The Campaign

Much has been said about political email, especially as it grows in popularity. Email is certainly not going anywhere and political email has proven to be an effective tool in both recruiting supporters and raising money for your campaign. It’s important to pay attention to all aspects of your email, but how much attention should be paid to the sender?

In my 20 years working in politics, I have seen a lot of things change. Technology in particular has done a lot to change the way that we communicate with voters. Yet somehow, we in politics have access to more information about our audience than ever before, but our audience engagement is at an all time low.

Your nonprofit facebook ad will need an image to display on users newsfeeds or right-hand rails. In a platform like Facebook, where viewers are accustomed to scrolling continuously, you’re going to need an image that is arresting enough to stop the scroll. Make sure the photo or illustration you use has a clear focal point that is either intriguing or easily recognizable and relevant to a viewer’s interests.

Races are heating up, but there are a number of exciting opportunities for Democrats up and down the ticket. Here are some tips to jumpstart your Democratic campaign:

Candidate recruitment in many places is a lost art form.  Contrary to the popular myth, someone from the DNC does not appear on your doorstep one day out of the blue and proclaim that you should be the next state rep. from Omaha. The majority of candidates who run for office are never formally recruited; they recruit themselves.

Political campaigns have a number of options when it comes to political advertising. Which political advertising medium a campaign chooses depends largely on their strategic objectives, targets, and, of course, budget. Below is a very general overview of the most common modern candidate campaign communication mediums and their pros and cons.

We are happy to announce that we are launching The Digital Advocacy Webinar Series sponsored by EveryAction. This four part webinar series will cover advocacy topics ranging from digital ad buying, developing a winning advocacy strategy, and goal setting for digital advertising campaigns. The first webinar in the series will be on content marketing for advocacy campaigns.

Advocacy strategies have changed a lot over the last 20 years. When I was a chief of staff in the New York State Legislature, I don't remember there ever being a real advocacy campaign around public support of an issue that focused on legislators. The main way groups moved legislation was to hire a lobbyist and that was really it.

We understand what it’s like to operate a campaign on a tight budget, so we’ve found some free tools to include in your campaign toolbox to help you along the way.  We hope you will find them useful as you launch your campaign or look for ways to better organize it. to ve clear no campaign tool will solve all of your campaigns problems.  Whether fundraising for a nonprofit, managing an independent expenditure campaign, or seeking office, a few of these tools will surely help you along your way.

One of the roles I enjoy most is teaching folks how to run for office and run campaigns. Any campaign training we run usually starts with essential political consulting advice on the three key resources of a campaign. The three main resources you have in any campaign are people, time and money. Below are descriptions of each of these three critical campaign resources.

The midterm elections on Tuesday made for a rough night for Democrats. As many of us emerge from the fetal position under our desk, I decided to write down my observations of the midterm elections of 2014, and what could be done differently in future elections. You can listen to some of my observations here as well.

Advocacy campaigns get inspired by GOTV.  Get Out The Vote, has come a long way. A good GOTV program can give a political campaign a big lift and those tactics are now being used for advocacy. you can read more about GOTV techniques here and here. GOTV techniques have transcended their former use as “valued election tools”, and are now the core component of modern GOTV Tactics.