A Practical Guide to Winning Political Campaign Budgets
If there’s one common thread that runs through the progressive movement and Democratic political campaigns, it’s that they are very often operating with a limited budget. That fact makes having a well-crafted political campaign budget critically important. You need to be strategic with how your resources are spent and get the most out of each dollar.
Many campaigns get into trouble when they don’t have a written budget or set lofty goals that are impossible to achieve. Doing the work to draft a realistic budget and thinking strategically about when, why, and how your campaign will spend money is key. Below are some guiding principles for building a winning political campaign budget.
How much do I need to raise for my political campaign budget?
Look at past campaign budgets
One of the best ways to estimate your fundraising goal is by looking at what similar campaigns have raised in the past. Remember to consider these budgets in the context of these past campaigns. Did they have a competitive primary/general election? Was it a multi-candidate field or a one-on-one race? Was it a presidential year or an off-year election? This will help you get a broad sense of what you may need to raise to be successful.
Start with your vote goal
Your vote goal is the foundation of your campaign strategy, and it needs to be the foundation of your budget. You should dig into past election data, determine how many votes you’ll need to win, and then ask: Who are the voters I need to reach? What’s the most effective way to communicate with them? How much will that cost? For help on finding that number, check out our blog on calculating vote goals. After you do that, you can go to work creating a budget that will help you get to those numbers.
Create three different budget levels
When you’re initially drafting a political campaign budget, we recommend that you create three budget levels—a Cadillac, best-case scenario budget, a middle budget that’s very realistic, and your worst-case budget if case fundraising doesn’t go your way. You should then determine how you’ll spend your money within each of these budget scenarios to help you get to a win. This framework helps you plan strategically and stay flexible, no matter how your fundraising goes.
Where does the money come from?
Start with your personal network
One exercise we ask campaigns to do early on is to compile a full list of their personal networks and put them all into one spreadsheet. This includes people connected to you on social media as well as contacts in your cell phone and email lists. Go through each person on the list and assign a dollar amount for how much you think they can give your campaign based on what you know about them and how strong your relationship is. After you’re done, add it up and see what the total is. If the total is 1/3 of the way to the budget that you think you need (likely your mid-level budget), you’re on the right track. If you run a strong campaign and prove viability, you can raise the other 2/3 from your community or donor networks. If you’re not at 1/3 or more of what you need from your personal list, you may need to rethink if this is the right race for you.
Using power circles
Power circles are an easy way of distilling who you should raise money from and who you should spend your time calling. It starts with your personal network of friends and family; these are your best targets for fundraising and who you should spend the lion’s share of your time calling. The next layer is the ideological layer, or people who may not have as strong a tie to you personally but broadly share your values. These people include frequent donors, activists, and PACs that align with you on a certain issue. This should be your next priority after you’ve exhausted your personal network. The last layer is the “axe to grind” layer, or people who will support you simply because they have a compelling reason to oppose your opponent. This layer is less reliable since they don’t have a personal tie to you or your viewpoints necessarily, but they still may be willing to give you money and should at least get a phone call.
Small-dollar digital fundraising
You shouldn’t expect to raise all your money from large, max-out donors. Small-dollar digital fundraising has become a key pillar of modern political campaigns. This is about more than just raising money; it’s about building an engaged community of supporters that chip in $5, $25, or $50 at a time. A strong small-dollar program requires compelling storytelling and urgent calls to action, often tied to rapid-response moments or key reporting deadlines, like a major end-of-quarter deadline. If done right, it will not only provide you with a consistent source of revenue but it will also show that your campaign has real grassroots momentum. Your small donors have a real stake in your campaign, and they become active stakeholders who are more likely to volunteer, turn out to vote, and spread the word.
In-kind donations
Not all fundraising comes in the form of cash. In-kind donations can be a campaign's secret weapon for stretching its budget and leveraging community support. These non-monetary contributions, like donated food for phone banks, the use of an empty office space for a headquarters, or the pro-bono time of a graphic designer, cover things you would otherwise have to pay for. And every donated pizza or free hour of legal advice frees up cash that can be redirected to voter contact. However, this strategic advantage comes with an important legal responsibility. You need to make sure you are diligently tracking these donations, assigning them a fair market value, and reporting them on your finance disclosures.
When do I need to have the money by?
Think about collections points
Timing is everything when it comes to campaign budgeting. When you will have money in-hand can be just as important as how much you raise. When thinking about your budget timing, you should work backwards from collection points. Collection points may be the dates your campaign finance reports are due, or actual voting dates like absentee voting, early voting, and Election Day. These are the specific times when you need to have money by, either to demonstrate your campaign’s viability or to have spent the money to communicate with voters.
