Posted Tuesday January17, 2012 - 12:21PM
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As we start 2012, let's take a second to gaze into our crystal ball and see what new trends are emerging for fundraising.  One significant trend that you're going to see more and more of is the use of mobile payment tools and non-traditional payment methods to gather funds at events and online. This coupled with more robust tools to track and manage fundraising efforts can really help to raise the bottom line for organizations. The traditional merchant account/credit card processing model doesn't fit well with many fundraising organizations (particularly political campaigns). Services like Square allow organizations to accept funds at events using tiny credit card readers coupled with smartphones. This allows you to collect funds from donors while "in the moment" of an event, when potential donors are more likely to give. Additionally, alternatives to traditional credit card processors like Dwolla offer extremely cost effective transfer of funds between account holders making them an excellent supplement to more traditional merchant accounts. Finally, better donor management tools like Calltime Pro which help to identify potential donors and track the entire fundraising process (no matter what the source of the funds happens to be) are really starting to take off. Tools that track the entire lifecycle of the engagement with donors (not just the "did they contribute or not" portion) are critical to a savvy organization.Edit​

Posted Friday January13, 2012 - 03:00PM
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​​It's been a busy season for us.  We're proud to announce the launch of our referral program for Calltime Pro!  Info at bluecampaigns.com/referrals.  The way it works is easy:

Posted Wednesday November 9, 2011 - 08:00AM
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At Blue Campaign Solutions, we're always proud when we get a chance to work for our clients.  Because we truly support the candidates we work with, we can't help but get excited when they win.  Thats why we're very excited to congratulate our clients who won their races last night.  Each of these campaigns ran great races, and we're proud to have helped them.

Andrea Peeples - Franklin County Municipal Court Judge - http://judgepeeples.com/
Michelle Mills - Columbus Ohio City Council - http://millsforcolumbus.com
Andrew Ginther - Columbus Ohio City Council - http://andrewginther.com/
Hearcel Craig - Columbus Ohio City Council - http://craigforcolumbus.com/
Zach Klein - Columbus Ohio City Council - http://zachklein.org/
Lori Tyack - Franklin County Ohio Municipal Clerk of Court - http://tyackforclerk.com/
Ryan Jolley - Gahanna Ohio City Council - http://ryanpjolley.com/
Don Leach - Upper Arlington Ohio City Council - http://leachforuacouncil.com/

We want to thank each and every one of our clients for the opportunity to work for such great campaigns.  We're looking forward to working with them in the next election cycle.

 

Posted Thursday October13, 2011 - 04:32PM
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This is the first in a series of interviews we'll be doing over the coming months. We thought that, with all the negativity there can be in politics, we'd do our part to try and highlight the positive changes that candidates and elected officials are bringing about in their communities. The first in this series is Lori Tyack, who is seeking re-election as the Franklin County Municipal Clerk of Courts.

(Blue Campaign Solutions) What inspired you to run for public office?
(Lori Tyack) I have a passion for public service and I believe government should work for the people.

(BCS) What positive changes do you feel you have brought to your community?
(LT) During my six years of service, I have been fiscally responsible and returned $500,000 dollars to the City of Columbus' General Fund. I have followed green initiatives set by Franklin County and the City of Columbus by reducing the carbon footprint of the data center by 50% and streamlining processes creating new efficiencies. Taxpayer dollars were also saved by requiring defendants to pay service fees charged by credit card companies (when a credit card is used online) so 100% of the costs and fines are collected.
To view more of my accomplishments, please see www.tyackforclerk.com.

(BCS) What challenges in your community are you most looking forward to addressing?
(LT) Adequate funding is one of the major issues faced by courts today. The Franklin County Municipal Clerk's Office has operated with a reduced staffing level since 2005 due to budget shortfalls. However, through due diligence and cross training, the Clerk's Office has successfully managed and operated efficiently while meeting all legal mandates.
Ongoing costs of computer software and hardware upgrades, maintenance, support, and introduction of new technology are also major issues. A strong foundation is essential in order to successfully implement new technology. The Clerk's Office recently upgraded its hardware and software in preparation for day-forward imaging (to efficiently manage and store the the high volume of paper documents that the office manages daily) and to provide electronic filing services to reduce the dependency on paper documents.
If I am re-elected, I will continue to provide training for all staff and focus on new technology to move the office forward.

