Campaigns

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.

Our third installment of our picks for innovative nonprofit marketing campaigns is here to inspire  your creativity. This time, we have chosen four creative advertising campaigns that incorporate direct mail, video, and print advertising to convey important messages.

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.

We have written a lot about political fundraising but not on advocacy fundraising, so here we go. Whether it is for advocacy or for political campaigns, fundraising is largely similar and shares a number of characteristics. For both, the ask is a core component of your fundraising technique. Below is a look as some of these shared characteristics.

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.

Running a non-profit is not easy. but your non-profit board can help your organization go from drab to fab. Fully utilizing your non-profit board can make the difference between a sluggish or vibrant organization. Here are some tips to up your board's performance and give them a meaningful experience.

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.

Last week we released our first ebook: Political Direct Mail In The Digital Age. The book explains why with all the technology we have, political direct mail in the digital age is still relevant. We explain how you should decide on direct mail and targeted communications strategies for political and advocacy campaigns. We also discuss the cost of direct mail, micro-targeting strategies and how to use direct mail for GOTV.

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.