The Campaign Workshop Blog

Campaign Photography: Those Photos Aren't Free You Know!

Photos are a great way to enhance your communications. We work to use custom political photography and custom photo shoots for nonprofits and organizations whenever we can but based on budget and timing it is not always possible to do a shoot. So many time rights managed and royalty free photos are your only options.  Knowing that you pulled an image from a blog that included an attribution line or…

Building a Nonprofit's Online Presence

These days, everyone is online. And if your nonprofit isn’t online, it should be! It’s easy, cheap and one of the best ways to stay engaged with your supporters. Here are five things we think every nonprofit should be doing online. 1. Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr. All of these are free for you to use, so why not? They are a fun, interactive way to communicate with your supporter base (who—spoiler alert—are already spending all their time on these platforms anyway). People love to…

Political Typography: What Does Your Logo Really Say?

The advertising world is well-versed in using and exploiting the visual language of typography to convey messages that go beyond the overt, verbal language on the page Cal Swan, author of Language and Typography, says, “These two distinct areas often come together in practice as there is clearly a very strong relationship between the conception of the words as a message and their transmission in visible form.” Nowhere…

Online Advertising Testing

Over the last two Presidential election cycles, the Obama campaign has done some really innovative work online. There has been a lot of discussion in the progressive community about how other campaigns and organizations can take some of these tactics and apply them to their own causes. While it’s true that not all campaigns will have access to the same resources – budget,…

What's the Difference Between Political Mail and Election Mail?

Many times it is difficult to distinguish between what is considered political mail vs. election mail. Here’s a quick rundown of the differences between the two.  Political Mail: The United States Postal Service (USPS) defines political mail as:  Material promoting candidates, referenda, or campaigns mailed First-Class Mail or…

All the Political Email, All the Time!

If you signed up for political email lists during the last election, you probably noticed a lot of email traffic. A lot. If, like a lot of us here at The Campaign Workshop, you were signed up for the political email lists of multiple candidates, campaign committees, advocacy organizations and more, you probably had an inbox flooded with emails. Which makes us wonder: is more political email better? The answer, of course, will depend on your…

Welcome Bill!

We're very pleased to announce that Bill Redding is joining our team as a Senior Strategist.  For those of you who know Bill, you're no doubt already aware that his political experience and expertise are impressive.  For those of you who haven't yet had the pleasure of working with Bill Redding, here's a quick rundown of his excellent, pre-TCW adventures: Bill Redding was bit by the campaign bug at the ripe old age of six, when he knocked doors to support his grandfather's successful bid for the local planning board.  Since then…

Want independence from student loans? As we break for the Fourth of July, we have students throughout the country facing a greater burden of debt. This is an issue that not only affects students; it affects our economy as a whole. Yes, Congress should act to retroactively decrease the rise in student loan rates, but there is still more that can be done. I run a business where collectively my eight employees have hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt—that is the norm…

Red Tag Political Mail, Does Your Mail Qualify?

Red tag political mail is a mystery to some. You may wonder how the United States Postal Service (USPS) treats the massive amount of campaign mail that moves through the postal system each election. The "secret" is red tag political mail. We write about this in our direct mail ebook.  The USPS  has a very effective system for identifying political mail and moving it…

Who Run the World? Girls

Some of us from Team TCW travelled to San Jose last week for the annual Netroots Nation conference, a place for progressives to gather and learn about how to be more effective at using technology to affect change.  Featuring over 80 panels with many distinguished guests, it was a great place to learn more about important issues, like comprehensive immigration reform and catch up with friends doing…

Don't Make the Wrong Move with Your Independent Expenditure Campaign

Many people think about creating an independent expenditure campaign (IE campaign), but very few will actually take the time to do it. If you don't know a lot about Independent campaigns check out our IE FAQ here.  I start IE campaigns trying to accomplish two goals: Do no harm (to your candidate). A poorly run IE campaign can hurt more than it helps. Make…

Political Organizers Top Campaign Tips for Data Entry:

For political organizers, data entry and turf cutting are the two most likely tasks that will be keeping you up late into the night. Unlike cutting turf, which can be strangely comforting, data entry is only really enjoyable when it is complete. So to help out political organizers still in the field we have compiled a short list of tips to make data entry a bit easier. 1. There are a number of campaign tools now…

No Hate for LGBT Candidates

One week after we put our blog up, I received anti-gay hate mail from a woman named Sharon Kass. I was going to just ignore this, but after thinking about it and Googling her, I felt I needed to respond. See, Sharon is a prolific letter writer who sends out hate-filled letters when someone is mentioned in an article on LGBT issues. There is even a Change.org petition asking her to stop sending these letters. The body of…