Session 3- Raising Money.mp3

[00:00:00] Hi, everybody, welcome to any of Action Campaign Academy. This is module for raising money and we have with us today a prolific political fundraiser. Catholic aspirin is going to introduce herself and then give us a little presentation on how to raise political dollars that Kathy, take it away.

[00:00:18] Thank you, Morgan, and thank you to 270. Really appreciate the work you do to prepare a candidate. I am happy to discuss my favorite activity, which is a good thing dollars for a campaign. As I mentioned, my background is in campaign fundraising since 2004. I've done a cycle of of local and federal office, both for president and Senate as well as governor.

[00:00:51] So I'm gonna go through this presentation that I've given before for candidates. We are assuming here that everyone starting from different places because of our level of office that they're seeking. Certainly municipal races are very different from statewide, very different from federal. But we are assuming that everyone here is coming down as a first time candidate and really putting together their plan, their donor list, their their fundraising goal as it as a first name in it. So we're gonna walk through the type of fundraising, making a plan, setting up a world class organization. One of my favorite phrases is fundraising is certainly more of an art than a science. But setting up the operation behind it and really effective systems are really what separates good campaigns from not so great campaigns in terms of fundraising and in incorporating some best practices. There certainly are evolving tactics that are really helpful and incorporating some of those will be helpful for your campaign. So the fund raising taxes and tools. This is where we really incorporate three different components of all fundraising. We have different strategies for these three different types of dollars that are raised. Major donor, which is what we consider basically individual relationship focused. Major donor certainly does not need to be a major dollar. Major donor is soliciting on an individual level to someone. So on some campaigns when the limits are incredibly low. That could mean a 250 dollar donation is considered a major donor.

[00:02:51] Some races that can be considered a thousand dollar or even ten thousand dollar marketing is actually including a wide grassroots type of fundraising, which includes direct mail, telemarketing and digital is a whole other track. So as you can see, major donor has different, different tactics within that base. This is giving a deadline. Having someone host an event and having a moment where you're convening all your supporters at one place, they're fabulous for giving a deadline and really giving and organizing quite a focus for your fundraising call time, which is just, you know, using exactly that the candidate's time, which is one of the most limited resources on a campaign to directly reach out to supporters. This is something that all campaigns need to prioritize and dedicate. You know, often the best advocate and the best person to convince someone to get involved in a campaign is a candidate without a finance committee program. This is where you have basically a leadership group, an organization that is set up of people that are deeply invested in the campaign and making it successful and utilizing the synergy that come from engaging some of your top supporters to go out and tap their own individual networks, to be advocates for your campaign, to engage their concentric circles of friends to get involved. These are so important on so many races to empower other people, though it is not just the candidate who is doing all of the outreach, but it is individuals who take on the campaign as something that they're passionate about, that they're a part of. It is an incredibly powerful program when it's usually utilized correctly. It's really time consuming, but something I hope you will consider doing the grassroots is, you know, is is giving people on an individual level to host their own house parties to take on it a 10, 15, 50 dollar or house party and really do a large scale engagement in a community. This can be done as a part of the field program, as a part of your outreach. In the community, and I like that they grassroots fundraisers, other ones where truly no contribution is required. We consider event based fundraising something where a contribution is absolutely required and it's expected it is not to be confused as a fundraiser. Anyone who would be attending the event. Digital. Many campaigns are stepping up their involvement here. And I know 270. You guys do a fabulous job at helping someone build out a really effective digital strategy that includes email, digital and social media, a really active profile that continuously showcases why it really takes advantage of the timely moment where someone wants to get involved and can really help tell the story of the campaign. It is certainly something that takes a lot of effort, but is a really important tactic for really driving home fundraising and then marketing. This is where these are really effective tools at building a list. The Bernie Sanders campaign did a fabulous job at this. The Obama campaign, both in 0 8 and twelve, actually raised about a third of the money overall from direct mail telemarketing. In the 40 million dollar store we had in 2012. These were all contributions for the campaign. These were great investments that folks do. And we hope with anyone gives them a marketing program. They're not getting just one. They're giving again and again. These are expensive tactics largely, but they're really worth it in the long run because you're building a massive list of supporters that can be a great base of donors to to continue to visit again and again. Organize and operationalize. So this is where I think most campaigns tend to jump in and not sit down and create a really thoughtful strategy from the beginning on fundraising systems. You need to determine your goal. You need to manage expectations both internally and externally towards that goal. And you need to really methodically track your network, organize your contacts and how you will develop relationships and solicit contributions, have a really fine tuned efficient system for follow up. I'm sure that we've all been in a situation where we have met someone we were really compelled to give, but no one actually followed up on that enthusiasm with an action. And so having a really fabulous, well-thought-out system for tracking commitment and making sure that they actually go from pledged to in hand is still important. And systematic prospecting. And no matter how great your network is. Almost everyone needs to eventually talk to people that they may not know already directly. Having a system for bringing in new people, finding those concentric circles of support and continuously were refreshing that universe. You're always expanding. Any campaign that doesn't continue to expand. And I know I actually learned this phrase from my friends and Field ultimately died.