(BCS) What about your your record are you most proud of?
(LT) I am most proud of restoring the public's trust in the clerk’s office. During the previous administration, scandals and unethical behavior were daily occurrences. Over $50 million dollars pass through the office annually. It was necesary to create and implement an auditing section that could monitor bookkeeping, cashiers, and disbursement for the office. I also instituted new checks and balances for the payroll system separating the payroll and human resources responsibilities.

(BCS) How can people interested in your campaign get involved?
(LT) Volunteer opportunities may be found on my website at www.tyackforclerk.com. Click on the the get involved button to sign up.

We want to thank Lori for taking the time to talk with us. If you know of a elected official, candidate, or even a volunteer who is helping to bring about positive change in your community, then let us know.

Posted Wednesday August24, 2011 - 06:16PM
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Despite the massive benefits of social media, most political campaigns rely heavily on email for fundraising.  That's largely due to the fact that while social networking is extremely popular, email is simply more ubiquitous, and likely will be for at least the next election cycle or two.  However, most campaigns never take full advantage of the fundraising and support building opportunities provided via email.  That in mind, we present you with 5 common mistakes to avoid in your next email fundraising campaign.

1. Don't use an overly complex, graphic intensive "theme" for your emails - Emails sent to your supporters (and potential supporters) should contain the basic elements of your campaign's branding.  The logo, and perhaps even a headshot of your candidate go a long way toward helping readers quickly build brand association.  But avoid overly complex layouts and themes that distract from your message.  Let the content speak for itself.  Think "letterhead" instead of "near-duplicate of the website."
   
   
2. Don't be impersonal - Your readers have already become totally desensitized to spam as well as anything that remotely looks like it.  Make sure your emails are "from" someone (ideally, your candidate, to best reinforce the "brand" association).  You don't need to insert an image of a signature or anything, but make sure they end with something like "Thanks, Jane Smith."  Not only will this help your readers feel better engaged with the campaign, but it will make your emails more likely to be read in the first place.
   
   
3. Don't be overly wordy - You're competing with countless other distractions for the attention of your readers.  Don't waste a lot of time with insignificant details or long paragraphs.  Instead, send a brief (yet complete) email that's to the point, and offer links to your website so that the reader can get further information about the subject if they so desire.  By doing so you'll respect your reader's valuable time, as well as drive more traffic to your website.
   
   
4. Don't skip the unsubscribe link - Without a working unsubscribe link, you're showing a pretty fair lack of respect for people's time.  Having an unsubscribe link (that works) shows that you not only want the reader's support, but you understand that they may have other priorities.  
   
   
5. Don't obscure what it is you want' your readers to do - Don't dilute your message by including too many action items for your readers.  If you're sending an email out asking them to attend an event, offer a button to let them RSVP.  Don't clutter things up by also having other elements like a contribute button or a "follow us on Facebook" button.  The more direct you are about what actions you want the reader to perform, the more likely they are to perform that action.  Muddle things up, and it'll end up in the trash folder.

Most of these mistakes can be avoided by using one fairly simple trick: write any email for mass distribution as if you were sending it to a single person.  Once you have that base email down, you can add one or two embellishments (a "contribute now" link and the campaign logo, for example).  By following avoiding these mistakes, your mass email is far more likely to be read, and your political campaign is far more likely to succeed.  

Posted Monday May 2, 2011 - 03:41PM
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Unless you've been living under a rock since Sunday night, you've seen the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed.  If you're like us, when the announcement happened you were on Twitter, and could see the news spread extremely fast around the world.  This is a fascinating look at just how little time it took: http://blog.sysomos.com/2011/05/02/how-fast-the-news-spreads-through-social-media/

We thought it would be a good time to discuss some of the advantages social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc) have for political campaigns.

1)  Control - the campaign is directly responsible for the message being sent out.  Unlike traditional media (newspapers, radio, etc) there is no filter - your campaign knows how the message is going out.  Even with television, candidates might record an interview one way and when it's re-cut it will come across differently.

2)  Speed - The fast pace of news traveling via social media is an opportunity - when an issue comes up, it doesn't always need a carefully edited press release, or a phone contact with a newspaper. You can respond immediately, and if you've groomed and grown your list, people will see it.  Good press releases take time to write - a 140 character tweet generally takes much less.  Besides, you can always follow-up with a press release after.

