TOOL KIT
2017
Creating your Policy - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
Use this worksheet to outline your policies regarding “big picture”
topics. Think through where you stand on the following positions.
This will be a good start to help you with debate prep and position
papers.
General Values:
What are the three issues that are of greatest importance to you?
How would you describe your leadership style?
Which public figures have most influenced your political thinking?
Problem-solving Orientation:
•
Given a choice in solving a problem, do you generally prefer…
•
Individual choice or government intervention?
•
Local or state control?
•
State or federal control?
•
Government or market-based approaches?
•
Ensuring equal opportunities, or equal outcomes?
•
Traditional or innovative approaches?
Creating your Policy - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
CAMPAIGN
COMMUNICATIONS
A campaign message is the basis of what your campaign is all
about! When crafting a campaign message there should be certain
components the message should:
1. Easy for your audience to understand.
2 Be Brief! Try communicating your message in 30 seconds.
3. Be authentic. Don’t talk about things you don’t know about.
4. Be convincing, but not persuasive.
This ties back to being authentic
5. Connect with your audience.
6. Be consistent! Stay on message
7. Inspire. Try to use inspiring language.
What are the key messages you want to portray?
Creating your Policy - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
MANAGING
PHONE BANKS +
CANVASSES
An effective phone bank or canvass depends on three key factors:
good management, training and supervision.
Please use this guide to help you organize and execute a successful
phone or door canvass with volunteers.
Managing Phone Banks + Canvasses - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
STEP ONE: Get Organized!
To get an effective phone bank or canvass up and running, you’ll need to do the following:
- Secure a facility to run the phone bank or canvass: Potential phone bank locations could
include organization headquarters, a union headquarters, or a make shift call center using
cell phones. For door knock operations, find a location close to the targeted area and that
can be used for free.
- Develop a schedule for your activities: Think about whether your targets will be at home in
the day or evening- also know your community.
- Recruit volunteers: Over-recruit! Recruit twice as many as you need to account for
no-shows.
- Recruit for specific times and dates and follow up to confirm and remind volunteers when
and where their shifts are.
- Pull phone lists, cut turf: Cutting turf means to plot potential canvassing routes for volunteers to knock doors. This takes time so do it a few days before. Have your walk packets, with
call or walk lists, and scripts prepared at least one hour prior to phone bank or canvass.
Ensure there is space to collect all the data you want on the call sheets and that every phone
list is labeled correctly. Always have extra maps and walk lists.
Managing Phone Banks + Canvasses - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
STEP TWO: Create a volunteer shift schedule!
Developing and following a written schedule for the phone bank or canvass shifts will ensure
that you give the volunteers the information, tools and practice they need to succeed. The
schedule should move seamlessly and quickly along the following lines:
- Start with a campaign update, training and practice- make it fun and interactive
- Get on the phones or doors! When phoning make sure that you include breaks so people
stay on the phone during their designated times.
- Have the volunteers fill out their tallies, have them also report the progress made and debrief what they heard on the phones, and saw on the doors.
- Thank your volunteers and sign them up for another shift.
Managing Phone Banks + Canvasses - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
STEP THREE: Brief/Train your volunteers!
A successful volunteer shift starts with a quick briefing /training.
- Brief volunteers on the status of the campaign and walk them through what they’ll be
doing: What type of script, what type of voters they will be talking to, what neighborhood,
how their work fits in the plan to win, and briefly what experiences other volunteers have
had with these voters.
- Ask new volunteers to come 30 minutes early and give them extra background on the
campaign.
- Review progress from the previous shift to give volunteers the sense their shift is part of a
larger effort- and build momentum for the shift ahead.
- Role-Play calls and door-knocks with volunteers until it sounds like a real conversation. Try
“good” and bad” role plays for comparison, and then have them role-play with each other.
Supervise the role-play and give necessary and honest feedback.
- Go over a rule about the best practice ways of dealing with dogs at the door, threats, no
solicitation, mailboxes, opponent support signs in the yard etc.
- Review goals and targets. This will help give volunteers ownership of the shift and the
overall field program.
Managing Phone Banks + Canvasses - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
STEP FOUR: Debrief the phone or door-knock shift
After the phone bank or canvass is finished, bring your team back together in one space and
spend some time debriefing. A good debrief is vital ion keeping volunteers motivated and
providing the campaign vital direct voter contact information, while troubleshooting any
challenges. During this debrief you should:
- Ask how it went. This will help you build volunteer relationships, track who’s doing a good
job, who has leadership skills and who might be better suited for another activity.
- Ask what voters are saying. Any feedback you hear from the field should be reported back
to the field director
- Get all reporting information. Get the lists back from volunteers.
- Troubleshoot and address any situations or problems that arose during the shift.
- Praise the volunteers, acknowledging the important work that was accomplished.
- Sign volunteers up for their next shifts. Don’t let them leave without telling them when you
are canvassing/phone banking again and having them sign up.
- Thank volunteers repeatedly for their time.
Managing Phone Banks + Canvasses - Tool kit
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
RULES AND TIPS
FOR CREATING AND MANAGING YOUR
CAMPAIGN BUDGET
The Campaign Budget is the heartbeat and lifeline of any campaign.
Your number one job is managing how your campaign utilizes its resources. Creating a realistic budget should be your top priority. Here
are some basic rules for you to follow:
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Rules + Tips: Campaign Budget
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
Rule #1:
The Campaign Plan dictates the budget. it is critical to know how much money you will need
to execute your campaign plan - over estimating the cost of each item, then raise funds to
meet that budgeted number.
Rule #2:
Creating a realistic budget is critical to success. Budgets, much like campaign plans must be a
“living” document. Meaning it has to change as your campaign evolves.
Rule #3:
Budgets reflect the priorities of the campaign. If the campaign’s number one priority is
contacting undecided swing voters and mobilizing the base, then your budget should reflect
those priorities.
Rule #4:
Minimize overhead and maximize voter contact. Overhead includes Office, salaries, furniture,
supplies etc. When adding these items to your budget, keep the goal of winning voters in
mind. Overhead should always as a rule be kept at around 15-20% of the overall budget.
Rule #5:
Pay the bills and try to avoid debt. Most often, debt and inability to meet bills (and payroll) is
the result of poor planning! Take your debt seriously!
Rules + Tips: Campaign Budget
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership
Creating and managing a campaign budget is about choices. The
tips that follow will help you ensure those choices are thoughtful,
informed and appropriate to your campaign.
Tip #1:
Build budget around your direct voter contact plan: Figure out your staffing and
overhead after you allocated sufficient funds to talking with voters, which is the
core of your campaign.
Tip #2:
Make sure the budget fits the size and scale of your race. Look at what was raised
and spent in the past two elections. Use this as a guideline to make your budget.
Tip #3:
Live your budget. Watch percentages. Share the budget with essential decision
makers on stand so everyone is on the same page.
Tip #4:
Track Cash Flow meticulously. Track what you spend, and reconcile your
budget consistently, to ensure you are using up to date figures.
Rules + Tips: Campaign Budget
She Can Win
Promoting Women in Civic Leadership