You’ve decided to run for office, filed the necessary paperwork, and found a finance director or campaign manager. Now, you’re ready to start political fundraising! You might start brainstorming about all the political campaign fundraising ideas, from fundraising events to a crowd funding campaign. But if you ask any successful political campaign, the surest way to activate your donor base is call time. One of the key ways for a campaign to raise money is through call time. Successful call time requires organization. You need to know who and why you’re calling so you don’t waste precious time making phone calls randomly (you're not hosting a phone-a-thon) when there are so many important conversations! That’s why we’ve compiled a rundown of the first nine call time lists you should make to kick off your political campaign fundraising using our fundraising software, Numero. Numero can house your fundraising activities, give you a call time app to dial from, and create a donation page for any online donation made on your campaign website.
Call Time Lists and Why They Work
Potential new donors come in many forms, so call time lists are instrumental for sorting people into manageable groups. Lists allow you to focus each call time shift on specific topics or goals. You can then create a call “template” that tailors your discussion points and ask amounts based on the list while allowing you to customize each call to the individual. More personal calls mean more engagement in your campaign, which means larger (and, fingers crossed, recurring) donations and building your fundraising potential.
Bringing all these elements together — lists, templates, scripts for individual calls — might sound daunting, especially for first-time candidates. So here are 9 lists – that are easy to make in Numero – to get you started:
1. Peer Fundraising or Personal Contact Lists
A personal contact list should be the first list you make, especially if you’re a first-time candidate. Having a list of your personal contacts is also super useful for local campaigns where you can start a peer fundraising campaign. Building name recognition and grassroots support is easier when you start with people you already know because you have connections with them already. Plus, it’s a fun way to catch up with friends and acquaintances from all walks of life. It's also a good idea to send your peers a donation form or fundraising page they can share with their network or via social media platforms -- veteran political candidates will tell you they'll likely be some of your first supporters and somtimes potential voters.
2. Have not spoken to in the last month
This is a good list to use every few months to ensure you’re not leaving any of your contacts untouched for long periods and allowing their fundraising potential to wane. This list gathers all the names of prospective major donors your campaign hasn’t interacted with in the last 30 days.
There are lots of slight variations you can do with this list. For example, you could add a filter for those who have already donated a small amount to your campaign. Then, you can ask people you know are willing to engage with your campaign. Adding the “AND has phone number” filter will also streamline your call time efforts from this list.
If there’s room for them to donate more, but you haven’t talked to them in over a month, it could be a good time to reach out.
3. Has not contributed, has not interacted, has phone number
All prospective new donors start at this point, but for contacts you haven’t had any touchpoints with, it’s important to get some under your belt! No matter how much donor data you have, you won’t know how they want to engage with your campaign until you talk to them.
So this is a great place to start – give them a call!
4. Pledge Chase
A lot of candidates forget to create follow-up call time lists. This list lets you filter all contacts with an open pledge you haven’t spoken to in the last 30 days. With all the different lists you could make (and all the criteria you can include), this is easy to overlook. A missing pledge is lost potential, not just for that pledge but for recurring donations and donor networking opportunities as well.
Running a pledge chase list every so often is a great way to be sure you’re chasing down those donors who said they’d donate to you but haven’t yet.
5. Location-Based Large Ask
It’s helpful for candidates to drill down on their database by city, zip code, state, etc, before making large asks. The more local you can get, the easier it is to connect with your contacts on the issues, and many teams use these connections to make big asks.
For example, if you’re a candidate in Illinois, use the filters, “city is one of Highland Park, Lincoln Park, Winnetka, or Evanston” (4 high-income areas in Illinois) to create a list of donors likely to give large amounts.
6. Amount Left to Max + has not interacted recently
Another list that will streamline your campaign’s fundraising sorts potential donors your campaign hasn’t contacted recently by the amount they have left to give your campaign. You can add filters for specific contribution amounts and a timeframe for your last contact with them. This way, you can sort potential donors by those who have donated a specific amount (under the max amount) but that your campaign hasn’t contacted in a few months.
This makes your ask easier for a couple of reasons: You know they’re supporters because they’ve already donated to your campaign, AND you have a built-in ask amount for when you make the call.
7. By ask amount
Your fundraising team (or whoever is prepping the call time lists) will analyze your contacts and create tailored ask amounts for each person based on their contribution history and giving capacity. Once done, you can use the “ask amount” filter to create amount-specific lists of potential donors.
The benefit of a list sorted by ask amount is that you don’t have to change your approach with each call. For example, the ask amount is $500 for everyone on that list. When it comes to call time, it's always a good idea to get into the zone.
Starting call time with this list makes your job easier and more efficient because there is less to think about and prepare for between each call allowing you to focus on your fundraising goals.
8. Fundraising Event-Specific
Have an event coming up? Great! Apply a contact code to all possible attendees and use that contact code to compile an event-specific call time list. You can add additional filters to help even more, such as “giving history is over 1k.” These filters are an easy way to organize events according to giving history. That way, you’re reaching out to grassroots donors for grassroots events and max out donors for expensive events and not mixing your fundraising campaigns. Make sure you have event specific fundraising pages set up before you start the outreach!
9. By Issue Area
If you have information on what your contacts care about (climate change, healthcare, etc), you can create contact codes based on those interests. You can use the contact codes as filters to create call time lists based on issue areas. That way, you can communicate your messages on climate change to your climate voter contacts all from one place. These fundraising tactics and fundraising techniques help when establishing relationships with new major donors.
Getting the Most from Call Time with Lists
Organizing your potential donors into call-time lists saves political campaigns time and money by making call-time more focused and efficient so you'll crush your fundraising goal. Your staff and volunteers will have an easier time making calls and creating connections when their conversations focus on specific ask amounts, events, or issues. A lot of work goes into converting a contact into a donor, but these lists are a great jumping-off point for more successful campaign fundraising. For more fundraising tips or, from campaign finance law to fundraising strategy and technique, check out our complete fundraising guide.
