Fundraising ABC's Or The Right Ingredients to Start Your Campaign

Fundraising Recipe for All: Part 1

The Mise en Place

 If you've made a recipe, you know there's a formula. So much of this, a cup of that, a pinch of the other. Stir, bake, voila, it's a cake! 

So it goes with campaigning. Ingredients are Fundraising, Messaging, Website, Walkpieces, walkers, phoners, signs, mail, mail and more mail.

Also, for a fancier cake, to please refined palates, TV, polling, research, and of course more money.

There is no such thing as too much money in most campaign, like there is in most recipes. However, there is such a thing as too little. Plan now, get all your ingredients in place - a budget is crucial - and start raising the dough.

You campaign cake doesn't have to be the richest, sweetest, fluffiest, most decorated confection. But it does have to have many of the common ingredients mentioned above, and money, like flour, is the one you start with. And you don't want to run out of. You can substitute honey for sugar, leave out the eggs, forget about yeast. But you need something to create a batter. In campaigning money is that something.

Why Bake a Sweeter Cake?

Why, you might ask, if I have social media, free, volunteers galore, free, emails, very free, house parties (should be free) and forums.

You need voters, masses of voters. And unfortunately, most voters who actually go out and vote, aren't going to be at forums or house parties, won't read your facebook page or emails. They've got a glut of them.

You need mail, good looking eye-candy mail. Well produced and mailed from the post office which is where most of all this money goes. 

You need to pay someone to create the mail and the signs, a professional with the right skills. And you may need to pay one or two other people to help you strategize, keep track of events and questionnaires coming in and important dates for fundraising and other campaign essentials.

You need money even if your campaign is small, downticket and mostly volunteer driven. So stop complaining and start asking.

Example of Yeasty Bread and of Bread Fallen Flat

We just saw this play out in a race most people aren't even aware of and can't vote in, but which affects them nonetheless: The race for delegates to the Democratic National Committee (Yes, the Reps have one too, but just to be clear, we are talking to and about Democrats, maybe greens and independents, Reps, you may leave now, you have plenty of outlets. Progressives only please). This group meets frequently, has huge influence over the policies of the Party and if we control the legislature, and better yet, have a President, the policies of the country. They also have a great deal to do with who runs for Senate and House, who gets the money. It's all about the moola, see?

We just had that election in California. We saw a lot of slick mailers, more than I have ever seen before sent out to voting delegates of the California State Party Executive Board. Because I am one, I get the mail.

Some were from individual candidates, some from slates of candidates. None of them had to reveal their sources of funding, so that left a lot of us scratching our heads. Even good candidates we like sent this mail, they sent reams of it. Someone with deep pockets was footing the bill.

Some of the good candidates we like sent no mail. They sent a few emails, some texts and at the end when it was close to time to vote, phone calls. Why, you might wonder, didn't  those people with the slick mailers have to disclose who paid? Why indeed. It's a crazy rule of the Party (Parties remember, are private, not public, entities, so when you run to be elected to the Party from within the party, those funds used do not have to be reported for this activity because it's internal member to member communication). 

I rooted out some of the candidates and asked. One was honest enough to say he self funded. I immediately asked how he felt about funding other candidates. The right ones, he said. Good, I've got his number.

So two of my favorite progressives, one a stalwart environmental/climate justice activist, the other an anti--poverty/affordable housing activist, lost, even though they had both been elected delegates for years. I was shocked. So were they, visibly when we met up later. Being on the right side and working with integrity isn't enough. People have to see you, touch you and do it over and over. You have to (virtually) get into bed with them.

Pop it in the Oven

All this is by way to say, raising money is crucial to any campaign, even the smallest. Unless your district is small enough you can print out flyers on your laptop and walk them to every home, make handmade signs with cardstock and magic marker (and if you do this, please, please put a readable disclaimer on the flyers and the signs that says "made in house" and has your contact info and website, preferably the name of your whole campaign and fppc number, on it), talk to every single voter two to three times, make follow up calls, have friends to check if they voted, make reminder calls, and even drive them to the polls on election day if need be, AND your opponents are repulsive slime-worms with halitosis and less money than you, you need cash. Print, mail, signs, handouts, if you want them to be memorable, must be done professionally. If you want union support, you must get them printed at a union shop, often more costly than the copy shop down the street, but worth it.

Next time: tips on where to go for $$ and how to make the ask. Hint: Start remembering relatives'  birthdays now. And ask for their favorite and most beloved family recipes. They'll remember you too.