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There's a play between the budget and the fundraising.
You need to have people figure out
what the budget is, and then figure out
if you can raise the money.
And if not, you need to adjust the budget.
And you need to-- whatever you agree upon as the figure that
can be raised, it has to be spread over time
so that you know what you think you
can raise by a certain frame.
And if you can't, then you're going
to have to adjust the budget.
When you think about budgeting and when
you think about fundraising--
let's admit it-- these are guesses.
These are targets.
These are aspirations, which is why
it's really important to put this all in a spreadsheet
so you can follow the pattern.
Are you falling way behind?
Are you falling a little behind?
Are you running a little bit ahead?
Because all of that will give you some guidance as to how
realistic that your spending and the budget
are going to be in the months ahead.
And don't lie to yourself.
If you start to fall behind in fundraising,
better to realize that you need to try and make that up sooner
rather than later, and if you can't, then you're going
to have to adjust your patterns at the end,
than to come to the end and find out that you cannot do some
of these activities.
Better to cut expenditures in the short run
in order to maintain your reserves for the end
when people are making up their minds
and making the decision to go vote.
But look, budgeting is an exercise
in estimating as best as you can what
the campaign is going to cost.
And your fundraising starts with estimating
as best as you can what it is that you think you can raise.
And hopefully, you can execute the plan to raise what you need
and get what you want.
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Just remember as you're preparing your budget that it
needs to be comprehensive.
This has to incorporate every activity in the campaign
plus the overhead necessary to carry out that campaign.
So for example, if you're talking about the ground game,
you have to figure in what's the cost of, say,
the absentee ballot mailer, and what's the cost of the phone.
If you're going to mount a phone bank
effort for Get Out The Vote, how many phones
do you need to have?
Does there need to be a place for that phone bank to be?
Do you need to rent an office space for it?
What kind of staff is needed to support
each of these activities?
And what kind of costs are there associated with a staff?
Salary, taxes, benefits.
So as you think about it, don't hesitate
to bring in somebody who may not have
much in the way of political skills,
but it's good at budgeting for a company,
because they'll be able to tell you about the things.
You're running a small business.
That small business is going to last for maybe less than two
years, but you're going to have to be involved in running
that small business with some costs that may not
be readily apparent to a--
you're going to have to have a copier.
You're going to have to pay for internet service.
You're going to have to pay rent on a headquarters.
All of these things would be better understood
if you draw in people who are dealing
with the efforts of small business in your area.
Also, remember to have a lawyer.
On the fundraising side, you're going
to have reports on where you got money from and when.
And you're going to have reports on how you spent the money
and how.
You're going to have things that you
have to comply with from a legal perspective that are governed
by state law if you're running for a state office,
and by the Federal Election Commission and federal law
if you're running for Congress, Senate, or president.
So get in the habit of finding a lawyer.
In some states, there are lawyers and services
that they specialize in helping Republicans or Democrats abide
by all of the state laws.
That's good.
If not, if there isn't somebody like that,
better make certain that you get a volunteer lawyer.
And if you can't get a volunteer lawyer, a paid lawyer who
is on top of the statutes and making certain that you avoid
the embarrassment of failing to file your reports on time
or incomplete or inadequate.
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A lot of campaigns make the mistake
of thinking that money is the only thing they need
to worry about, or in the case of wealthy candidates,
the only thing that really matters.
My view is money matters, but sufficiency and adequacy
is the test.
You find a lot of contests, and particularly
for federal office, in which the candidate who spends the most
doesn't win, because the candidate who's
got sufficient resources spends them
in many instances more wisely.
Now, it's always nice to have a spending advantage.
No, don't get me wrong, particularly
if you're running in an area that's not predisposed to you.
You're going to need to work harder.
And generally, money is a sign of how hard somebody
works if it's not coming out of their own pocket.
But sufficiency matters more than sort of throw weight.
The political landscape is littered
with candidates who had lots of personal money and spent it.
Some of them wisely, and some not so wisely, and who lost.
Meg Whitman spent over $100 million
in her campaign for governor and lost.
Before her, some years before her,
a guy named Huffington, who was married to a woman who we may
recall, ran as a Republican for Congress
and got elected, and then thought
he could run for the US Senate, and because he
had a big wallet, get elected.
That didn't work out so well in California.
So money does matter.
And I don't want to diminish the importance of it.
It really is critical.
And I don't want to say that having more money
doesn't give you an advantage most of the time,
but in a lot of times what really matters
is having sufficiency and spending what
you've got wisely.
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We've talked about in planning how
you want to sort of figure out what you're going to do
and when you're going to do it, and figure out how much it's
going to cost, and then plot it out on a spreadsheet
if you will.
