You're Running For Office...Now What?

No matter what office you're running for, there are some basics that apply to every campaign. There are the essentials that you need to take care of first, and there are a few things you need to get started on once you're set up. This guide will walk you through the fundamentals of getting a campaign started.

Guide for Setting Up Your Campaign – Political Campaigns 101

• File with the appropriate agency >>
• Managing Staff / Volunteers >>
• Fund Raising >>
• Government Reporting >>
• Campaign Website >>
• Voter Data / Segmentation & targeting >>
• Getting Out The Vote >>
• Additional Reading >>

Filing with the appropriate agency

Before you can do anything you will need to let the government know you are running. Your campaign isn’t really a campaign until you make it official. It’s important to do some research and know what you need to do to get on the ballot and when you need to have it done. For some offices, you will need to get a certain number of signatures to qualify. You’ll need to contact the administrative government offices to find out what you need to do, and by when, to get registered (i.e. if you are running for a state campaign, you’ll likely need to contact your Secretary of State).

Have questions about getting started? Call us at 888.217.9600 or email us.

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Managing Staff / Volunteers

Volunteers are an essential part of any campaign. Whether they are your friends and family helping out, or hundreds of passionate volunteers going door to door, you need to be able to attract, coordinate and communicate with these volunteers.

Attracting supporters can be done with through your website (Need a website? Try SiteBuilder), where you can build forms that allow them to sign up to help out. Using BackOffice you can easily generate as many of these forms as you need, including not just their contact info, but also their interests and how they want to help, and have that information import directly into your database, with no additional data entry.

BackOffice also allows you to maintain a group calendar that everyone in the campaign can access, so you can keep your team members on the same page. In addition to being able to keep tabs on your volunteers and select specific groups for specific jobs, like walking precincts or stuffing mail, BackOffice allows you to send out targeted emails inviting groups of volunteers or potential volunteers in to help out.

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Fund Raising

There are three basic staples of fundraising - lists, labels and letters. That basically means lists of people for the candidate or the fundraiser to call and labels and letters to get solicitations into the hands of potential supporters. If you want to raise money, you have to provide your donors with as many chances to give as you can. That's one of the reasons we offer FundRaiser, so that you can send an email to your donors and give them a link to donate right on your website.

But fundraising requires a well-organized operation. You need a candidate who will make those calls and a system in place that supports the candidate with the necessary information. Every major donor is different. Many may have specific issues they care about and topics to avoid. You certainly want to know whether a donor has given to you in the past and how much room he or she still has under the contribution limit. CompleteCampaigns.com's product BackOffice is specifically designed to help you target, track and communicate with your donors. You can note any special details about a donor and then quickly search on that data. Do you want a list of all your donors who have given you $100 or more and care most about tax issues? You can easily manage that data in our system.

Set up a FREE DEMO today >>

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Government Reporting

Just like you report your finances on your taxes, your campaign needs to report its donations and spending. And just like your taxes, this can be a nightmare if you're unprepared.

To tackle your reports, you really have two options.

1. You can hire a professional treasurer to do the accounting for your campaign. Very likely, whichever treasurer you bring on will be using a software package that helps them manage their reports. Contact us about referrals >>

Or

2. You can use a software package of your own to do the reports yourself. CompleteCampaigns.com's BackOffice is user-friendly software that takes the headache out of government reporting. It's like a political version of TurboTax, designed specifically for the needs of campaigns. It provides guaranteed reports, whether you're at the Federal, State or Local level, in addition to thousands of other campaign-specific features.

BackOffice also has 24/7 free emergency support, since we understand that political campaigns work need their problems solved right now, not next Monday. And since BackOffice is web-based software, you can access your information from virtually anywhere.

BackOffice is:

• Guaranteed compliant at the Federal, State or Local level
• Packed with helpful features specifically designedfor political campaigns
• Web-based, so you never have to download or install anything and you can enter data and file your reports from almost any computer.
• Supported 24/7, so you can call us at any time, and get your questions answered BEFORE the filing deadline.

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Campaign Website

There is no question about the importance of having a campaign website, but what exactly do you need? Five years ago, you just needed a web presence…that is, a website with your message, photos and press. However, the website has evolved to an interactive and powerful tool for candidates, allowing streaming video, blog postings, message boards, volunteer sign up, donations, and more.

Not all campaigns have the money to hire a professional web developer who can put together a custom campaign website, and unpaid volunteers rarely produce the kind of effective campaign website you're looking for. CompleteCampaigns.com has a solution: a powerful and affordable system called SiteBuilder that makes building a website easy and affordable for campaigns of all sizes. It packs all the punch of an expensive custom site, at a fraction of the cost.

SiteBuilder

Your website should also be integrated with your database, so when your supporters visit your website, they can quickly sign up to volunteer or donate. Your database should also help you track your donations and assist you with government reporting.

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Voter Data, Segmentation and Targeting

Voter data is the public records of all the registered voters, including names, addresses, party affiliations, and more. There are several good sources of data, starting with your local registrar. Many campaigns want to get data from a vendor, because they often provide updated and more accurate information. But vendor data can come with a pretty hefty price tag, especially if you're working with a smaller campaign. Finally, local party organizations will often maintain voter lists that they will provide to their campaigns.

The data is often in a format you can open like a spreadsheet, but with thousands or even millions of people and dozens of columns. You could use a program like Excel to view it, but it would be unmanageable and impossible to maintain. Excel typically can't be used to allow multiple people to access it and then there are the questions about how you would get the information you're looking for. What if you wanted to create multiple walk sheets for your volunteers to go door to door? How would you know who lives near who?

Using Excel for voter data just isn't workable. You can see a side-by-side comparison here.So what is your alternative?

CompleteCampaigns.com's VoterManager is specifically designed to help you with this data. It offers customized walk sheets, detailed information on each voter in one easy-to-understand page and a simple tool for pulling out the targeted lists of voters you want. And like BackOffice (link), it’s web-based, which means you don’t need to deal with maintaining and backing up the data.

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Getting Out The Vote

This means getting registered voters out to vote. Plain and simple. But you know how hard it can be to convince just one person to do that, let alone tens of thousands or even millions of people.

This is one of the most challenging, and yet essential, steps to running an effective campaign. It involves running an effective field campaign, which means organizing your volunteers to target specific voters on specific issues.

CompleteCampaigns.com has a powerful tool for getting out the vote, which is VoterManager, designed specifically for this purpose.

Create walk sheets by issue, location, and more.

Additional Reading

• Winning Young Voters >>
• Tilting the Playing Field: Voter ID & Turnout >>
• Learning from Major Campaigns for Running Local Elections >>
• Off-Year Issue Campaigns To Help Form Your Message >>
• More on Fundraising >>
• Press Relations >>
• Public Speaking >>

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Get started today.

Get in touch with us by email or by calling 888.217.9600 to get a free demo of our software, and learn how we can help your campaign.