Raising Money Part 1
Tuesday
Apr 28, 2009
Most candidates hate raising money, but the fact is that there are only two ways to get the money you need for your campaign. Either give it yourself or solicit contributions from other people. The self-funded campaign isn’t an option for most candidates so most campaigns need to put together a fund-raising strategy.
The most helpful tip I can give you is to keep the overhead for your fund-raising operation as low as possible. Almost every campaign has someone who will immediately want to start planning really nice events as fundraisers. Unfortunately, your supporters can only give a certain amount of money and you really don’t want to have it all go for overpriced boneless breast of chicken and expensive centerpieces. And, in reality, most of your supporters will be quite happy to forgo the fancy dinner and just write the check.
A tremendous amount of energy goes into making a successful event and, unless you are running for a high level office or you are famous in some other way you will have to work very hard to sell enough tickets to fill up the room with donors. If the room is half empty, word will get around that turnout at your fund-raiser was disappointing and that could hurt your campaign in other ways.
The one advantage to having an event is that it does give a specific deadline for money to come in. And, some donors do want to make their donation in a way that the candidate knows they are supporting him.
One option for those contributors is to have breakfast fundraisers with a small group of attendees. Many restaurants and even coffee shops have private rooms that will comfortably fit a group of 10-15 attendees. Generally, the cost is simply the menu price of a breakfast which is usually pretty modest, especially when compared to the cost of a banquet dinner.
This size group is also ideal for individual supporters to get a group of their friends together to contribute to your campaign.