But you've got to then figure out
can you raise the money to do that.
Now, how do we go about figuring out that answer?
First of all, look about what candidates
have raised in the past for the kind of race
that you're talking about now, state
representative or president, all the way up and down the scale.
How much has somebody in a similar circumstance
been able to raise?
That's a good sort of indicator of what's possible.
And then sit down and figure out a couple of things.
Figure out how much the candidate--
who does the candidate have?
Think about their Christmas card list.
Who on their Christmas card list would give money?
What other kind of money is available from other donors
in the area?
Again, this plays a little bit off
of what people have been able to raise in the past.
If you're looking at the Christmas card list
and you're looking at a congressional budget
and you need to raise $2 million in a year and a half,
and you're looking down there at $2,400, $2,500 a person,
you can figure out x number of people
are going to give off the Christmas card list.
Well, how many people have given to this kind
of a race in the past?
And that gives you another indication.
How much do you think you can raise off
of the internet and direct mail?
These will generally require a fundraising consultant
to be involved, but they can give you an idea about it.
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There are about four or five ways to raise money.
The biggest and most important is for the candidate
to ask for it.
And I hate to say it, but candidates
are going to have to spend a lot of time
asking people for money.
And if they're not prepared to do it,
then they better be prepared to write a big check,
because asking for money and asking others
to ask for money on your behalf is a principle way
that most campaigns raise money.
The second way is bundlers.
This is to find people in the campaign who
will go and ask for money, who will ask their friends
and associates.
Somebody who is an active car dealer who
will ask other car dealers.
Somebody who's an active physician who
will ask other physicians.
Somebody who's an active, a politically active attorney
who will ask other attorneys.
Who are people who on your side of the aisle
are used to asking other people for money?
Remember the concept of a bell cow.
There are people in your community
who are signals for fundraising.
There's somebody who, if they give you a contribution
or better yet give you a contribution
and host an event for you, are going to send a signal,
this is a candidate we're supporting.
So as you plan your fundraising, focus the efforts
of the candidate early upon two groups, the people who
are his friends and associates who
are likely to give simply because he asks them,
because you want volume.
But the other group is, who are the influentials?
The people who may not be inclined to give to you right
away, but if you get them to give to you,
they start to bring other bundlers
and other contributions with them.
It's got to be a mix of both.
There are events.
Now, events are really an excuse to cause people
to ask other people for money.
So having the biggest party with the biggest--
the fanciest caterer and the biggest flowers
and the most expensive food, that's
a way to waste your money.
Your object is to hold an event that
has minimum overhead and maximum net dollars.
And it's really an excuse to have
the bundlers and the candidate call people and ask
for money with a deadline.
But events are a way to do it.
The internet is a way to do it.
The internet requires a compelling message, the ability
to buy advertising or lists, and something
that makes you unique.
There are lots of people running for office.
So how do you stand out among the crowd that's
looking at their email and finding dozens
of requests a day from party organizations and candidates
for money?
And then direct mail.
Now, direct mail is being replaced to some degree
by internet fundraising, because it's cheaper
to send out an email blast than it is to send out a fundraising
letter.
And it does generally require a fundraising consultant
to do fundraising direct mail.
But the good news is that direct mail still
works, because older people are more inclined to give money
when they get a letter and have a reply envelope and a reply
form that they can write a check or fill out their credit card
information than they are doing it online,
even if it can be done securely and safely online.
One question that often arises is, is it
better to have your campaign get a bunch of small dollar gifts
or get a few big gifts?
And the answer is yes, get both.
There's an advantage of getting small dollar gifts.
First of all, because in many states
there is a limit on how much you can
accept from any one individual.
There's such a limit at the federal level,
$5,400 per primary and general election, $2,700 per person.
So if somebody gives you $2,700 for the primary
and $2,700 for the general election,
they can't give again.
But you want to get those gifts.
But you love getting the $15 and $20 gifts,
particularly if you can get people
to commit to give that on a regular basis.
Small dollar gifts also tend to be a great source of enthusiasm
in volunteers.
If somebody gives you $25 or $10 and lives in your district,
you can bet that they're committed to you.
So get them to commit some more, either to volunteer
in the campaign and/or better yet give a little bit more
at a later time.
But you really need both to make a campaign work.
Good campaigns are ones that get a lot of small dollar gifts
and also get a bunch of people to max out,
because one of the things about people maxing out
is once they've maxed out, they still want to help.
And the way that they can help is
by finding other people who can max out as well.
Let me say one other thing.
You've got to have somebody else in the campaign
besides the candidate to help raise the money.
You need to have a finance chairman, and hopefully
a finance committee.