3)  Competitive advantage - Not everyone uses social networking tools.  So if a story pops up and a reporter has a deadline to meet, they will take whatever they can get.  If you're responding quickly and your opponent isn't, whose response will be in the story?

4)  Cost - All of the popular social networking stuff is free.  You just need to have someone on staff who knows how to use them, or learn yourself - they're not very difficult to use.  (Twitter guide - Facebook guide)

5)  Perception - Supporters and even undecided voters are more likely to view your social networking activities as a "resource" rather than just a "marketing and fundraising hose".  Voters are turned off by frequent campaign commercials and incessant mailings.  But with these tools, they can control just how much of your campaign they see.  And it's one more channel for you to connect with them.

Social networking should be an essential part of any campaign, regardless of size or budget.

Posted Wednesday April20, 2011 - 04:03PM
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Frequently, when creating even a small website, there is a lot of "fuss" and back-and-forth involved in getting the site launched.  The time and effort spent is frequently inefficient, and that doesn't help anyone.  At Blue Campaign Solutions, we hate inefficiency in campaigns, and we hate it in our business as well.

So, we are pleased to announce the launch of a new tool called SiteBuilder to allow clients to create templated websites quickly and with a minimum of fuss.  Available at sitebuilder.bluecampaigns.com, the simple 3 step process let's a campaign enter some basic information, upload some pictures, pick a template and choose additional features, then launch the website.  The process can be completed in a matter of minutes.

It's all part of our mission to help your campaign run more efficiently and effectively.

Posted Wednesday April 6, 2011 - 06:24AM
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Posted Thursday October21, 2010 - 02:24PM
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Your campaign has spent the past year or two gathering the names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and more of donors, volunteers, supporters, and more.  These are the people that, win or lose, support your campaign.  That info is invaluable.  So what is going to happen to those lists the day after the election.  All too often, they simply get lost as the campaign winds down, or worse yet, simply get thrown away.  Far too many campaigns seem to feel that they'll just start over next election cycle.  Or even if they do make a backup of the lists, exactly who had what lists seems to get lost over time.  The next thing you know, whoever was supposed to have the lists either can't be found, or they can't seem to find the lists.  So what's a campaign to do?  Let's consider the options.

First, you can simply make a backup of your lists to CD or DVD.  On the plus side, it's pretty easy to do, and your data is backed up.  On the con side, who is going to keep that data?  Will it be safe, or will it end up in the wrong hands?  Will it be stored someplace where it won't get damaged or destroyed in an emergency?  Lastly, will it be in a format that's useful to you in 1 or 3 years?  It's pretty safe to say that backing up your data or CD or DVD is the bare minimum you should be doing.  But you could be doing a lot better.

Next up is importing your data to a service like Google Apps or Microsoft OfficeLive.  The plus side here is that your data is safe from catastrophic loss like fire, and you'll know exactly where it is and how to get to is when you need it.  Definately a step up from just backing your data up to CD or DVD.  However, there are still a few catches.  First, is the data in a particularly useful format?  Say a few months from now you decide to send out Holiday cards to important donors to your campaign.  While the campaign was up and running, expertise was abundant.  But if your lists are stored in spreadsheets, did whoever created them leave in a particularly useful layout, or is it just a jumble of names and contact info?  Can you easily search for the people you're looking for, and get their contact info?  Again, probably not the best thing you can do for your future campaigns. 

The final option for your lists is to import it into a free Calltime Pro account.  It only takes a few minutes to get your lists into your account, and since Calltime Pro is built to be easy to use, you'll be able to use your lists when and where you want at any time.  Say you're ready to send out those holiday cards.  With Calltime Pro, it will be a snap to find the names and contact info you're looking for, based on just about any criteria you can think of.  And when the time comes to start up your next campaign, you'll be ready to hit the ground running, finding the right people to contact, printing call-sheets, and kicking off a great fund raising season.  You can get more info on Calltime Pro at http://calltimepro.com and sign up for your free account. 

So don't throw away all your hard work this election cycle.  Don't put off getting your lists into Calltime Pro.  We all know how quickly a campaign can wind down.  Make sure your lists get into Calltime Pro today, and be ready for your next campaign. 

