their page “Election Stats” shows that the average House campaign in 2012 cost the winner $1.5 million, the loser $540,000. For the winner, the cost is up 130% from 1998 when the average winner spent $650,000.

It’s not much different at the state level. The National In-stitute on Money in State Politics provides an overview of campaign finances for the 2009-2010 elections. You can look up each state in their charts but the average amount raised by legislative candidates across all states was nearly $80,000. The total spent across all state legislative races in 2009–2010 was $990 million, up from $765 million in 2001–2002, an increase of nearly 30%.

What is it? As we noted above, “leave no stone unturned” is at the heart of a comprehensive fundraising approach. With the growing requirement to raise more and more funds to meet the rising level of competition, take your pick of +30% or +130%, you’ll need to tap all potential sources of funding. Not only that but you’ll need to deploy tactics that tap those sources thoroughly if not relentlessly. Perhaps we should have added something about wringing blood from the stones you’re turning.

The bottom line is that every potential source of funding needs to be touched and tapped for you to generate sufficient funding for your important campaign.

What and Who? Your greatest fundraising asset is always your candidate. That typically means making sure your candidate is front and center for all the events and activities you’ll be staging to both get your message out and to raise funds.

Your candidate is also your biggest source of funding. The website Follow the Money reports that in the 2009–2010 elections candidates were the largest donors with 21% of the total amount donated to campaigns.

Donors from the finance, insurance, and real estate sector were the next largest contributors at 8% of the total. Political parties came in at nearly 8% and in some states public financing represented a significant source of support. Given this, the biggest source of funding by far will be your candidate.

GETTING TACTICAL

GETTING STARTED

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE The candidate is expected to donate. Other potential contributors won’t seriously consider donating to candidates who aren’t supporting their own campaigns. Once this is addressed, it’s time to reach out to friends and family. Start with friends and then move on to friends of friends. Include business contacts. Make this a “viral campaign” by spreading the requests throughout your network and moving on to your friends’ networks as they will want to help as well.

• Activating your network can happen through gatherings of your candidate’s friends and contacts to explain to them the importance of the campaign. They will need materials to support their requests to their friends and you should also provide them with goals for their efforts.

• Everyone can make a difference and it doesn’t need to be at a high dollar value. Build a broad base of donors at every level from $25 to $100 and up. It’s important to get started early. Then you can go back to the same donors in the middle of your campaign and toward the end of the campaign. It’s called the rule of three: beginning, middle, and end.

• Building a large pool of donors, at whatever level they decide to give, will also give you a great pool of potential campaign volunteers. Plus, they can always ask their friends to support your campaign as well.

• Make sure you also reach out to past donors. If this is your first campaign, reach out to a local office holder who shares your values, say the mayor, and ask if you can send a one-time mailing to his list to get things started.

• Also reach out to people who are aligned with your message or who are even partially aligned. They will want to support your efforts. Don’t forget your opponent’s enemies either. Their strong dislike for your opponent or your opponent’s positions can be a powerful motivator to support your campaign.

• An excellent strategy is to create a finance committee of your best supporters. They in turn can bring their personal and professional contacts into the effort. They don’t have to be wealthy but willing to request donations, send a letter, or host events.

Activities and Events Many potential contributors won’t respond to your mailings or phone calls but will contribute to attend an event. Perhaps they are just here for the party. The trick is to get them actively supporting your candidate.

The best approach is to identify hosts who will not only bring the events together but also agree to either donate more than the ticket price or to sell ten or more tickets. They can host house parties to get out your message and raise funds.

As you’re planning larger events consider opening up aspects of the event to different levels of donors. For example, with a $500 dinner provide a $2,000 VIP reception beforehand and a $50 desert reception afterward. This allows people to opt in at a level that is reasonable for their budget and gets everyone involved, no matter the amount they can donate.

Auctions followed by a speech from your candidate can also be an excellent fundraiser. Make sure you solicit the auction items from supporters and value them as donations in kind. Holding the auction first can generate a considerable amount of excitement before your candidate gets up for their thank you and campaign message.

Other potential fundraising events include family gatherings, say for a roller skating party or a movie night. Find individuals to sponsor the event and then raise additional funds through ticket sales. You can also have fun through what we call “money bombs,” that have a short deadline and concrete fundraising goal. One example is a deadline to raise $1,000 to buy and distribute yard signs.

Direct Mail, Online, PhonesDirect Mail, online, and phones are your critical campaign communication channels. They are vital to gettig your message out and to generating contributions both through direct solicitation and invitations to events.

DIRECT MAILAdvertising Age has provided some important statistics about the effectiveness of snail mail versus email, based on those who actually purchase a product or in this case contribute.

• Response Rate Direct Mail 34 out of 1,000• Response Rate Email one out of 1,000

From this you can see that direct mail is far more effective in generating a response. However, it is also quite a bit more costly than email with printing and postage to be considered.

One thing to like about direct mail is that it has a tangible presence in someone’s hands. Everything about it is under your direct control—the type of paper, ink color, font, and physical layout. That type of presence can only be found via mail. Websites and email definitely can’t deliver that type of control.