[00:08:52] And so especially in fundraising, you need to continue to engage your existing donors, your most likely donors or your most recent donors. But you always need to bring new people in and create a community and engage. I think one of the greatest reasons why people get involved in a campaign, even on the fundraising side, is the community that is created. And after every campaign and I've done three presidential campaigns, one of my favorite things. Win or lose in the community that continues to exist after a campaign and will forever be galvanized to support other candidates to reunite for celebrating what was accomplished and and hopefully continuing to support the overall cost. So he's creating a fundraising plan. I would encourage you to sit down and have a really frank conversation on what's necessary. No campaign, unless you're an unlimited self funder, will have unlimited funds. Most campaigns will have enough to get the job done. And it's really important to know what that number is. It's important to do research on what has historically been done in the district to understand, you know, seek out the report of the previous candidate. Go back five or six years. I mean, sometimes a pattern really can't be seen. And unless you can see what has happened in comparable turnout, in comparable midterms, in in the same district in a in a presidential year, or even sometimes where that's the highest expense, sometimes there are new districts that might not have an exact exact comparison, but understanding what comparable candidate your peers have raised. It's important to know what your opponent's raising. I think from a comparison and it tends to be something that motivates donors to know what the opposition is doing. Your primary opponent or your general election opponent? It's important to have a framework of what that means. It's also a great tool for any candidate to embrace where the money is going. It helps with your own confidence, knowing how the money's going to be spent and how much you need to have to win. One of my favorite phrases is actually from our finance chair of the Obama campaign. Great candidates don't necessarily lose, but great candidates do actually run out of money. And I work for campaigns where we have outraised our opponent. I have worked for campaigns where we've been outraised. The amount of money that you raised is not necessarily directly correlate to winning. However, great candidate that can't be viable. They can't run a campaign that can compete, that can get the job done. Do lose. And you don't need to look far to see countless examples of that of great candidates that fail to be able to put together the resources to be competitive. Map your network.

[00:12:20] This is where every candidate in their immediate support network should sit down and map exactly who they know, who they want to engage in, finding individuals that can go out and also deepen your network through introduction. This can be done really methodically. There's a lot of great tools now that can actually help with that. But but, you know, a simple Excel spreadsheet, a Google doc can actually really suffice. You don't need a really sophisticated CRM database to do this. So the tool and and fundraising network that are available to all candidates or are quite different depending on the race that you're running. There are systems that help you with compliance, like a fundraising database like in GP that can help with the reporting. They certainly can make candidates more efficient. There's a great tool like called rev up. Both Democrats and Republicans use it. It's relatively cheap. It helps to do some research on your own network, but you can essentially import your own contacts and it can look through existing public databases that they have a history of giving. There are many websites that actually do the disclosure of contributions where you can see who has a history of giving in your in your neighborhood, in your town, or folks that you think would be significant donors, how they engage with other campaigns like yours. Always be direct and make sure that you set realistic expectations. One of my favorite phrases is if someone commits to raise fifty thousand dollars and they raised twenty five thousand dollars, it's a huge disappointment. But if someone commits to raise fifty thousand dollars and raises one hundred thousand dollars, exceeding those expectations is all the difference in someone becoming incredibly successful. And you're able to. And you're able to make people feel like they're being successful and that they feel good about the experience. So make sure you always set yourself up for success and you set up those around you to be successful. It'll make it a more positive experience. That feeds on itself continuously track engagement, ask follow up. And this is where I would encourage you to engage someone full time, dedicated either as a volunteer or as a paid staff person to wake up every day and to make sure that they're driving this overall commitment or bringing in dollars and in keeping focused on that goal and continuously tracking progress to that goal. I'm somebody who's really motivated by numbers.

