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Consultant's Corner
Let's Get Your Campaign Organized
By Stacy D. Cole
July 13, 2004
One of the most important moves that you are going to make is to get your campaign organized. This is where you will initially design the organization with your campaign manager, then that person should be able to take it over the rest of the way. I say this because, once the candidate starts getting into the think of the campaign, you do not need to be bogged down in the minutiae of the details at the campaign headquarters.
Once the initial groundwork is done with the campaign manager, it will be up to that person to make sure it proceeds smoothly through Election Day. Or, if necessary, make changes to keep things flowing smoothly.
Delegating responsibilities will be next in organizing your campaign. This is where having good, dependable, capable people becomes important. By giving responsibilities to these people (whether hired staff or volunteers), you are trusting them that they will perform these tasks competently. So it makes it imperative that you recruit competent individuals for these jobs.
This is in no way suggesting that you don't have monitor the progress during their duties. It means that you, the candidate, and the campaign manager, cannot be in all places at all times. You offer them assistance, if they need it, or better yet, stand back and watch them excel.
The candidate and the campaign manager should, along with any consultants retained for the campaign, produce a calendar of when certain functions need to be completed. These include design and mailing of direct mail, ordering yard signs and when to expect delivery, productions of commercials (radio, TV, etc), to just give you some ideas of what need to be included on the calendar. An advantage of this is that all staff and volunteers know by what date certain things need to be completed.
The last step in organizing your campaign is making it as easy as possible for your volunteers. By mentioning this, I mean to give the volunteers goals that they can easily achieve. Whether its making 150 calls or stuffing 1000 envelopes, help the volunteers make their goals. Reward the people who perform well, and help the people that are struggling. You will be surprised in how much volunteers are willing to do when you are willing to help them.
These are just some ways that you can use to organize your campaign. These are big-picture suggestions. You may come up with more ideas that will work in your campaign. Implement them to see if they work, and if they do, keep using them.
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