Campaign training

Campaign Training Is Key for Volunteers

by Alice McLoughlin (She/Her)

Campaign training can make the difference between a winning and losing campaign—especially training for volunteers. Although it’s important that you have a good candidate, campaign manager, or volunteer coordinator who can gather the volunteers, if those volunteers are not provided with training, they might not be of any help. When volunteers can provide much of your people power on a campaign, it’s important to make sure they know what they’re doing. A simple and effective way to get your volunteers up to speed is to send them to a campaign training!

Martín holding a pointer at a posterboard with the words 'training tips'

Training Tips from The Campaign Workshop

by Joe Fuld (He/Him)

When we started building training programs, we had a limited training tips to work from. However, after connecting with great mentors, going through various training programs, and learning through trial and error, we have accumulated tools to run effective training session.

Treasure chest full of gold labelled 'advocacy tips'

Advocacy Campaign Tips to Help You Succeed

by Alice McLoughlin (She/Her)

Executing a successful and impactful advocacy campaign requires time, dedication, and organization. In today’s day and age, there is strong competition from various advocacy issues fighting for attention, so to run a successful campaign, you will need to be ready to hit the ground running.

Earned Media

Earned Media to Improve the Credibility of Your Independent Expenditure

by Enrique Rivas (He/Him)

When it comes to your independent expenditure strategy, earned media doesn’t need to be your enemy, it can be your friend. Earned media can actually help you raise awareness for your independent expenditure campaign and improve engagement with your campaign amongst the general public. Whether you attract positive or negative attention, well, that’s on you!

IE

Independent Expenditure Mail vs Campaign Mail

by Ben Holse (He/Him)

While they share a number of similarities, independent expenditure mail and candidate campaign mail also have quite a few differences. Both independent expenditure mail and candidate campaign mail may have the same primary goal (i.e., getting a candidate elected), but the means that they use to get there can vary.

IE Assets

Independent Expenditure Campaigns: What They Can and Can't Use

by Tobias Cebulash (He/Him)

What information independent expenditure (IE) campaigns can use depends on who you ask, and what set of laws you’re covered by. In recent years, you may have seen candidate campaigns that appear to bend over backward to make photos and b-roll videos publicly available on their website (a classic example of this being “McConnelling,” which went viral in 2014). Why? What are voters going to do with all this stuff? Well, it turns out that in most cases, the audience isn’t the run-of-the-mill voter at all. These campaigns may instead be trying to make information publicly available for independent expenditure campaigns to use.

Digital Targeting

Independent Expenditure Campaign Tips for Digital Targeting & Messaging

by Julie Watson (She/Her)

Independent expenditure campaigns play a unique and vital role in many elections. They can support candidate campaigns by filling the gaps that they may have in their strategies, resources, or messages. These independent campaigns can use digital advertising to target different audiences, convey different messages, and use different tactics than candidate campaigns. This can help the candidate campaigns reach, persuade, and mobilize more voters.

IE FAQs

What are Independent Expenditures? (And Six Other Independent Expenditure FAQs Answered)

by Martín Diego Garcia (He/Him)

We wanted to answer some basic independent expenditure frequently asked questions (FAQs). From simply defining what an independent expenditure (aka IE) is to discussing contribution limits, this article aims to provide background and clarity on IEs and how they work.

IE Campaign Planning

Independent Expenditure Campaign Planning

by Alice McLoughlin (She/Her)

Here at The Campaign Workshop, we have written a lot about independent expenditure strategy in the past, but the key takeaways never change:

  1. Know your goals.
  2. Do no harm.
  3. Don’t duplicate efforts.
Political Campaign Strategy -

Political Communication Strategy: The Role of Effective Speechwriting

by Enrique Rivas (He/Him)

An essential component of a good political communication strategy is the integration of effective speechwriting. Even if your campaign doesn’t plan to deliver a ton of speeches, it’s crucial to have a structured process in place for crafting and refining them.

If you’re running for office even at the local level, chances are you’ll want to have a speech prepared at least for Election Night. If the thought of writing a speech seems intimidating, don’t panic–you can follow a simple and straightforward method to create impactful speeches.