These are people who can write a check themselves, and ask
other people to write a check.
The bigger the campaign, the more complex
the format is for these.
We had, for example, the 2000 campaign
was the first campaign to really make extensive use of bundlers.
We called them pioneers.
And if you agreed to raise a certain amount of money
and did, you got a special pin and you
got to call yourself a pioneer.
And it was sort of you got invited to special events.
Well, you need to have a finance committee
to start that process.
Even in a small race, you need to have
a group of people who agree to help the candidate raise money
by introducing him to people who can ask for checks,
introduce him to people who can write checks,
and ask people to write checks themselves.
So you've got to have a finance committee.
Bigger campaigns have got to have a finance staff, a finance
director, and in all likelihood, a consultant
to help both on direct mail and internet fundraising.
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Right from the start the candidate
has got to know that it's going to take a lot of their time
and energy and effort to make phone calls to ask for money.
So there has to be call time put on the schedule.
If the candidate is driving around the district,
there has to be call time in the car.
And whoever's driving him or whoever
is traveling with him has to make certain
that they've got their call list and they're making the calls.
And that when they make a connection and somebody says
they're going to contribute, that somebody
in the headquarters is told about it.
But I know it's terrible.
I know it's dreadful.
I wish there were some way around it.
Even in a presidential race, a candidate
at the beginning of the campaign is
going to be asking people to serve as a fundraiser for him
and to write a check to him.
And that's just a reality.
No way around it.
Tell the candidate about it.
Make sure there's time in the schedule for the candidate.
And make certain the candidate sticks to the plan
and executes.
When you have a candidate calling on somebody,
again, it's like a lot of things in the campaign
that we've talked about.
Do your homework.
What motivates them?
What causes them to give?
How much are they capable of giving?
What have they given in the past?
What are the things they care about?
And are there any personal quirks?
I know one major donor who loves her dogs.
And if you turn out to be a dog person,
you're more likely to get a campaign contribution from her.
And arm somebody in advance that she loves her dogs,
so even if they aren't around, ask about them.
And you might end up-- you're better--
you're more likely to end up with a campaign contribution.
But do your homework.
But explain why you're running.
Give a progress report on what you've done.
Be very straightforward, and don't exaggerate.
Here's what we hope to raise.
Here is how much we've raised.
Here's where we are in the polls.
Here's why I think we're in good shape.
But here's how much work we've got to do ahead of us.
And here's why I'd like you to contribute to my campaign.
And if they turn you down by saying,
well, I want to see how you're doing, don't hesitate
to say, look, I want to come back at a later time
when you've had time to watch me in action.
And I hope you'll consider supporting me in the future.
Don't ever close the door, because, look,
you're asking people to write you a check.
And if they know you, they're going
to be more inclined to write it to you.
But if they don't know you, they're
going to want to find out more about you before they--
some of them-- before they commit
to writing a check for you.
You're a supplicant.
There are some people who are not supplicants.
If you're the chairman of the Republican National Committee
or the chairman of the Democratic or Republican
Congressional Campaign Committee and you're
calling the representative of the political action
committee of a company and they offer you less money than you
think they ought to be giving, you can hang up on them,
because they're the supplicant.
They want to be on your good side.
And if you find yourself in a place like that, good for you.
But the vast majority of fundraising, particularly
for candidates, and particularly for challengers
and first-time candidates, you are the supplicant.
You're the person asking somebody else
to do you a favor, a big favor, by writing a check.
So don't be horsey.
When you get to be the big dog, if you want to be horsey,
be horsey.
But people will remember that you're horsey.
And they will, at some point, extract their revenge.
But when you're starting out, you're
asking people to do you a favor that involves taking money out
of their pocket and putting it in your campaigns.
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Do you know what the two words are
in fundraising that are heard less often than they ever
should be?
Thank you.
I'm surprised how many candidates get a contribution
and don't thank the donor.
And I'm also surprised about how many candidates get a donation
and don't pay attention to the thank you letter that goes out.
I recently wrote a check of a considerable size
to a friend of mine who is running for office
whom I've known for 25 years.
And the letter that I got was addressed, "Dear Hon.
Rove," H-O-N dot Rove, and signed with his full name.
And I've known him for 25 years.
Somebody made a mistake, because that thank you letter was worse
than no thank you letter at all.
So as your thinking about fundraising,
make certain that your candidate is
committed to the idea of sending a thank you note.
Handwritten notes are pretty damn quick.
All you've got to write is, "Dear Sally and Joe, thanks
so much for your generous contribution.
I'm going to do everything I can to bring home victory.
Susie Smith."
And somebody else can address it.
And somebody else can mail it.
And that's all it takes.