Posted Wednesday October20, 2010 - 03:55PM
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You read that right.  Calltime Pro, the revolutionary tool that makes managing your fundraising process easy, is now FREE!  No limited trials, no credit cards, no lengthy sign up process.  Just a free account for any Democratic campaign!  Now you can do everything your campaign needs--manage donors, remove duplicates, print call sheets, track calls, asks, pledges, contributions, and more--for FREE!  Best of all, it's backed up nightly, so lists you import today will be there waiting for your next election cycle.  So sign up today , and make sure your ready for your next election.  Learn more and sign up at http://calltimepro.com

When we made Calltime Pro all those years ago, we did so because we saw Democratic campaigns wasting time and money because of an innefficient call-time process.  But now, with the release of Calltime Pro - Free Edition, we're bringing that increased productivity and efficency to even the smallest campaigns.  So now, no matter how big or small your campaign is, we've got a solution for you.  Take control of your fundraising today at http://calltimepro.com

Posted Wednesday June30, 2010 - 04:51PM
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The campaign of Frank Comunale has launched their new website, frankcomunale.com, and Blue Campaign Solutions is pleased to have been selected as the designer and hosting provider.  The Comunale campaign joins Blue Campaign Solutions' growing list of clients who have taken advantage of the unique blend of quality and value that BCS provides. 

The Comunale campaign will be able to take advantage of tools like Website Manager from Blue Campaign Solutions to get their message out about this important race through multiple mediums like the web, email, and social networks with one simple solution.  Blue Campaign Solutions is proud to be a part of Frank Comunale's race for the state senate.

For more information on how your campaign can take advantage of Blue Campaign Solutions' offerings, visit our website at www.bluecampaigns.com.

Posted Wednesday March24, 2010 - 01:05PM
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What is call-time?

Call-time is essentially just that.  The time which you spend on the phone asking people for their support, usually in the form of donations.  If you're a smaller campaign, you may be calling mostly people you know... friends and family, and trying to get them involved in your campaign.  Larger campaings may be calling not only on individuals, but organizations, asking not only for money but endorsements, their time, etc.  If you've ever spent any time on the phone asking someone to support your campaign, you've done call-time.

Why is call-time so important?

Call-time is critical to every political campaign because generally, it can be one of the most powerful ways to raise money for your campaign.  Without spending time on the phone asking people for their support, a campaign will generally flounder.  No matter if your campaign is big or small, you should plan on doing call-time as often as is possible.  When it's done right, call-time helps get your message out to active supporters, and brings money and volunteers in.

What makes for effective call-time?

As you can imagine, call-time can take up a lot of time if you're not doing it right.  Let's imagine some various methods for doing call-time and how we could do them better. 

The Phone Book Method

Imagine grabbing a phone book and calling people randomly asking for money to support your campaign.  Sounds pretty rough, right?  Chances are you'd spend every day making calls and getting very few contributions.  That's a pretty bad return on your investment.  That's why even small campaigns benifit from compiling lists of all their supporters or potential supporters and focusing on those people. 

The Spreadsheet Method

We'll skip the paper list method and jump right to what most people think is a pretty obvious way of handling call-time.  Imagine entering the name and phone number of every potential supporter in a spreadsheet.  This sounds a lot more managable than the phone book method.  We're focusing on likely supporters now.  But spreadsheets aren't well suited for this.  What happens when you email a copy of your list to various people on your campaign.  How do you keep track of who has the most up to date list?  Are you backing up your list regularly in case of a hard drive crash?  How do you keep your list from getting into the wrong hands if you're emailing it back and forth?  Think of how hard it could be trying to navigate a spreadsheet as you're on the phone with a potential donor, trying to find their name so you can enter in how much they're pledging to contribute. There must be a better way.

The Calltime Express Method

Now imagine all of the contact info for each of your potential donors stored in a secure, online database, where you decide who has access to it.  You can keep track of every call you make, how much money you ask a donor for, every pledge, and every contribution.  You can add donors to a call list, and print out individual call sheets for each of them, containing all the important information, including their contribution history with your campaign.  You can see how your fundraising is progressing with reports.  And you never ever have to worry about finding the latest copy of the call list because it's always available from any internet-connected computer.   You'll find all of that and more in Calltime Express.  It's a software package built to make your call-time process as accurate and efficient as possible for $99/month.  And if that's not enough, you can easily upgrade your campaign to Calltime Pro to take advantage of even more powerful features.  Features like automatic donor lookup from public state and federal sources, a mobile phone interface, paperless calltime, and printing of follow up letters and labels.