[00:15:31] And so I have always enjoyed setting a goal, achieve meeting the goal, moving the goal posts and meeting the next goal. And, you know, benchmarking your own success often allows you to make sure that you're able to see the program and also feel really successful in everyone involved in the experience. And this is an old budget of a friend of mine who ran for municipal office here in Boston. And I just put it up for an example. Some of the expenses that you should consider. And it's always good to be incredibly thorough and realistic on these expenses and also track where you are to date. Do you know if you're meeting expectations as well as making sure the money going out is matching the expenses? I will say there is literally no worse job than raising money for debt. So campaign debt is actually one of the worst thing you could ever have to really be financially responsible. You know, pay attention to the money going in as well as the money going out. Some of the finest plan samples in this is a very, very basic one of mapping out, OK, for the individual that I know for my reporting period, for the amount of time that I'm trying to set a goal that I could do a specific commitment from. I often say commitments are either hard, soft or in hand. A soft commitment is, oh, I think I can do you know, about twenty five hundred dollars or I'd like to help. Certainly it's our commitment is not something that you would take to the bank, not something you would even go out and spend against.

[00:17:28] It's something that you want to track and make sure that it is it become a reality. Her commitment is something that I would take to the bank and I would have a very direct conversation and get it in commitment. Writing often or in commitment or in writing follow up. It would be something that I would actually even spend again. It's something that I'm very conservative on generally, so I would encourage you to be optimistic but realistic and making sure that you divide commitments between soft and hard to manage expectations and always track when money comes in. You can continuously know what is outstanding. This is actually one of my favorite visualizations of someone's network and and really mapping. Who would get involved in the thought process of who to engage on a campaign? This is from Emily's List, from their classic Making the Drive manual that they do for candidate. It's available on the Internet. You can find it. So it starts with a candidate's own network.

[00:18:37] Literally take your phone, export your contact and map out, OK? Everyone from where you went to school, to your neighbor, dear friends, to your kid's friends, to your colleagues at work, your your your family obviously mapping out the various stages and compartments of your life and who you know, specifically with contact information. Always include email, phone, full name, address. If you can start from a good list. You can always you can always add to it later. But it's really, really difficult if you're not starting with complete contact information and then working from there. Finding folks that share your commitment to the environment, share your commitment to your community, that that share, you know, commitment to raising awareness on LGBT rights. There's some really great circles of donors that care about specific issues. And it's not challenging to to identify what other organizations they give to, what other candidates they give to, and and certainly other previous campaigns that they've gave to finding donors that care about your level of office and have previously given. There's no better reason for someone to give than a personal relationship. So obviously, this is why this circle start with people that are close to you and goes out to people that care about the same issues as you do. And then further to those who share your your same opposition and to the whoever you're running a primary general, picking out someone who also wants your opponent to be the enemy of my enemy is my friend and mentality. And and finally, power and I think this is one of those is actually really difficult to kind of put a thumb on.

[00:20:46] And these are the people that honestly give quite late and any pain supporters that may be giving towards the very end because they think someone is going to win and they see them as someone who they want to support before, before the election or after. You know, I think we we've all seen those kinds of supporters get involved.

[00:21:12] They're not necessarily someone who who has a really strong motivation. But, you know, nonetheless, there's someone you should engage eventually. So event based fundraising, as I discussed, is, I think one of the most effective tactics. It's why it's used. It's why people spend a lot of time galvanizing around events. I would encourage you to take a couple events throughout the year that you can find a reason of of day, a holiday like you know, or just simply a friend that wants to throw a birthday. They create urgency. And that's what people need in order to make the execution. Even if somebody can't come to the event, they can still get money. And make sure you ask the personal calls, an individual meeting. This is where you want to first ask someone for their support after you get their support. You want to ask them for their dollars. And sometimes it's even more difficult to get someone to support your campaign than it is to get them to give some money. You know, I think winning their support, winning their time is often a more limited resource than people have. Empower your network. And this is where spending some time to really build a finance committee and the leadership of your friends and colleagues is really important.

