Last week, we introduced Kenyon Farrow of Queers for Economic Justice, Calvin Williams of the Generational Alliance, and Althea Erickson of the Freelancers Union. They shared with us a brief summary of how their organizations had adopted some online tools.
This week, they delve into some of the challenges they faced along the way, and some insight into how they overcame them:
This week's Training Tuesday post revolves around a repeated mantra from Kendra-Sue Derby, this week's trainer- It's All About The Numbers. Before you start worrying about anything else in your campaign, you have to know how many votes you need to win. This seems relatively self-evident, but it is a number that often goes overlooked.
Today's Training Tuesday comes to us from the Organizing 2.0 Conference in New York back in December. During lunch, we were joined by Colin Delaney, of e.politics.com. He and Charles Lenchner, of the Working Families Party, held a conversation about how to translate lessons about new media from the Obama campaign to local campaigns.
This week's Training Tuesday takes us back to Democracy for America's Campaign Academy in Gettysburg, PA 2009. For the last couple weeks we brought you lessons from the Organizing 2.0 conference, and we still have plenty more to come.
Anyways, first things first, a little history on the DFA campaign academy:
This week, we have something new for our Training Tuesday series. We still have plenty of videos left to come from Democracy for America's Campaign Academy, but a couple weekends back, we attended the Organizing 2.0 conference in New York. This conference was a unique opportunity for activists to learn about new media and online organizing from some of the greatest online organizers around.
Last week, we covered the basics of managing and organizing a campaign budget. If you know little-to-nothing about campaign finance but would like to, or if you are just about to start putting together the budget for a campaign, you should definitely check out last week's Training Tuesday. Today is not for the basics. Instead, we are using this Training Tuesday to share with you four very important tips that will help you out along the way:
Originally posted by Will Urquhart (Rusty5329) at Sum of Change. Please check out the new comment widget from Ameritocracy that we just recently installed at the bottom of every page at Sum of Change
Every political campaign and organization must spend money to maintain serious levels of activity. Increasingly, campaigns must raise significant amounts of money to become and remain competitive. Although we can protest the growing costs of campaigning, the reality for any campaign is that without these funds, there can be no staff, no office, no phones, no computers, no signs, no media coverage - no campaign.
-From the Democracy for AmericaCampaign Academy Training Manual
Reaching your potential voters is (obviously) vitally important to any campaign. But what is the best way to reach this crucial audience? This week, Kendra Sue Derby from Democracy for America's Campaign Academy is going to speak about four methods of reaching voters, some of which you should try and some you should avoid. First, she'll talk about direct voter contact, such as canvassing (which she favors) and mailings, which allow to personally speak with, and listen to, your potential voters. Next, she'll talk about online resources, such as websites, Facebook, youtube, blogs, etc, which can be great for your supporters, but might not sway the opinion of an undecided. The last two videos are about items that some volunteers love, but aren't going to win you any elections, lawn signs and chum (promotional items such as hats, frisbees, wooden nickels, and anything else you can print you name on).
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