As you can see, there are a lot of different ways to manage your call-time process.  If you're interested in learning more about Calltime Express or Calltime Pro from Blue Campaign Solutions, please visit our website.  Now that you know what call-time is, why it's imporant to your campaign, and how best to do it, get out there and make some calls!

Posted Thursday March18, 2010 - 05:27PM
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The Friends of Marilyn Brown committee has launched their new website, brownforfranklincounty.com, and Blue Campaign Solutions is pleased to have been selected as the designer and hosting provider.  The Friends of Marilyn Brown committee joins Blue Campaign Solutions' growing list of clients who have taken advantage of the unique blend of quality and value that BCS provides. 

The Friends of Marilyn Brown committee will be able to take advantage of tools like Website Manager from Blue Campaign Solutions to get their message out about this important race through multiple mediums like the web, email, and social networks with one simple solution.  Blue Campaign Solutions is proud to be a part of Marilyn Brown's race for Franklin County Commissioner.

For more information on how your campaign can take advantage of Blue Campaign Solutions' offerings, visit our website at www.bluecampaigns.com.

Posted Tuesday February23, 2010 - 02:47PM
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The Judge Cocroft Committee has launched their new website, cocroftforjudge.com, and Blue Campaign Solutions is pleased to have been selected as the designer and hosting provider.  The Judge Cocroft Committee joins Blue Campaign Solutions' growing list of clients who have taken advantage of the unique blend of quality and value that BCS provides. 

The Judge Cocroft Committee will be able to take advantage of tools like Website Manager from Blue Campaign Solutions to get their message out about this important race through multiple mediums like the web, email, and social networks with one simple solution.  Blue Campaign Solutions is proud to be a part of Judge Kimberly Cocroft's race for Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. 

For more information on how your campaign can take advantage of Blue Campaign Solutions' offerings, visit our website at www.bluecampaigns.com.

Posted Friday February 5, 2010 - 03:36PM
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Mass email is a central part of most political campaigns.  Like social media, and websites, it helps a campaign to not only get their message out, but to better engage with and mobilize supporters. By taking a few simple steps, you can dramatically reduce the chances of your email being considered spam, and increase the effectiveness of your mass email campaign.

What is "spam"?

Spam is any email sent indiscriminately to multiple people who haven't expressed an interest in receiving email from you.  Typically, when we think of spam, we think of junk email that is trying to sell us pharmaceutical products and the like.  However, think about the last time you got an unwanted marketing email from a company you never signed up for.  Did you read the email?  Did you find it an effective marketing tool?  Or did you simply think "ugh, more junk email" and delete it.  Chances are you deleted it.  So, as a rule of thumb, spam is any email that makes you want to say "ugh, more junk email."

What's the difference between Mass Email and spam?

There is really only one important distinction between spam and mass email.  When you send an email to multiple people who have opted into your emails, you're sending mass email.  When you send an email to multiple people who never expressed interest in getting your emails, you're sending spam.

Why should I care if I send spam?

If you're sending spam, you're spinning your wheels.  Your essentially wasting your time, sending out lots of emails that won't get read, when you could be doing other things.  Additionally, spam generally hurts your reputation.  By sending out spam, you reduce the likelihood that people will read your emails when you really need them to (such as near financial reporting deadlines, or when an issue important to your campaign becomes a hot topic).  Email is a valuable resource for any campaign, but spam dilutes the effectiveness of that resource and increases volunteer fatigue.

But there's one very important reason why you should avoid sending spam.  By sending out emails that are flagged as spam by the recipients, you're likely to have your email account blocked, in some cases, without even knowing it.  So, now, you're no longer hurting your reputation, you're simply wasting your time sending emails that will never be read.

How do I avoid sending spam?

