All activities that should be prioritized from the pre-campaign to the final stretch

What are the first steps of an electoral campaign? What should I do first?

It’s completely normal not to know where to start or to feel unsure about which stage of the campaign you and your team are currently in. But… as always, we’re here to support you! 

We’ve put together a very neat timeline spreadsheet with all the key activities that should be prioritised,  from the pre-campaign period all the way through to the final stretch. The spreadsheet is fully editable, so you can make a copy and adapt it to your own reality and context.

Check out the material:

Roles and responsibilities needed for a good campaign

by Danyelle, Javiera Martinez, Giovanna Roa

Putting together an electoral campaign team requires thinking about what your campaign needs and imagining how tasks will be distributed among the people who will make up the team.

Having these roles clearly defined helps with decision-making and organizing actions. In addition, you will often need to present the campaign team to volunteers, donors, or organizations you work with.

At Im.pulsa, we want to support you with a sample organizational chart for an electoral campaign team. Remember that our models are just a suggestion. There are different ways to structure your team and organize the tasks required by a campaign. The team’s composition will depend on your strategy and your resources.

So feel free to download it and edit it however you like!

Here it goes:

A model for organizing funds and tracking expenses

Are you looking for a template to organize your campaign budget? Here we have two models for you!

Every cent raised for your campaign deserves to be respected and spent with planning. After all, you and your team worked hard to secure these resources. This funding must be used responsibly, above all to optimize your campaign and electoral results.

The values shown are only illustrative, as costs can vary widely. You can edit and adapt the spreadsheets to the needs of your campaign.

With this tool, it’s easier to build your campaign budget and keep your feet on the ground. It’s very important to work with the real scenario you’re facing.

We hope this tool helps you. Good luck with your campaign!

Action plan, timeline, indicators – all aligned

Organization is everything during a campaign! We have prepared a very comprehensive tool to help you manage your campaign. The idea behind this tool is to enable you to manage the progress of your team’s activities as well as the achievement of goals in a simple way. 

In it, you will find a general timeline, a dashboard of indicators, and an action plan, as well as a format for weekly alignment. We have created a step-by-step guide with the main campaign goals and the articulation of activities week by week. Of course, you can and should adapt everything!

Just download it and tailor it to the needs of your campaign. We hope it helps. Wishing you great campaign management!

Campaign management includes:

• Indicators dashboard
• Weekly alignment
• Action plan
• Timeline

A template for recording donations received during the campaign

Tool to leverage campaign’s strengths and prepare for its weaknesses

Every campaign is exhausting and requires a great deal of commitment and dedication. We know you already know this… But we want to give a small reminder that, before deciding to run for office, it’s really important to clearly understand your conditions for running and your own profile. That’s why you should do an analysis – a SWOT!

SWOT analysis (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Threats) is a tool that will help you make the most of your campaign’s positive points and better prepare for the negative ones. Here is a file you can use to apply this technique to your advantage.

The SWOT analysis is a tool widely used in private companies and increasingly in electoral campaign planning. It is a very simple exercise that will help you leverage strengths and better prepare for weaknesses in your campaign. Remember that the SWOT analysis is not the plan itself; it is just an analytical tool that supports planning. Get together with your team and do this exercise collectively and honestly. Take time to complete the template and reflect on the result collectively.

What do I do with my strengths?

Invest in them! Create strategies so that your voters can see what you have to offer at your best.

What do I do with my weaknesses?

Try to fix them if possible, or neutralize them if not.

What do I do with opportunities?

Take advantage of them.

What do I do with threats?

Try to minimize their impact and prepare yourself and your team to face them.

Systematize info, data, knowledge, and learnings at the end of your campaign

The first weeks after the election campaign are the best time to prepare your post-campaign report.

This report template will help you organize this content, with suggested thematic sections (introduction, affective record, team, fundraising, etc.), as well as tips on how to systematize this information and organize it into a report format.

Organizing this information will help you a lot when it comes to accountability (both legal and to your supporters), but especially when it’s time to think about your future in politics!