Fundraising Letter Templates For Success
Campaign fundraising letter templates are a great tool to help craft an effective appeals for funding and donations. But as a tool, letter templates do have limits. For a campaign to truly succeed in raising funds and cash, your fundraising letters need to written with care.
Potential donors do not want to read plain, run-of-the-mill appeal for donations. An endless rotation of form letters begging for cash will only turn off potential donors and cause them to do nothing more than keep their wallets shut.
Sample fundraising letter templates are just that – templates. Simply filling in a candidate name and dollar amount will not do the trick. It takes time to modify a template to fit the specifics of a particular candidate, campaign and donation appeal. Every voter has particular issues and needs that should be weaved into the narrative of your letter.
- Your fund raising appeals should be crafted with care. Whether you are using them as mailers or as e-mail solicitations to your supporters, there should be specific goals related to that each solicitation of money. Donation appeals – and especially your first appeal – should be genuinely crafted to appeal to readers on both a personal and emotional level. A template helps with the letter structure and provides proven phrasing to tie it all together into copy that sells.
- Add a few sentences about how and why a donor’s gift will make a difference to the campaign. There should be specific reason why that donation is critical and necessary. It might be to get a last message out to the voters before the primaries, to fund a final mailing before the election or to help get another 100 campaign signs printed to replace those that were stolen early on in the campaign.
- Let your donors know what their past donations have helped accomplish. Show them how that last mailing pushed through your success in the primaries, or how the donor last push was used to send two new brochures to the local voters. Past success inspires future support and repeat donations.
- Give your donors a set date in which to reply and donate. Time-sensitive requests often get a better response, because there is an incentive to act sooner than later. Remember to include an addressed envelope. If you can afford it, stamp it as well. Many people would rather donate a small amount than to let a stamp go to waste.
Finally, let your donors know about your campaign website and their ability to donate through your website. Many donors who won’t take the time to open a checkbook will make a quick online donation.
Below is a Sample Fundraising Letter Template for political candidates.
Used properly, donation letter templates can be useful to any local political campaign. They can inspire ideas and help structure an appeal for maximum effectiveness. With personalization and the addition specific goals, you can connect with your donor base and raise the funds needed to sustain a successful campaign.
For more fundraising letter templates, donation request letters, political press release templates and more, download our Online Candidate Political Letter Templates today.
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Leveraging Campaign Yard Signs Online
In a tight race, you are always trying to get the edge over your opponent. One way to stand out is to combine offline campaign tactics with online ones. When field and the campaign’s web team are working together, great things happen. Campaigns can even leverage the humble yard sign to connect with voters.
Run a Contest on Facebook
Contests are a proven method to increase engagement on social networks. It is easy to set up a contest using campaign yard signs. Here is the basic process:
- A contestant takes a picture of the candidate’s sign on their lawn
- The contestant inserts the picture on your fan page. Be sure that your page’s settings let fans insert pictures. A variant on this contestant would be to ask contestants to upload a photo and tag the candidate. It’s important to note, however, that users can only tag personal pages.
- At random, choose one of the photos and offer a prize such as a complimentary admission to a high dollar fundraiser or to “star” in the next commercial or radio spot.
- Finally, follow up. Send an email announcing the winner and plug the fundraiser that the contestant won a complimentary ticket too!
A contest like this will increase the candidate’s exposure online because the campaign’s yard sign will show up on many walls and news feeds. Unlike many pictures of the candidate or events on the campaign trail, a voter gets a clear message of who the candidate is and what office he or she is running for when they see a yard sign online.
Will Tweet for Yard Sign
Will Tweet for Yard SignA lot of campaigns are announcing that their yard signs are available on Twitter. This is a great opportunity to get some valuable mentions. Instead of just announcing that yard signs are available, tell your followers that there are a limited quantity of signs, the campaign expects them to go quickly, and that they can reserve a campaign yard sign by tweeting why they are voting for the candidate and mentioning the campaign’s Twitter account. It’s a small price to pay to ensure that they are going to receive a yard sign and will result in a number of supporters tweeting to their followers why they are supporting your candidacy.
Experimenting with Hashtags, Like “Buttons,” and QR Codes
The best campaign sign designs aren’t cluttered. Great signs generally only include the candidate name and office the candidate is seeking but it’s okay to add some graphics so long as they don’t detract from the candidate name and office sought.
For example, consider using a yard sign to promote a Twitter hashtag. Simply put a pound sign before the candidate’s name on the sign and Twitter users will understand that when referencing your campaign they can use that hashtag.
Likewise, consider putting a like ‘button’ on the yard sign so that voters know that they can connect with you using Facebook. It worked for Victoria’s Secret limited edition “you like this” panty, why can’t it work for your campaign?