There are a few easy things to ensure that your mass email gets delivered and read by the intended recipients.  Let's examine each one below:

1. Don't send mass email from email clients like Outlook, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.  Sending mass email from an standard email client is likely against the terms of service you agreed to when you signed up for your email account.  By doing so, you're likely to have your account shut down.  Additionally, most of the big email providers like Gmail, AOL, etc, will automatically mark your email as spam if it is addressed to a large number of recipients.  The easiest way to avoid this is to use a hosted solution.  Our offering, Mass Mail from Blue Campaign Solutions comes bundled with every website hosted with us.  Users get 5000 free emails a month, and it only costs 1 cent per email after that!
2. Don't buy/rent/borrow email address lists.  Buying, renting, or "borrowing" email address lists may seem like an easy way to get started, but every time we've seen it done, it backfires.  Not a single person on that list opted in to receive emails from you.  So, their first impression of your campaign is bound to be a negative one when spam from you shows up in their inbox.  Unlike cold-calls, which people reluctantly tolerate, people tend to have a highly negative reaction to spam.  It may be tempting to use an email list lent to you by a friendly campaign, but in doing so, you're setting yourself up for failure.  Instead, build your own list by accepting signups on your website, at events, etc.  It may be smaller than the one you can list rent, but it will be worth far more in terms of how effective it will be. 
3. Send emails often (around 1 to 2 times a month).  By sending emails often, you not only keep your message right in front of people, but you are reminding them that they signed up for your emails.  Often times people will forget that they signed up for your emails if you wait months between sending emails.  By sending a slow but steady stream of emails, you keep your readers engaged and happy. 
4. Send your email through a valid mass email provider.  Unless your emails come from a properly configured email server, the big email carriers like Gmail, AOL, etc. will almost certainly mark your emails as spam before they even make it to your reader's inboxes.  Emails sent from a random email server will only have a small chance of even making it to your reader's inboxes.  A valid mass email provider has cultivated a relationship with the big email companies, and follows their best practices.  This helps ensure that emails sent through them will not be marked as spam.  Our email offering, Mass Email by Blue Campaign Solutions, has partnered with one of the industry's leading smtp relay services, meaning that our customer's mass emails are considered "innocent until proven spam" (so to speak).
5. Provide (and honor) unsubscribe options.  By providing an easy way for people to quickly unsubscribe from your mass emails, you lessen the chance that they will report your email as spam. And when people do click an unsubscribe link, make sure you quickly and painlessly remove them from your list, and make sure you don't accidentally add them back later.  This is where a good volunteer/donor management system like Calltime Pro comes in handy, letting you keep track of who wants to be contacted, and in what way.  And our Mass Mail tool automatically honors unsubscribe requests immediately, to boot!
6. Write interesting emails.  in the end, nothing beats sending "good" emails.  If people want to read them, they are far less likely to mark them as spam.  Look for inspiration all around you.  Write about issues that are important to your readers.  Write about how you can help them.  Think about the mass emails you read, and model your emails after those.  The worst thing you can do is to just ask for money.  Make your readers understand the value they get from their involvement in your campaign.

In the end, no matter what you do, some people will mark your email as spam, either by accident or intentionally.  But by employing the tricks and techniques we just reviewed, you can ensure that the vast majority of time, people read your emails, and becoming the future volunteers, donors, attendees, and more that your campaign will need to succeed. 

If you're in need of mass email service we hope you'll consider our offering, Mass Mail from Blue Campaign Solutions.  You'll be able to send out professionally formatted emails to your list, tracking who opened them, who forwarded them, honor unsubscribe requests, and more.  For more information about how you can get stared with Mass Mail from Blue Campaign Solutions, contact us. 

Posted Monday January11, 2010 - 11:58AM
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It's a fair question.  Why does my campaign need to spend our hard-earned money every month on fundraising software?

 

Increased Efficiency

Resources on campaigns are often scarce, and dedicated fundraising software helps your campaign make the most out of the available resources (time, energy and money).

Think of your fundraising operation as a large machine.  Each "action" of the machine requires time, energy and sometimes money.  Again, all of these are scarce and should be conserved when possible.  Fundraising software reduces the time and energy (and sometimes money) required to complete each fundraising machine task.  It, in effect, reduces the friction necessary for your fundraising machine to operate.