Raising early money
A good chunk of your money will come in the door late in the campaign when donors are paying the most attention. Getting money in the door earlier can be a lot tougher, but it’s really important. You will frequently be met with the “I’ll revisit this when we get closer” line by many donors on the phone. Having a plan to raise early money allows you to pay your staff, build a website, print walk lit, and lay the groundwork for a successful campaign. That could mean calling on your friends and family (personal circle) early or keeping potential donors up to date on your campaign about endorsements or progress to encourage them to give early.
What should I spend money on?
70% of your money on voter communication
Many competitive campaigns are at parity when it comes to fundraising, so good budgeting can give you a real strategic advantage. What you spend money on is as important as what you raise, and a good rule of thumb is to spend at least 70% of your total political campaign budget on communicating with voters. There’s always a debate of what constitutes “voter communications,” but it’s pretty clear what isn’t communicating with voters, i.e., staff costs, rent, office supplies, etc. For the purpose of your budgeting, treat signs as visibility, not voter communication.
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Know your primary/dominant medium: The best way to reach voters is to dominate one communications medium at a minimum. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to outspend your opponent on that medium, what it means is that you need to spend enough money on one communications medium to achieve adequate saturation. Spreading your money too thin across a lot of different mediums is a strategy that leads to an inadequate level of saturation to reach enough voters at a high enough frequency to make an impact.
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Figure out a secondary medium: Your secondary communications medium should complement your dominant medium. To figure out which secondary medium you should use, ask yourself: What is the next medium that best reaches your targeted audience? Is it digital advertising layered on top of a strong direct mail program? Or is it direct mail layered on top of a strong TV buy?
30% of your money on everything else
The remaining 30% of your budget should be dedicated to the essential operational infrastructure that makes your campaign communications possible. Think of this part as the engine of the campaign, it funds staff salaries for the Campaign Manager, Field Director, and other key staff who do the day-to-day work. It covers administrative overhead costs such as office rent, utilities, insurance, and all your software subscriptions. This portion must account for the cost of raising the money itself, including expenses for your campaign’s fundraising events, mailings, and processing fees for online donations. Lastly, a small but non-negotiable slice needs to be reserved for legal and compliance, so the campaign is staying legal and completing all its required filings.
Where can I cut back?
Spending less on office supplies
Office supplies can be a big expense. Whenever possible, input data directly into the campaign software and cut back on the need for paper and toner. Reuse paper lists and print on the backsides (just be sure it is clear which is the old vs. new side). Depending on the printer/computer, there may also be settings to reduce the amount of toner you use with each print. When you notice that you are starting to get low on supplies, you can also ask your super-volunteers to bring supplies from home. Many people have a surplus of these items at home and won’t mind chipping in.
Having enough phones to call voters
Depending on your race, burner cell phones may be another big expense. When you run out of phones at a phone bank, ask your volunteers with unlimited minute plans to make calls on their personal phones. Some will refuse, but a few will oblige. Always have extra canvassing packets at phone banks and ask volunteers if they would go canvass instead of phone bank if you run out of phones. You can also show volunteers how to make calls using phone technology as a last resort but be forewarned that area codes on these phones will be unfamiliar to recipients and decrease your voter contact.
Staff vs consultants
Part of smart budgeting means knowing when to hire staff and when to bring in consultants. Generally, you should use staff for the day-to-day work like managing the budget, organizing volunteers, and overseeing the fundraising plan. These are the people who live and breathe your campaign every single day. Consultants, on the other hand, are best used for specialized services that require expertise or infrastructure you don’t have like polling, media buys, direct mail, or compliance. For example, you likely don’t need a consultant to run your social media accounts, but you may need one to handle your campaign’s mail program given all the USPS and other logistical headaches that come with it.
How much should I spend on signs?
Political campaign signs are expensive and can eat into your budget. They also take a bunch of time to put up and distribute to volunteers. But many campaigns can’t get away with doing zero signs because people will complain that they aren’t seeing any and that the campaign isn’t active enough. So, we caution campaigns to spend as little as possible on them. Before you purchase signs, make sure you have mapped out exactly where they will go and how many you need so you’re not buying expensive signs that will sit around your campaign office.
Creating a political campaign budget can mean making some really strategic choices, but it’s better to have a plan and recognize that you can’t do everything than dabbling unsuccessfully in too many arenas. Doing an honest assessment of your resources will mean the difference between winning and losing, so it’s important that you treat your budget as a strategic roadmap to victory.
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