Finally, candidates in residential districts might consider using a QR code on their campaign sign. A voter with a smartphone, like the iPhone or an Android phone, could scan the QR code and be directed to the campaign’s website. QR codes were once popular, then fell out of usage, and have recently become popular again for marketers of all types.
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Conclusion
This is just scratching the surface for ways you can integrate your online and offline organizing to get the edge over your opponent. While this post offers a number of ways that campaigns can connect yard signs with technology, you should get creative to integrate all forms of traditional campaigning with the web.
Political Campaign Strategies That Stink
It’s something most voters claim to hate, but negative campaigning and mudslinging seems to rule American politics – from national campaigns right down to local elections. Unfortunately, these negative political campaign strategies and dirty tricks tend to work. If they didn’t, politicians wouldn’t use them.
Lies and Misrepresentations
It seems a lot of campaigns spend more time digging up dirt on political opponents than actually addressing the issues. All too often, election campaigns break down to a (s)he said/(s)he said over trivial matters.
Scandal Mongering by Machine
Robo-calling, or automated pre-recorded calls that dial potential voters, has a mixed reputation. Some studies show that they have no effect on an election outcome, while some political consultants believe they work. Robo-calls are often used to deliver last-minute attacks – legitimate or not. Our advice is to keep aware of what your opponent is doing right up and including the day of the election.
Counting on Ignorance
Some years ago, we were involved in a grassroots campaign to prevent an inappropriate commercial project from being constructed. Our state representative did not take a side at the time. Her opponent, however, helped us greatly by providing advice and helping to bring attention to the issue.
However, right before the election, the incumbent sent our area a targeted mailing stating that she had helped our community by ‘joining the fight against inappropriate development’. This, of course, was after the issue had been long resolved without her help. Needless to say, her blatant dishonesty did not earn our vote.
Rising Above it All
How do you fight the negative? It’s tough, but here are some tips that can help.
1) Don’t overreact. Keep cool and don’t say or write anything while you are angry.
2) Take the high moral ground. Let your surrogates take down your opponent.
3) Focus your messaging to special groups. For example, if your opponent is trying to scare seniors about your proposals, send them a direct mailing addressing the situation.
4) Address EVERYTHING through your campaign website. Cover every negative article, ad and rumor through your website. Let nothing go unaddressed. Updates should be announced via email, RSS feeds, social media and any other means you use to connect to voters. This strategy will also help with the local media. If they know that your website provides rapid-response to the issues of the day, reporters will keep an eye on the site – and it may even help influence your campaign coverage.
In the end, the political campaign strategy that works best is to simply target your resources at getting more votes than your opponents. You’re not looking for gossips and political bystanders – you’re looking to turn out real voters on Election Day.
In the end, it’s the only way you can win!
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Political Campaign Link-Building Tip: Related Blogs
Looking for links that will bring traffic and a positive mention? Consider reaching out to like-minded blogs and websites. With a little work and luck, you can help boost your campaign website’s rankings and pull in some additional visitors who may be interested in your campaign.
To start, run a search for “political blogs” and your region or state. You should find some sites or even a page with a listing of relevant sites. Searching for blogs related to a particular campaign issue may also yield results, though you may find more sites that deal on a state-wide or national level.
Blogs of a similar political affiliation or goal tend to link to one another. Once you’ve found prospects, you’ll likely find more just checking what other sites they link to.
Once you’ve found your sites, you’ll want to reach out to them with a brief, personalized email, mentioning the blog and how your campaign or issue relates to them. Depending on the site, you might want to have campaign staff participate in online discussions through the comments section of the posts.
However, this should be done carefully and the participants should have a good knowledge of the site and its ‘rules of the road’.
Linking out is a great way to get their attention and provides a great opening when contacting them. “Thanks for the article on XYZ. I linked to it from my campaign site at…” Directly reaching out and getting to know local site owners and writers is a good way to influence coverage and possibly suggest story ideas which could help your or hurt your opponent.
Sending a tip or story is a good way to get noticed. Be selective here, and only send information to bloggers who have a specific interest. In other words, don’t just send a stream of press releases. That’s a sure way to get a bad reputation. You may get mentioned, but not in a nice way!
Keep in mind that a niche site may get the same tip from multiple sources, so it’s nothing personal if they don’t specifically mention you. Also, make sure the recipient has not already posted something about the story.
Another idea is to offer to do an interview, either as a series of questions you answer or a series of blog posts or recorded podcasts. If it is an issue-based site, you may even want to provide a guest post. In any case, you’ll want to have the material link back to your own website if you can.
Blog owners typically follow related blogs. Once your candidate or campaign has appeared on one blog, don’t be surprised if other sites start reaching out to YOU!
Online Candidate’s website packages are affordable for any campaign. We also offer a variety of popular campaign guides, including our book, Running for Office as an Online Candidate.
