Whether you’re a first-time candidate, an elected official seeking higher office, or a returning candidate looking to improve your campaign’s performance, the thing you are likely dreading the most is fundraising.
The good news is, you’re in great company.
Every candidate dreads fundraising, and many have no idea where to begin.
If you’re starting off with a small budget (or no budget at all), you may be apprehensive about hiring someone to help you raise money. So let’s look at the pros and cons of doing everything yourself versus hiring a professional fundraising team.
GOING IT ALONE
This is definitely the most cost-effective option for cash-strapped campaigns.
There are affordable email platforms like Action Network where you can kick off an email program for as little as $10 per month (depending on the size of your list and how often you send emails to it).
You’ll need to recruit a volunteer who is dedicated to managing your database, making sure all the fields are accurate and uploaded properly to your email platform. You will also need to find a trustworthy data broker where you can ethically acquire new email contacts to grow your list.
Next, you’ll need a volunteer to write the content for you, or you can plan to write it yourself. On average it takes 2 to 3 hours for someone very experienced with email writing to draft, proofread, load, test, and send an email. Your best practice is to appoint someone to own the task of writing your emails. If you already have someone handling your campaign communications, that person is your best place to start.
For someone who is new to writing emails, it will take some practice to get comfortable writing compelling messages with a persuasive “ask.” So the first few weeks or months may be slow to start raising money.
The next step is targeting. When you send your email, you want to make sure it’s going to the people most likely to engage – that is, to open, click through, and complete a donation.
Finally, you need to be sure the database is managed responsibly. If you make the mistake of sending an email to a large list of people who’ve never heard from you before, you may be inundated with spam reports and get your domain blacklisted. That’s a worst case scenario.
Beyond emails, you’ll need to find suitable tools to send fundraising texts, curate call time lists, and brainstorm other fundraising tactics that fit with your overall campaign strategy.
HIRING A PRO
To put it simply, hiring a professional team to manage your email program helps you avoid the pitfalls described above – all of which cost you time and money.
You won’t have to worry about producing great content or keeping your emails out of spam folders, you’ll be trusting a professional to manage your database and protect your sender reputation.
Hiring a pro also gives you leverage with managing relationships like your data broker or your texting platform, freeing up countless hours of your valuable time.
You also get the benefit of their collective experience working with various email and texting platforms to make the best recommendation for your needs and budget.
Finally, hiring a professional means getting results as quickly as possible. When you have a trustworthy team on your side sending emails and text messages that authentically represent your voice, crafting effective asks that get people to contribute, and taking care to make sure your emails end up in your supporters inboxes – not their spam folder – you get a much faster return on your investment.
For the cost of a single staff position, you can get an entire team through firms like C2G to support your fundraising strategy.
When you let pros help you raise the money to fund your campaign, you can focus on the work that matters most to you – engaging people and winning their support.
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