Budgeting and Fundraising

Your community organization is probably better organized to deal with these campaign necessities than many inexperienced political candidates. You work with budgets and fundraising all the time!

An ALLERT volunteer

If your planned campaign is non-partisan civic engagement, very little of what follows will be new and the same funding sources you usually work with are your most likely donors.

However, civic engagement work can introduce you to new donors that you haven't met in other work: civic leaders (especially lawyers) and labor unions will sometimes support your turnout work. Many individuals in the community understand that keeping democracy healthy requires them to make contributions to campaigns to turn out voters: so ask, ask, ask!

Be sure you understand the legal requirements that apply in your campaign: what records you must keep, what reports you have to file, what limits you may be subject to. See Legal Issues for an introduction to how to research these topics.