In practical terms, here are some "fundraising machine" tasks your campaign might be doing and how fundraising software can improve their effectiveness

• Researching donor histories
  • Software can connect a few bits of information (name, location, zip code) to other databases to automatically give you information about your donors.  This information can be automatically displayed on callsheets.
• Looking up phone numbers
  • With a first and last name, phone number lookups can be made completely seamless with good fundraising software.  Get your volunteers doing something else - this can all be done automatically!
• Organizing data into callsheets
  • Getting candidates comfortable with the calltime process is critically important, and the way they see the information in front of them has a lot to do with that.  Using software, each field can be displayed the same way every time.
• Printing callsheets
  • A consistent and easy-to-read format will make calltime substantially easier on the candidate.
• Sitting w/ the candidate on calls
  • Some systems make the recording of information (notes, amount pledged, etc) easy and completely paper-free
• Doing follow-up letters, emails, faxes, etc
  • This can be a massive time investment - with a system like CallTime Pro, you can print letters, labels and envelopes easily, and spend the rest of your time on other things.

 

Conclusions

What is the result of all of this?  Generally, campaigns that utilize campaign software will raise more money in less time than campaigns that do not.

 

Peter Lytle is the founder of Blue Campaign Solutions, a company dedicated to more effective and efficient campaigns through the use of software and other technologies.

Posted Monday January 4, 2010 - 01:55PM
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Today it seems like there are as many website vendors as there are websites on the Internet.  That can make finding the right vendor for you feel like a complicated task.  But there are 5 questions you can ask a website vendor that can tell you the quality of the vendor.

1. Will my website be tested in multiple web browsers?

Different web browsers can display the same website differently, sometimes making the website unusuable.  In some cases, different versions of the very same web browser can have the same problem, like Internet Explorer 6 vs. Internet Explorer 7.  Making sure a website looks consistently good in all versions can be a tedious task, but if not taken seriously, it can make it impossible for your site to be viewed by large portions of your audience.  Make sure that your site will be tested in the following browsers: Firefox (all major versions), Internet Explorer 6.0 or better, Safari (3.1 or better), and Opera (current version).

2. Will it be easy for me to add content and make changes to my website?

A website without fresh content is almost worse than no website at all.  So having a simple to use way to add content to your website is critical.  If adding content to your website is a complicated task, your staff will probably put it off or ignore it, making your site stale, and giving your visitors the wrong impression.  Make sure your website will include a way to easily add photographs, blog entries, news items, calendar events, and press releases. 

But that's just half of the question. Posting a press release or blog entry is one thing, but what about making a change to the actual pages of your website?  Imagine your campaign was just endorsed by a high profile group, and you want to get your candidate's biography page updated as soon as possible to reflect the endorsement.  If a vendor tells you that you just need to give them a call or send them an email and they'll make the change for you, it's a red flag.  What happens when they're on vacation/out of cell coverage/etc.?  If you can't make minor edits to your own website easily without needing to learn HTML, you may be in trouble when it comes time to make a simple but urgent change.

3. Will my website be backed up?

Web servers, like any computer, can have bad days.  Even the best website vendors can have a server crash.  Make sure your website's data is backed up daily, and that those backups are stored at a location different from where the webserver is.  This means that in the off chance that something bad does happen to your web server, your data is safe, making it easy to quickly recover.

4. Will my website integrate with social networks like Facebook and Twitter?

Update your website, update Facebook, update Twitter... it can sometimes feel like a never ending loop.  Keeping the content fresh on your website and social networks can be tough if you have to do it all manually.  A good website vendor should make it easy for you to post once, and see that content end up in multiple places, without you needing to worry about the difference between a "tweet," a "status update," and a "blog post."

5. Will I be able to accept donations via whatever provider I want?

Accepting donations via your website is a critical feature for any campaign.  But there are many different ways that you can accept donations online, each offering uniqe pros and cons.  Being able to choose between them is important to ensure that you don't pay too much for your online donations.  Some campaigns prefer services like ActBlue, while others like the value of using their own mrchant account.  In any case, make sure your website vendor will help you pick the method that best suits your campaign.  Additionally, make sure that whatever method you pick, your provider makes it easy to monitor those contributions through a central management page.  You shouldn't have to sign in to another website to see your ActBlue contributions. 

That's it.  A quality website vendor should answer "yes" to each of these questions, and be happy to show you a live demonstration of of each feature.  This way you should be able to see what your vendor believes is "easy" and "simple" for yourself.  Asking these questions of your current or potential website vendor should give you a good feel for the quality of the website vendor you're dealing with, without needing to become an expert yourself, and ensure that you get the most value from your website now and in the future.

Chris Marshall is the CTO of Blue Campaign Solutions, a company dedicated to more effective and efficient campaigns through the use of software and other technologies.