Quick cash no faxing

Budgeting small and medium campaigns: a quick and dirty guide for candidates

To develop a campaign budget, you have to start with a coldly realistic assessment of the money you will have available for your campaign war chest.

1. Determine How Much Money is Available, The first step in determining your funding potential is to take a sheet of paper. Divide it into three columns. Label column one Sources, label column two Minimum, label column three Goal.

Under sources, list all your potential fundraising sources, from Aunt Bessie to EMILY's List, from labor union PACs to personal loans, from the captains of industry to small donor supporters. Make sure you include the amount of money you will personally donate or loan to your own campaign. Of course, you need to make sure your sources and amounts are consistent with applicable state, federal, and local campaign Finance laws.

For each source, fill in the "minimum" contribution you know you will get and the "goal" (or the maximum) you think you may be able to get and what you should ask for. Example: Aunt Bessie, though not extremely wealthy, is fairly well off and has always considered you one of her favorites. You know she's good for at least $500 and think, if you plead and beg (which before it's over, you'll end up doing), you may be able to squeeze as much as $2,000 out of her in several increments. So, put $500 next to her name in the "minimum" column and $2,000 in the "goal" column.

Now, add up the "minimum" column. Take half of that number and that's what you probably can count on to raise from this list of sources. Don't be depressed if that figure is far short of your fundraising needs. If it looks like you're a winner, the numbers will increase. Also, if you run a well organized finance operation, you can increase the results. Remember, too, that this is your initial source list. During a campaign, you will identify many new sources, particularly if you're well organized and look like you have a chance at winning.

This exercise is a good way to force candidates into making a realistic analysis of how much money is out there. This is an essential first step to budgeting a campaign.

This is a critical part of the plan. It is always wise, and often depressing, to be honest with yourself when doing a budget. In politics, as in business, things usually cost more than you first think. Price increases, unanticipated problems, administrative overhead, crisis management, all of these things can easily make mince meat of a campaign budget.

2. Pick a Budgeting Approach and Stick to it. There are a lot of different approaches to budgeting. Some consultants suggest you do high, medium, and low budget scenarios, or ideal and barebones scenarios, depending on fund raising. You need to find the approach best geared to your needs. In any case, select one and use it throughout the campaign.

Perhaps a better suggestion is to do a single realistic winning budget based on what you need to win the race, without any fat or luxuries in it. Even though it may be tough to ultimately achieve, it's still the goal that drives your entire fundraising strategy.

You should focus on what you need to win, and constantly shoot for that. It's too easy to fall back on a barebones budget, but if it's inadequate to win the race, it can mislead you. Use a barebones budget only when you have reached a brick wall and know you won't have the money to fund your desired budget. When that happens, it's usually a bad sign but is not necessarily fatal. Often, your opponents will have the same problem. You can also include various options (Option A includes three weeks of TV and radio, Option B includes two weeks of TV and radio, etc.) in your overall budget scenario.

Initial budgets should be simply structured around line items and a timeline cash flow schedule. Even though we can talk about the details forever, for purposes of this guide we're suggesting a simple, quick, understandable approach that can be beefed up later with more information.

Budget line items should include every possible expenditure, generally centered on two major areas:

Communications and research -- Television and radio time buys and production; newspaper space buys and production; direct mail, include printing, lists and labels, postage, mail shop, production and design for each piece, for mass mailings as well as smaller, targeted and in-house mail shop efforts; outdoor billboard space, production and printing; printing, design, typesetting, and pre-press for brochures, hand cards, tabloids, ballots, letterhead and envelopes, flyers, invitations, yard signs, posters, bumper stickers, body badges, buttons, volunteer cards; telephone banks (first determine if you're going to hire a professional firm or do it with volunteers, the later is often just as expensive and almost always less efficient than a professional phone system): media training and expert coaching for speeches, interviews, debates (a must for newcomers and experienced pols, alike); photography including photographer's fee, film and processing, make-up, and lighting; polling and research, including your first benchmark poll, follow-up surveys, tracking polls, focus groups and specific issue and opposition research activities.

Organizational -- Staff salaries, expenses, insurance, taxes; headquarters rent, office supplies, equipment and furniture, daily postage, computer hardware, software, parking, decorations, petty cash, long distance, faxing, refreshments; consultant fees, retainers, salaries, expenses; travel, auto rentals, gasoline, air fare, cabs, buses, subways, hotels, meals, tips for the candidate and staff: legal, accounting, and other various fees (such as qualifying fees) and costs involving legal compliance and reporting; volunteer activities such as door-to-door canvassing, poll workers, rallies, and coffee parties (yes, make no mistake about it, even volunteer activities cost money); subsidies to political organizations to cover your share of campaigning (in some jurisdictions, there are legal restrictions on these activities, so watch out); gifts and donations, such as buying ads in high school football programs and tickets to charitable affairs; voter registration and special absentee programs (this may be part of your direct mail and phone bank line items); and last, but not least, election day GOTV programs (again, this may fall within your media line items).

3. Keep Your Options Open.

You may want to build options into your campaign budget. For example, you may figure you need to produce and air two TV spots, one an introductory "bio" spot which features the candidate's personal background and the other an attack spot against your opponent. However, if your opponent attacks you, you may need an answer spot, which would require adding the cost of producing and airing a third spot. That can be budgeted as an optional line item.

4. Remember: Timing is everything. Obviously a key part of strategy, message, and planning, timing is an integral part of the overall campaign. Timing is often the most difficult aspect of planning message communications and strategic implementation. It is also related to available money, which is why a cash-flow schedule is vital.

The timeline schedule should be broken into smaller and smaller time frames as you get closer to election day and spending activity increases.