Political Web Design Trends Over The Decades
Over the seven years that we’ve been building political websites, politics online has taken a lot of different turns. Social media, blogging, online donations and the adoption of video have really changed how candidates and voters interact. With these changes in technology there have also been changes in political website design trends and styles.
Here are some of the biggest changes we’ve seen since we started political web design in 2003:
Site width
Around 2003, the average monitor was set at a 800×600 pixel resolution, which meant that our campaign websites were built at 780 pixels wide or less, so the entire site could be seen without left or right scrolling.
As of last month, less than 2% of visitors to this website had a screen resolution of 800X600 or less. Our typical site is usually 1100 pixels wide, though some candidates request even greater widths. One reason we don’t recommend going too wide is that it become difficult to read the content of the pages when each line of text is 40-50 words long. It’s easier for users to read in narrow columns.
Website headers
Because of the average screen resolution, you didn’t want to have a head that was too deep. Anything deeper than 150 pixels started to take up a lot of space. Over the last few years candidates have requested much larger headers on their sites, along with larger candidate photos.
This site didn’t even have header on the home page…
Navigation
Years ago, our site navigation text was usually bold in a narrow column. This was more the style of the times than because it looked particularly well. In 2010, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in design requests. Color rollovers are still popular, though the trend has been for the navigation bar to be wider with larger text. A few of our recent sites have the navigation appearing as large ‘buttons’ that roll over with alternate colors. The larger donate and volunteer buttons that a lot of national political sites favor probably influence this style. In some cases, the entire site needs to be widened to accommodate this design.
Colors – red, white and blue
Red, white and blue are still favorite color schemes for US campaigns, though the colors tend toward darker reds and more purple blues. Some candidates go for greens or yellows. We always try to match their campaign material or create a complementary color scheme.
Text and copy layout
We’ve always encouraged our clients to use bullet points in their copy, organize text with sub headers, and use images to break up areas of text. These days most of our clients do a great job in laying out content. (In the past, sometimes not so much.) We’re always glad to help tweak body copy if someone needs help, because when the design and content both look good, it all comes together!
Other web features whose popularity has faded include text in multiple colors and reverse backgrounds, blinking text and those annoying web counter buttons that proudly display to the world how many ‘hits’ your page has. But one thing that’s increased over the years are the donation buttons… they seem to be everywhere now!
What other political changes online have you seen over the years?
Check out a selection of our own more current political website examples.
Related: Political Web Design: A Primer
Do Candidate Endorsements Matter?
Political candidates can increase name recognition and establish credibility and by winning endorsements. While the value of candidate endorsements in gaining votes is debatable, some endorsements can bring particular benefits.
For example, local unions, community groups, or political parties that have not put up a candidate may choose endorse someone else who is running. Sometimes an organization will approach a candidate, but often a candidate will need to seek out endorsements.
Most organizations will have a specific process to follow. A candidate may need to write out a questionnaire about the issues related to the organization in order to be considered for an election endorsement.
Take the initiative to contact these organizations early in the race. A candidate should start with a letter explaining who they are, along with reasons why their positions on the relevant issues make them someone the organization should endorse. Why should an organization endorse you? Make sure they know the reasons why supporting you is in their best interest. Be prepared to follow up with personal phone calls.
Some organization endorsements can be very valuable, as they can carry with them additional campaign support, including contributions, phone banks, volunteers, GOTV efforts and more.
Even individuals can make endorsements. For state or national campaigns, celebrities sometimes go public with whom they support.
For judicial candidates, in particular, the backing from professional organizations can be helpful.
On a local level, personal endorsements often come in the form of letters to the local newspaper. It’s likely an endorsement from well-known local citizens can carry more weight with local voters than the backing by some big-name, out-of-town celebrity.
Endorsements from local newspapers can also be influential to voters. If an Editorial Board invites local candidates for an interview, they should be aware of issues that the board might choose to cover. A candidate should be ready to clearly and succinctly state their positions. Even if a candidate does not win a newspaper’s endorsement in one election cycle, he or she may get that endorsement the next time around.
Of course, an election can be won without a single endorsement. Political endorsements are not considered a sure sign of success. But in a tight race, the financial and organizational help that comes with one can make all the difference.
How to ask for a political endorsement
If you’re looking to secure your own political endorsements, start by pinpointing the groups or people who could really give your campaign a boost. Think about who should support you, considering your vision and your positions on the issues. Then, work on a message for each of them. You’ll need to show exactly why you deserve their endorsement. Tell them what you plan to do when elected. But when asking for an endorsement, make sure to drive home how backing your candidacy aligns with their beliefs and goals.
Don’t just sit back and wait for endorsements to roll in. Once you know who to contact, don’t be shy about reaching out. A letter, a call, or even a face-to-face chat can show that you’re serious. Make a connection and show that together you can work towards something bigger.
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