What Are Some Great Fundraising Ideas For City Council Campaign?
I'm a treasurer now on a city council campaign. The city is about 100,000 in population and the incumbent we're running against raised $25,000 for her last campaign, to provide some context. We'd like to double that if we can. Of course, we'll be utilizing online donations but we also need to do events where our candidate gets out there in the public eye. Any suggestions?
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Answer by Tom Lindholtz
Use the Santorum Iowa strategy. Get out and knock on doors. It's free. It's just not easy.
Answer by Palaeologus
Bereket, I agree with the previous comments/answers. First, 50K is a ton of money for a city council race. By way of example, in my hometown (pop. 130,000, state capital) the hotshot fundraiser had 11.5k, second place was under 7k. Of course, there is much more dough in Cali than in MI.
Getting a good list of likely voters from a competent local source is almost certainly worthwhile, depending on the cost.
Two suggestions to earn:
1. Create a "Finance Council" (or whatever designation you prefer) made up of 4-10 people you know with money. Ask them to donate the max, and to convince 1-5 friends to do likewise. The key here is to create a council that isn't all of the same social circle.
2. Try a "friend-to-friend" mailing campaign. Essentially, you print postcards (they're cheap) which you give to say, 20 sympathizing semi-slactivists. Each of them mails it to 20 friends (the campaign doesn't pay postage, only printing costs) and requests both contributions (in relatively small amounts) and/or volunteerism.
For the record, these are my wife's suggestions. She gives excellent advice as a general rule.
John Murdoch: $25,000 for a small-city city council seat is a lot. Doubling that would be a whole lot of money.
Don't worry about media buys. The general election will have so much media from up-ticket campaigns you won't--can't--be seen.
Focus on identifying likely voters. Friend them, talk to them, call them.
Daniel Turner: Yes, that is a lot of money to raise from events or small donations. Events tend to get publicity, but little money. To get the money, focus on digging up high-dollar donors and having your candidate approach them directly. Private message me if you want specifics.
Michael Horn: Direct mail works wonders. It lets you reach a broad base and can be very profitable, both in terms of donations and just getting your name out. Private message me if you want some more information.
Molly: On a national congressional seat, the thing that brought the most earned attention + funds was the weekly "Meet the Candidate" night. For the price of cookies & lemonade + the email lists we got an outstanding response. Ask everyone to bring guests, address that weeks local issues. Have "Contribution Bucket" and "Volunteer" sign up sheets out. Face to face is best.
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