Given that, make the most of it. Choose your paper and branding to reflect your campaign. Mix up the presentation of the message by using underlining, bold type, subheading, and hand-written notes in the margins to draw attention to your key points. Set it up as though you’re trying to get your message across in ten seconds—which is probably how long that direct mail piece will be in someone’s hands.

GETTING TACTICAL

In that ten seconds, not only get your message across but also make a request for further action. This can be reading more deeply into your letter, getting online, and registering for an event or making a contribution. Get your call to action across as quickly and compellingly as possible.

ONLINEThe Pew Research Center notes that 87% of American adults use the Internet. High-income individuals, those with incomes over $75,000, are at 99%. They also found that social networks are used by 74% of all Internet users. They go on to show that 90% of adults have a cell phone and 58% a smart phone. This broad Internet access, from desktop to smart phone, coupled to low cost email solicitation and instant online contributions, mean you absolutely have to focus on Internet fundraising.

Once your contributors and potential contributors are online you have an opportunity to better tell your candidate’s story through videos, photos, etc., and to do so much more cost effectively. Plus, you can provide more opportunities to contribute and convert those contributions to recurring contributions throughout the campaign.

• Website and social media optimization is a critically important factor. You don’t want to send the contributors that you’ve painstakingly engaged, nurtured, and activated to your website and lose them in the process. So spend some time evaluating your website and optimizing your landing pages along with your call to action.

• Make the contribution process simple and straight forward. Make the “Contribute Now” button available everywhere. Note, too, that many will be coming to your website using a smart phone. For that reason, your website must be mobile optimized.

• Finally, never, ever pass up an opportunity to capture someone’s mailing address and email address. This needs to be a critical element of your website and during your events. Sign people up for more information on your candidate and the issues.

PHONESWe’ve already noted how important smart phones are to Internet fundraising. Phone banks reach out to landline and cell phones to get your candidate’s messages out and to raise contributions along the way.

The real key is to use your phone bank to engage potential voters in a dialogue. Ask them to vote, contribute, and volunteer. Then you need to follow up. Just as we noted earlier, you need to follow the rule of three: engage voters at the beginning of the campaign, in the middle, and at the end.

In addition, a phone bank can be very useful in combatting your opponents’ attacks on your candidate. You’ll need to activate immediately when that happens. Another big effort is to Get Out The Vote. GOTV. This means you need a phone list of those likely to vote for your candidate. It’s no good getting out the vote for your opponent.

We recommend using micro-targeting to first find the most likely donors and second to target personal messages that activate the individual. For example, if your candidate is focused on environmental issues, you’ll want to target those most interested in supporting those issues. Likewise, education messages should be directed to moms with small children who are most interested in supporting your efforts in that area of interest.

As we began discussing leaving no stone unturned, data management and micro-targeting are all about finding the right stone to turn. This not only is highly efficient in getting out your message it is also highly cost effective. Saving money in your campaign will become just as important as raising money.

Pulling it All Together

Integrated Campaign You need to make every effort to coordinate your fundraising efforts across direct mail, email, websites, social networking, and phones. Moving contributors from direct mail to website contributions can make a big difference in the costs of soliciting contributions over the life of your campaign and your re-election campaign down the road.

With good timing, you can use email to let people know about your direct mail that will reach them in just a few days. The direct mail can then be followed by another email urging them to donate online. The messaging used in those efforts can then help form your phone bank message that is yet one more follow up. Finally, all that comes together on your website funneling visitors directly to your contribute page and into your volunteer efforts.

Make it all work together for your candidate’s campaign.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

TARGETING YOUR EFFORTSOf course, phone banks require individual phone numbers. The email campaigns require individual email addresses and direct mail requires postal addresses. The bottom line is that it all comes down to the quality of your lists. Ideally, you’re building your lists over time but you’ll also need to purchase some lists during your campaign to reach out to those you don’t already have in your database.

Don’t forget about the potential to raise funds through text-to-donate campaigns. While the dollars raised in this manner many prove to be small, the capture of cell phone numbers for follow up requests and voter activation can prove just as helpful as the contribution. A further impact of this method is direct engagement with the voter.

Campaign Now is a political advocacy marketing firm headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis. The company was founded in 2008 by John Connors with the goal of creating a trusted and flexible firm with a young, talented team that offers a

full-service approach to direct grassroots marketing. The Campaign Now team includes specializations in voter contact, telemarketing, fundraising, and digital solutions to serve a thriving political- and issue-advocacy market.

Comprehensive fundraising is the theme, but in essence it is maximizing your opportunities to succeed in funding your campaign. Contemplating all that is needed to bring a truly comprehensive fundraising strategy to your campaign can appear quite daunting.

Fear not. Campaign Now brings years of experience and a broad range of expertise to developing and implementing fundraising campaigns. They can run a turnkey campaign, provide services to support your own efforts, and/or provide consulting insight into all aspects of your fundraising efforts.

Give us a call and let’s discuss how we can help. Contact us at (855) 329-4327 or email info@campaignnowonline.com

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING