Fundraising is often one of the most dreaded parts of a campaign. Learn how to overcome this feeling and go from being afraid to ask strangers for money to fundraising like a pro! In this episode, Joe and Martín talk about fundraising strategies and are joined by former Priorities USA PAC fundraising pro Amie Kershner, who reveals where to find donors and how to shift your mindset around fundraising to win your campaign.
If you think it’s hard asking strangers for money, imagine asking your own friends and family! Fundraising isn’t easy, but it’s essential to win your campaign. Most candidates will do anything to get out of calling donors, but Joe and Martín have some foolproof strategies to make fundraising easier for everyone on the campaign trail. This week, Joe and Martín discuss fundraising myths, where to find donors, and how to effectively ask for money. They are joined by Amie Kershner of AKM Consulting, and former fundraiser for the Democratic Priorities USA PAC. Amie will teach you how to shift your mindset from thinking about your donors as investors—investors in you, your campaign, and your vision. She also discusses the HR and logistics around hiring a fundraiser or fundraising team and the differences between having an in-house fundraiser and employing an outside fundraising consultant.
Resources
Political Fundraising Fundamentals for Your Campaign
Top Campaign Fundraising Objections
Call Time for Campaign Fundraising
Connect with us!
If you have campaign questions or want to learn more, reach out to us using the contact information below.
Twitter: @cmpwrkshp
Instagram: @TheCampaignWorkshop
Email: marketing@thecampaignworkshop.com
Joe Fuld
Twitter: @joefuld
Instagram: @joefuld
Martín Diego Garcia
Twitter: @gmartindiego
Instagram: @gmartindiego
Presented by The Campaign Workshop
(Intro Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (00:06):
Hey friends, you're listening to How to Win Campaign where you'll get an insider's perspective that teaches you not only how to run, but how to win. This is Martín Diego Garcia
Joe Fuld (00:15):
And I'm Joe Fuld and you can reach us on Twitter @CMPWRKSHP or on Instagram @thecampaignworkshop. Welcome and thanks for listening to episode eight of How to Win a Campaign. On our last episode, we really went deep on field programs, deep canvassing, and how to effectively run a door-knocking program with Carmen Berkeley, the chief strategy officer of Dancing Hearts Consulting. If you miss that episode, make sure you take a listen and learn all about field tactics from door to door to door knocking 101 to door knocking 105 I think. I mean we really dug in there. It was a great episode.
Martín Diego Garcia (01:00):
Yeah, I love Carmen and a huge shout out to all the work that she has done and is continuing to do. So in this episode we are taking a deep dive into money how much you need, how to raise it, where to find it. We have a great interview with Amy Kershner later on with, she's going to give us her experience on candidate fundraising and she has a wealth of knowledge that she was able to share with us with a lot of good tips and tricks for candidates who may be a little wary about asking strangers or their family really for the resources they need to run a successful campaign.
Joe Fuld (01:32):
Yeah, and I mean Amy has a, has a great background. I mean she has worked at campaigns at all levels and frankly like was a candidate herself.
Martín Diego Garcia (01:40):
Yeah. So where should candidates start really figuring out how much they need to raise when they are sort of jumping into a campaign Joe?
Joe Fuld (01:48):
So well we've talked a lot about the idea of doing a personal assessment, we talk about in that in episode one and episode two with Annise Parker. So check that out if you haven't listened to those episodes already, but from your personal assessment, your personal list of contacts you really want to come up with by doing some research ahead of time of how much do you think a race like this is going to cost? Is your campaign going to cost a hundred thousand dollars or $300,000 and then you want to, if it's a $300,000 race before you run, you want to have a list of people that get you to at least a third of that number. So if you feel like, Hey, I've got a hundred thousand dollars worth of potential donations on paper, this is something you want to test out. If if I was running for office, which I'm never going to, but if I was, the first thing I would do is call up a friend like Martín and I would say, Hey Martín, I'm thinking about running again, I want to make sure that this is legal and sometimes state laws, it's not, many laws it is where I can get pledges ahead of time. So I'd want to call up and ask and say, Martín, I'm thinking about running. If I were to run in our community, do you think you'd be willing to give me the max donation? Because I know our schools are a problem. I know you care about that too. And the filing for this office is coming up and I want to make sure that I really am ready and I'd love to know if you think this is something I should do. What do you think?
Martín Diego Garcia (03:20):
You know, Joe, we've gone back a long time. I really believe in your core values. I can think I can do that max contribution for you.
Joe Fuld (03:26):
All right, well cool. Well I haven't announced yet, so I can't take money for you yet. I don't have a bank account. I can't do that until I open up a bank account. But it's good to know that people like you are in my corner. So in this mythical land I would be able to do that and then put that down as a check mark. Right. And I keep going through to make sure that I, one got my pitch down. One of my favorite tools is what I call the rat method, which is reason, amount, and time and you can hear that I did that in the pitch.
Martín Diego Garcia (03:58):
One of the things that we often tell our candidates to do is to break out their Rolodexes, their Facebooks, their cell phone contacts, right. And make a list of every person they have possibly run into in their entire life and start really writing down numbers for these people all the way from your mom to your best friend in kindergarten. How much do you think they can give and if they can't give money, can they give time or do they live in your district and they can actually vote for you? I think really having a organized contact list is going to be super helpful. To go back to what Joe said and sort of really see, do you have the support there in terms of money, volunteers and votes sort of from the jump of your campaign. Joe, what are some sort of fundraising myths that you often hear in the training space from candidates when they start thinking about fundraising?
Joe Fuld (04:47):
Yeah, I mean the first is that somehow you put your name on the ballot and a flood of donations come in from people that you don't know. I think that there is a lot of great things about online fundraising, but you still need to make phone calls. You still need to go meet people. You still need to have a pretty big network to get those fundraising dollars and it takes money to make money. If you're going to run statewide for U.S. Senate, you're going to need to have money to build that grassroots list and really engage with folks. So that is one big myth. The other you know, big myth is that that somehow like magically time appears, right? You have to make time in your life to do this and you really have to be dedicated to doing it. Campaigns are a marathon, they're not a sprint. And so this is really about chipping away every single day and making fundraising calls. It's not something that you can do late in the campaign time and really like make up for it. You've got to do it right away. Then you've got to start and keep going.
Martín Diego Garcia (06:02):
Yeah. One of the traps I feel like a lot of candidates sort of fall into is this idea that they need a big name or a celebrity or some well known person at an event or a or a rally to in order to raise money when very often if you're running for school board or city council, even in state legislature, right? You're not going to have the connections to have a Oprah or a right. The governor or somebody of a well recognizable name sort of come to your race and do these fundraisers for you and they often take a much more time, energy and resources than you actually raise from these things and so you having that individual relationship with folks and and making that direct ask to folks is probably going to be your best bet versus spending the time and spending the resources to get somebody with a recognizable name or stature to come to one of your events for that.
Joe Fuld (06:51):
Yeah. Don't assume that people, even the people who really know you will just realize you're running for office and shower you with money. People don't give because they haven't been asked and you need to make those asks personal to the donors.
Martín Diego Garcia (07:08):
And not assume sort of what people can and can't give. I had a colleague who ran for office a number of times who, who would always tell this story about how his grandmother, when they were getting close to the election, got so mad at him because he never asked her for money. And he just assumed that she wouldn't give because she was on a fixed income and sort of made this assumption that she wouldn't give to him. And she was livid by the end of the race that she, he had not come to her and asked for a donation. So you don't want to sort of talk yourself out of money or leave any money on the table because you have assumptions of what people can and can't give.
Joe Fuld (07:42):
That's right. I mean, I, I will tell you that in my history of asking people for money, I have only seen people get offended when you ask them for too little. Not when you ask them for too much
Martín Diego Garcia (07:54):
Reach for the stars.
Joe Fuld (07:56):
Right. I mean, and all they can do is say no and, but, but the other thing to understand is people don't give money all at once. They're going to give money in pieces throughout the campaign at different parts. I don't need to say all of this and you don't either because Amy talked a lot about all of these fundamentals and she was a great guest. And so, you know, we're excited to hear from a good friend of ours, Amy Kershner. She has extensive experience working with candidates to raise money. She'll help peel back the onion on fundraising and you won't cry too much. And hopefully make it sound a little less daunting than it really is. So let's go on and hear what Amy had to say.
(Music)
Martín Diego Garcia (08:43):
Okay. And we're back and we're joined now by Amy Kershner. Thank you so much, Amy, for joining us.
Amy Kershner (08:49):
Oh yeah, I'm very glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Martín Diego Garcia (08:51):
Of course. So Amy founded AKM consulting back in 2011 after spending about a decade or so fundraising for candidates, progressive organizations, party committees. And actually during the 2016 election, she was the finance director for Priorities USA action, which was Senator Clinton's PAC and raised over $175 million for the campaign, which is quite astounding. In addition to that, has fundraised for a variety of campaigns, causes candidates and organizations all across the country and up and down the ballot. And so we're really excited to have her expertise and her insight as we dig into probably what is one of the most important pieces of a campaign is to raise some money to make sure you can actually run a successful one. And it often happens to be one of the pieces that most candidates are maybe wary or afraid of. It's one of the things that I would be afraid of if I were a candidate. So as you're working with candidates, are there any sort of tips or tricks that when you start to fundraise as as candidate should be thinking about that advice you can offer?
Amy Kershner (09:54):
Yeah I mean I have so, so much advice. So it is okay to be nervous about this and it is okay to be uncomfortable about this. And you know, I think it's, I I look back and think of all the times I ask people to just like sit in a chair and do this when it was so clearly something that was just not, you know, second nature to most people, you know. And I think knowing that, going in that accepting that those are two really okay. Emotions. but then also accepting that if you want to do this other big thing, you have to get through this. So I ask all of my candidates that I work with now just sort of shift their thinking, right? The first thing we try to do is we shift the thinking from you are asking people to, to give you something, right? So I, I actually don't refer to, I used to refer to people who give as donors and now I can now refer to them as funders or investors, right? Because it is a much more accurate description of what they are. They are investing in this idea that you will be a good representative for whatever it is you're running for. So you're not asking them to invest in your, I'd like to buy a new pair of sneakers fund, right? This is, this is not that you're investing in, they're investing in the ideas you are carrying forth as your platform and in your ability to, to run a good campaign. And part of doing that is to meet your fundraising requirements. So, so once we sort of shift our thinking that way, I think it helps people make the asks a little bit easier. It does initially feel like you're asking someone for sort of a handout and that is a no way what this is, right?
Martín Diego Garcia (11:39):
Yeah. No, couldn't agree more. So for candidates, would we sort of in a training space and ask folks, right. Raise your hand if you'd rather ask a stranger versus asking your friend. I think we get a sort of a mixed response to that, but for folks who are maybe wary or scared or seem awkward to be asking their friends and family to invest in their campaign what kind of advice would you give them?
Amy Kershner (12:05):
So, you know, I think this is really normal, right? I ran for office. Yeah, I did it. I, it's very hidden. It's one of those things I try to keep off of uh Google. So, no, I when I was living in Baltimore, I ran for Democratic Central Committee, which is kind of a there's no way to describe it. It's very odd, but it's not traditionally a campaign that people would raise money for, but I'm not exactly your traditional candidate, so, for a race like that, so someone said, you should fundraise, but that wasn't a bad idea. I probably should. But then when it really came down to having to make a list and call my friends and family, I was like, wow, this is really hard. And I gave me a newfound appreciation for exactly what I'd been asking people I'd worked with before to do so. But how I got through it was, was really that shift in mindset, right? When I stopped sort of asking, like I was asking for, you know, I'd like this for my birthday gift, right? Like, it wasn't, it wasn't that it was talking about why I wanted to do this and what I thought I would bring to the position when I was elected, but, you know, but I think if you asked me whether I'd rather call people I know or I'd rather just like be handed a stack of people, I'd probably pick the stack of people I don't know. And because I feel like I could do a pretty good fundraising pitch, but that's not a realistic way to start funding a campaign. It's not, it's not the fastest, it's not the best practice. And you really should go to the people who know you, who already believe in you and, and start to get their investment. And once you build that base, you can expand out.
Martín Diego Garcia (13:42):
And so we've talked to earlier around messaging and sort of how do you hone in a message, particularly when you're talking to voters whether you're talking to your base or persuadable voters, how is a fundraising pitch sort of different than that? Or is it, and what sort of makes a good fundraising pitch?
Amy Kershner (14:00):
So a couple of things I think, I think in some ways it can be very similar, right? Especially if you're talking to people and I think it's, you know, I think it's probably important for your listeners to know, depending on what kind of campaign they're running, they may only be calling people that are directly impacted by whether or not they're elected, but often they might be calling people who aren't in any way impacted by whether or not they're elected. So I think the conversations are a little bit different, right? If you're talking to people who are in your, in your district or in your state, your message is somewhat similar, right? You're there, you have to remember, you're often, you're talking to people who write checks but also can vote for you. And I think that's really important. But when you're talking to people outside of your district, outside of your state who may or may not sometimes be able to pick your state off a map, which happens sometimes you know, think it's trying to figure out, you know, there was a reason, there's a reason someone suggested that you call this person, you may know them personally or you may not. And so what was that reason? And so I think it's talking directly to, you know, sort of their needs, right? We're in a unique time. Right? And I actually think this is a great time to be fundraising truthfully because to a previous point there, there are a lot of people out there wondering what they can do right there is they, there's this feeling that they have to do something. And so what we're seeing is a pretty big uptick in the number of people who are becoming investors in these campaigns. But you know, I'm a big fan of doing some pretty simple research on someone to figure out a little bit about their background. You know, if they have a giving history, does it follow some kind of pattern? Do they give a lot, you know, they give only to women. Do they have, you know, heavily to women that gives you kind of a glimpse into maybe something, you know, something that they care passionately about or you know, are they, you know, do they have a lot of environmental giving or you know, it can give you sort of some, some tips into what are some points you want to stress with them? My also, my advice is don't tell people just what you think they want to hear. You have to be genuine. Funders are really smart and they can tell when you're not being genuine. So I think, you know, don't tell them something that's not true. They'll see right through it and, and so tell them, you know, what it is you actually do stand for and what you'll, you know what you'll do when you're elected.
Martín Diego Garcia (16:24):
Right, right, right. For folks who are just sort of starting out and have no idea where to even find that information, I mean, as they're researching donors or potential givers, where would you find that?
Amy Kershner (16:34):
Sure. Well, the good news is the internet exists in a way that it didn't when I was first starting out to do this. So the ability to do some pretty simple Googling is available. You know, there were a couple of websites, there's open secrets, right? They have a pretty good database that you can search through. You can obviously search through the FEC, which is via, you know, the official site. I find it a bit arduous, but you can do it if you want to. And then I, you know, I like political money line. It's a paid subscription, but if you're doing a lot of this and you're doing a pretty robust search, I find it to be probably the most user friendly. But you can get your information from free sites as well. It's not going to be a huge hindrance unless you're, you know, trying to raise 20 to $25 million. Then maybe you go ahead and splurge on the, on the subscription to save yourself some time. I would also, from a practition side of things who works with a lot of candidates don't let perfection be the enemy of the good here. I have a lot of, because there is so much information available, I have perhaps a few candidates who use it as a stall tactic to actually having to make fundraising calls. The internet can provide an endless amount of information. If you dig enough, it's just a matter of whether or not you want to make any calls that day or not. So, so I would say, you know, get, get a pretty good baseline so you have a sense of like what it is they do for a living or what they're involved in, you know. But I, I do think knowing, you know, what their third grade dog's name was might be a bit weird and I can't imagine how it would come from that conversation. So yeah, so it might be a little too much.
Martín Diego Garcia (18:12):
So shifting gears here to sort of what a fundraising team, so say a candidate has the resources to, to build a team. They have a campaign manager, they're bringing on a fundraising team. Can you talk a little bit about sort of what they should be looking for in candidates that they're hiring and sort of the difference between like a smaller race and much like a much larger race.
Amy Kershner (18:32):
So I've, you know, I've been involved in races of all sizes and so I've been the sole finance person on a longer shot congressional and I've been one of you know, 18 member fundraising team on a much larger Senate race or governor's race. So they really do vary. I think you know, the things that you, you want out of your finance team are, you know, sort of a passion for what you're doing, right? This is oftentimes this is sort of like, you know, the least exciting part of the campaign. Most people assume it's going to be the most important part because all they see are those very frontward facing galas and the big parties. And and those come much later and are actually rarely very much fun for the fundraisers because they're usually working, but you know, they're going to be grinding out doing a lot of donor research. Um they're going to be, you know, following up on pledges and you know, and then following up again when those pledges don't come in, they're going to be doing a fair amount of accounting sometimes, you know. So I think what you're looking for is someone who has enthusiasm for what you're doing, who's really bought in to, you know, making the most of the experience they're getting growing and learning. So I actually don't, you know, I don't dissuade folk from fi, from hiring people who maybe on paper don't check every single qualification box. I think there's something to be said for having to hustle a little bit and try to figure some things out as you go. And then the number one thing that all fundraisers have to be is detail oriented. And I can't stress that enough. It is a, it is a job that is, you know, won or lost in the details. So keeping track of everything and you know, you, they're going to be interfacing with people that are going to fund your campaign. And so making sure that the thank you notes have names spelled correctly and are free of typos, you know, all of those things are incredibly important because they re reflect upon you and on your campaign. So I would say that those are the questions I ask when I'm talking to people about working on campaigns and I do, you know, encourage writing samples, right? It's sort of a very old school thing but not a lot of people do anymore. But because they're going to be, you know, there's going to be a lot of email back and forth or thank you notes and things like that. You do want to see, you know, sort of that component and where you start from, at least.
Martín Diego Garcia (21:01):
As we talk about what you should be paying your fundraisers. I want to sort of touch on two things, two pieces here. The difference between sort of hiring your campaign team, right? And your sort of hiring of staffer for you versus hybrid consultant. Can you talk a little bit, if there's like a range or what candidates should be considering or potential fundraisers as they're looking to be hired onto campaigns should be considering when they are talking about salary and on the flip side sort of, are there different ways you can pay or hire a professional fundraiser or a fundraising consultant?
Amy Kershner (21:35):
So it's a pretty simple question with not a simple answer. So so I think you know, with, with regard to the fact that this could cause a riot among my fellow consultants I think my advice would be if, and when you have the opportunity to hire someone who will be a full time staff person, you should do that in lieu of a fundraising consultant. And I say that because I think, you know, consultants, I bring a ton of value and a ton of experience, but if you have the opportunity to hire somebody who every day wakes up and knows that their one job that they have to do that day is to move your own priorities forward, that's really helpful. Right? you're not competing with two, three, four, or five, six clients. You're the priority every day. So if you have that opportunity, even if it's somebody who's a little greener, I'd say go for it. Finding fundraising talent can be really tough sometimes. So you know, so that may not always be an option and not all consultants are, you know, are bad, obviously. I don't think so. So if I did that would be really awkward or evergreen. But I do think that's a, that's a balance you have to really think about, you know, so paying fundraising staff you know, this is the, this is the piece where I think it's, there are two places where, you know, it behooves you to spend money, right? Your campaign manager or the person who's going to pull this whole thing together, who's going to have a big job managing the entire team and the operation. And most of the time you, even though you may not realize you're, you need to be managed, but the finance person, they're usually one of the first people on the ground. And if they're not, they should be. You can't do much without money, so they should be there. So, you know, it's hard because these are, these races are, you know, the, the amount of money being raised in these races is so much more robust than it used to be. So I used to have a pretty good sense of ratio and now that is all out the window. But you know what, it's not unreasonable. I'll give some sort of scale here. It's really not an unreasonable on a top tier congressional race where you know, you're going to need to raise, you know, $8 million to be paying your finance director, you know, about in the neighborhood of like eight to $10,000 a month. It feels like a lot of money. But when you overall, you know, look at the overall budget and the amount of money there were, they're responsible for, Oh, that's pretty in scale. Um obviously if you're going to have to raise that amount of money, they're going to be managing a larger team. So, you know, so the work is, is a much more robust, smaller scale races. Obviously with lower budgets you will get less experienced, but, but obviously they come at a little bit of a lower price tag and then, you know, large statewide races just they, they range all over the place. So you know, so you'll probably go upwards of 10, 10 to 15 for a finance director on a big statewide. And presidentials I can't even begin to guess. So more money than we should talk about. And then consultants really also range across the board. The biggest question I get asked is do I do a retainer or do I do a percentage? So I know people who do both and I have done, I've never done a straight percentage. It's just not, I have overhead, I have things that I have to do every day. So I've never done that. I've done a lower retainer with a, with a percentage built in on top of that, but I typically keep those reserved for sort of the more institutional organizations that have a, have a pretty good infrastructure for all candidates. I only do a flat fee retainer. And I do that just because I know the amount of time I'm setting aside to do this every day. I know exactly where this fits in with our time budget, with our staff budget, with every piece of it. And over the last few years I've learned that that my work only gets us three quarters of the way to where we need to. The last quarter of the way we need where we need to get to is entirely dependent on the candidate. And I've had candidates who do all the work and we get there and everything's great and I've had candidates who don't do the work and we sort of don't get there. And due to no, no fault of my own. So so I do that sort of as a, you know, just sort of as a, this is the standard and this is how we do it. And you know, I think most consultants by and large are really good actors and take on work that they like and take on work that they are able to actually do. So, you know, I think most of my clients would probably say, but they got far more payout than the investment that they made. And that's a good feeling, right? That's exactly how I would like every client to walk away from the relationship or continue the relationship. In fact, most of the more often, you know, that's the goal, right?
Martín Diego Garcia (26:40):
And so as candidates are starting to figure out sort, what is this mysterious number that I need to raise? Where would you point them to figuring out sort of how much money they would actually need to raise to be even competitive in a campaign?
Amy Kershner (26:53):
Right, so, you know, so I think ideally part of your campaign team that you're putting together are, you know, your campaign manager, but also your consulting team. So the people who are going to do, if you're going to do media of any kind your media consultant, your digital consultant, if you have one or some sort of digital infrastructure, right? The world doesn't just end, doesn't just exist without the internet these days. Your direct mail consultant you know, all of the tools where you think you're going to need to win. They should all really be able to provide sort of some baseline estimates for if this is your win number, here's how you need to communicate with them. You know, it's all, it's all sort of a big guess at the beginning, right? You don't really know what your opponent's going to do. You don't really know what outside force is going to play into this. So campaign budgets can swing pretty widely, but they should give you a pretty good baseline budget. And you know, I mean I think all campaigns you know, have a high and a low budget and you know, the, the gap between those two is usually pretty wide, which I find to be interesting. But it gives you a sense of what you're going to need to raise, I would say, you know, do a high budget and a low budget so that you know what your very low baseline is. You know, where you have to work from.
Martín Diego Garcia (28:08):
Yeah. We have to say the budget is sort of like your roadmap, right? Whether it's your low budget or your high budget. If you're sort of scraping by on the minimum, you need to run this campaign. You know where your money's going, or if you get an influx of money, you also know where your money can go. And in the same way you need. Like you need a fundraising plan, right? To get to both of those budgets. What should go into a fundraising plan as candidates are starting to create them.
Amy Kershner (28:31):
So the place I like to start is I, you know, I sort of start every plan by, all on Excel spreadsheet. That's, that's my one piece of advice. Never do a fundraising plan in Word. I don't know why people would ever do that. So you put it in Excel so it can sum, sum itself. But I do the bucket. So how are you going to raise your money? How, you know, how much do you think you need to raise from call time, which is just straight asking people for money. Are you going to do events? Well, what kind of events are you going to do? And then you start mapping that out. Are you going to do fundraising direct mail which is different than voter contact mail. Right? And what is your digital fundraising look like? Does it, is it robust? Is it not? Digital fundraising, a really tough piece, right? So you know, under the events category I really drill down into like who's going to host events for me? How much do I think they can realistically raise? And you do targeting that way. The one thing I say about fundraising plans is if the plan you wrote at the beginning is the plan you ended with at the end you did something really wrong. So it just doesn't happen. Means you didn't really update it very well. So you know, how you assume the money is going to come in is never entirely the case. There will be money you didn't see coming that will show up. There'll be someone you were a hundred percent sure would do this event and then it would hit goal and they completely whiff on it and it just doesn't get there. But that's the point of the plan because I think otherwise when those kinds of things happen, you're not able to make those adjustments because you can't look at a document to see how it all is working together. And then, you know, the frustrating part of fundraising for anyone, including fundraisers is the completely unpredicted money that just rolls in at the end for no good reason. And you don't know why everybody just waited, but they did. And you know, it's a really hard thing. Managers don't like it. Candidates don't like it. Fundraisers really don't like it because it's harder to spend. You have to sort of take a, take a flyer and assume that that money is going to come. It always does. I don't know why. It just does. So probably these artificial deadlines, but you know, but you build those into your plan so that you aren't entirely, you know, surprised by it. And then the worst thing in the world I think is, you know, at the end of a campaign, you didn't plan for that. You lose by, you know, less than a percentage point and you have a hundred thousand dollars in the bank. You know, what could you have done with that? You know, if you just planned for it it's the worst feeling in the world, so.
Martín Diego Garcia (30:58):
As you talk about sort of planning for these deadlines, planning for quarters, et cetera, can you talk a little bit about at what point in the campaign you're, you should be expecting a good bit of money versus not?
Amy Kershner (31:09):
When I was doing trainings, what we would tell campaigns is they should expect 50% of their money to come in at the last like quarter to quarter and a half of the campaign. I think it's gotten a little bit better than that, but you know, it's definitely not too far off of that ratio. That can make budgeting really difficult. But it's, you know, it's a pretty good time. Your campaign should be at full swing, at full staff, at full speed that last, you know, that last quarter. It's when you have your, all of your field people and it's when you have, you know, every person who's ever going to say that they worked on your campaign will be working there in the last quarter. So so it'll be your biggest staff. You know, it all sort of makes sense and it does work together. The other thing too that I just tell people is, you know, really think about like how people live their lives, right? I think one of the things that campaign staff and candidates sort of forget because we're immersed in it all day, is that this is all we think about and this is all that we do. You know, look, spring break is a real thing for people. They go away with their families. August is a real thing for people. I don't know where every rich person in the country goes, but they go somewhere in August without phones. So I don't, that's, that's all I've deciphered in the last 15 years. So you know, so you should plan for those things rather than just be surprised and annoyed by it. So, you know, I think I think if you acknowledge sort of the realities you know, the other, the other piece that I say is like, you know, be creative and think through how you're doing things. Uh if you are in a place where football is a really big thing, don't call on Sundays during the game, right? Don't do that. It's a bad idea. But then likewise, I am a big fan of thinking through like, did your, does your town just get a big snow storm that's keeping everyone home? What a great opportunity to call them. They can't go anywhere. So I think being creative and trying to be nimble you know, they're snowed in and they don't have anything to do anyway. They might as well chat with you. So, so I think, you know, trying to be nimble and be thoughtful about how people actually live their lives will serve you well.
Martín Diego Garcia (33:22):
Well, thank you so much, Amy, for joining us and for your insights on fundraising. You've definitely made it a little bit less scary for me and hopefully for some of the candidates who are potentially jumping into a race.
Amy Kershner (33:33):
Oh, well good. Good. I was very glad to do it. So I hope, I hope everyone has great success raising lots of money.
Martín Diego Garcia (33:40):
I'm sure they will. I'm sure they love well. If you have any questions about what we did or didn't cover in this episode, please feel free to reach out to us by email or social media and we'll definitely put some of our blog articles in the episode description for you to check out. We'll be right back.
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Martín Diego Garcia (33:54):
And we're back. And a huge thank you to Amy Kershner for chatting with us about all things fundraising. I know that I learned a ton. I really appreciated her point that while fundraising doesn't come naturally to most people, and that's totally okay, right? You can really shift your thinking to hopefully make it feel a little less uncomfortable. So really think about call time as giving people the chance to invest in a future that they really believe in.
Joe Fuld (34:23):
Totally. It's always a good idea to start fundraising by reaching out to people who already believe in you. Asking family and friends for money may feel weird at first, but these are the people who know you and are rooting for you. This is the fastest and most realistic way to start funding for your campaign. Turn to the people you know first and expand from there.
Martín Diego Garcia (34:47):
And just like everything else, right? You want to make sure that you have a written plan as well, right? You want to make sure that you have goals and benchmarks that you want to meet throughout the course of your campaign so that you can measure that progress and really stay organized. Have a clear sense of who you can turn to and how much you can actually realistically raise. We often tell people to have an Excel spreadsheet or some way of tracking. How are you going to raise this money and who is it going to come from? Is it come from family and friends? Are you going to be doing a bunch of events where you're raising money? Is it digital mail? Is it online giving, right? How can you raise through each tactic and each person listed and really keep track of that and know that these are gonna change, right? Things are gonna happen, COVID-19 happened, right? And we really had to adjust our plans in order to make sure that we are still raising the resources that we need to communicate with voters, but also that we're sort of adjusting to the current landscape.
Joe Fuld (35:40):
Yeah, and when you hire, you know, a team, you want to make sure that they're working with you and you trust them and they're giving you advice that you're going to listen to. When you're doing call time, you want to make sure that you're personalizing that fundraising pitch and you're doing your research before you talk to folks. Remember the people that you're really calling our friends and family or friends of friends who know you, not strangers. It might be easier to call strangers. I have candidates who asked me for lists of strangers all the time, but you'll won't raise money from them. You gotta start with the people that you know. So you want to think about a few things about the people that you're calling. How often do they give? What kind of campaigns and causes do they usually donate to? Above all else, you gotta be yourself. You have to be genuine when you're talking to people. Don't just tell someone what they want to hear. Be honest about what, what and why you want their support for. Really understand and know how you're going to help the community and be able to say that and show that on your call. Remember reason, amount, and time. The reason that you're asking people for money, the amount you're asking for and when you need the check by.
Martín Diego Garcia (36:58):
Absolutely. Cause you really want to think about right? Like the people that you know, your friends, your family, your networks, right? They already know you and it's the time that it's going to take you to convince them to give you resources for your campaign is going to be much less than people that you don't know, or large organizations, organizations that endorse candidates or give candidates money. You're going to have to prove a much higher level of viability before they're going to really consider investing in your campaign. So when you start, you're really going to start with the people that you know, your own Rolodex, your own contact list, and then really build out from there understanding that the people that you don't know or that you need to have a higher standard of viability is going to take a little bit more time. The interview that we did with Amy is actually really fantastic and she went into a lot of this and so the full interview is actually going to be available in the feed, so if you learned a ton and want to learn more, feel free to check that out as well.
Joe Fuld (37:47):
Yeah, and one of the things that Martín said earlier was with COVID-19 fundraising has changed a bit. If you want to know more about campaigning in and around a natural disaster, check out that episode as well, it's in the feed, but you need to really think about your budget and your organization during this time and make sure you're really connecting with your funders.
Martín Diego Garcia (38:11):
Yeah. Fundraising is always an interesting piece of your candidate either really loves it or really hates it. And as I call time manager or a fundraiser on a campaign, I have heard a number of the creative ways in which to get candidates to do call time. There was one story about a candidate who would find different ways to talk to anybody who was in the campaign office in any kind of way and until the point where the, the fundraiser actually had to put signs on the back of people's chairs to say, do not talk to me or I will get fired to make sure that the candidate went straight to call time. But think of creative ways in which it makes it easier and more comfortable for you to do call time.
Joe Fuld (38:47):
Snack incentives, right. Every for every dollar that the, you know, candidate raises or every call that they make successfully, they get a snack. Your candidate might gain another 15 pounds, but they might be happy by getting the snacks that they need. You just have to think of what that motivation is.
Martín Diego Garcia (39:05):
Well, that's a wrap for this episode. Thanks again for listening. If you have any questions about fundraising, feel free to reach out to us through email or social.
Joe Fuld (39:12):
Coming up on our next episode, we'll be talking with Colin Rogero about the world of paid communications and how to build engaging, creative to get your message out there. Until next time, this is Joe Fuld
Martín Diego Garcia (39:25):
And this is Martín Diego Garcia breaking down how to win a campaign. How to win a campaign is Joe Fuld, Martín Garcia, Hope Rohrbach Daniel Lam, Heidi Job, and Elena Veatch. Music by Mike Pinto. Sound editing by Junto media. Special thanks to the team at The Campaign Workshop. Please review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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