[00:22:41] The commitments of finance committees are all over the map on the Obama campaign here in New England. When I oversaw the Finance Committee, we had a rule that there wasn't a required minimum to be on the Finance Committee. We ask someone to just set a personal fundraising goal. We held them to that fundraising goal and rewarded everyone equally for meeting that personal goal. So I would really encourage you to make sure that the committee has it all has something to galvanize around. But the goal is it's something that keeps people motivated continuously as well as cast a wide net. Setting a goal that no one can reach is not something that's actually motivating or effective for anyone. I've always been much more in the politics. Isn't a game of an additive. Bringing new people, finding new relationships, making the table wider and more inclusive. So I hope you'll embrace that with your finance committee strategy. Get creative. And this is where direct mail and telemarketing. We've even done some really grassroots versions of these. That is literally having an in-house run off of a letter to your supporters and mail it just in-house. Do it a really cheap way. You can do it with free hands and labor donated and running some letters that are signed personally. It is expensive to do telemarketing and direct mail with a firm, which is why most people don't do it. But it does pay off in the long run on building a list and building a really wide net of supporters online fundraising programs. There's really fantastic ways to engage, go online and you know, from contests to celebrating, timely moment in the news, moments for the campaign, having a focus capital campaign or drive that meeting, you know, a set goal and then give that deadline, that event based fundraising. Also did. Reoccurring or matching gifts? You know, there's a reason why you see a lot of these same tactics online fundraising as you do a nonprofit fundraising, and it's because they work and people really do like matching gifts and reoccurring gifts. It's a fabulous way of making a supporter that wouldn't give a thousand dollars, but would consider giving one hundred dollars over the course of 10 months. You know, as being a really great contributor and a part of the campaign. So making these these really fabulous tactics available, I encourage you to do so. So here's two samples of. Of event one for my friend Eric Leffler, who ran for state senate here in Massachusetts, as well as Governor Patrick. And it's just a really simple example of the invitation that clearly lists individuals that have committed to be a part of the event, the time or location, the amount. Please do not say suggested contribution for a fundraiser at such a pet peeve of mine. It's either a fundraiser or not, and it should be celebrated when it is one. You're asking folks to make an investment in your campaign and these moments that are that are bringing together all these supporters. It's something that is really positive and making sure that there is a clear way on how someone can give a link checks payable where they send them. Make it as simple as possible for someone to receive the information and to take action. I also encourage you to lift prominent supporters that have committed to be a part of an event. It is a great way of building a community and also doing some great PR and showing, you know, like the the wide net of support that you have. So it's a lot of work. The host committee and to get folks to take on a leadership role. But it's really effective and can make a really positive experience for everyone involved. Sigrid called Time and Outreach. I discussed this before. Please dedicate some time, eight to 10 hours a week is where I encourage most campaigns to start. Have small enough chunks that you can get some work done, but not too big of a chunk that you're exhausted. I like to actually call after 10:00 in the morning and and really never after sick. I found that unlike field calls, fundraising calls are better done during business hours. Cold call people and donors. You know how when they're when they're working, when they're able to talk and not necessarily when they're at home with their families. There's a different tactic, certainly having field keeping this time to be something that is incredibly productive. Make sure you have to have your list in front of you. Write phone numbers with amounts that they've donated with a focused app, with an e-mail feed up on your computer ready to send to this person after you leave a message, leave of a brief message for someone to call you back. Clearly with the number and don't leave a message or someone voicemail asking for money and left, they were like in your wedding party. I feel like that is an often a call that will never be returned. It's just incredibly tacky. Actually connect with people and hear what they think about the race and make sure that you have their support before you're able to engage them on fundraising and ask them to do so. Prospecting, tracking and correspondence. This is where keeping a continuous database of who you're reaching out to, tracking commitments as they come in, acknowledging that commitments if they come in and re engaging these donors. It's just critical to make sure you have a one pager on who you are, why you're running, how someone can support you. The level that you're running for. And then very, very simple instructions on how they can support your campaign. I know it seems like so fundamental, but there's a reason why some campaigns fail to close a commitment to a contribution. Recording commitments and contributions make have a really buttoned up system internally. A master one spreadsheet that you reconcile every three months or so with a great place to start building a community of work, and that it can be as simple as just having a email list of people that have given you money convening that group once a year, once a quarter, once a month. Having a barbecue at your house, making it very simple, but acknowledging your donors in a way that you can say, you know, that they have many things that they give their money to. It is them making of you and your campaign a priority and you value that contribution. Thank you notes and personal information tracking. This is where some of the best fundraisers, in my view, are people that do individual personalized follow up and feel like they never have to ask for money because they continuously find ways to connect with their supporters, with their friends, you know, connect with them as a parent, a human daughter, as someone whose kid graduated from college. You know, there's a lot of wasted say involved with your time, with your community of support. That's actually even outside of the campaign, you know, and as a human. So making sure that you're you're actually engaging folks for their expertise, for their personal support, for their advice, and for Jeffery even encouragement. I a great one pager. I'm surprised at how many campaigns literally don't have this document. So please take the time and effort to do to produce one. Make it simple, literally one page. That's the simple the follow up information making it incredibly clear for folks on how they can get involved. Having a draft follow up sample of four, a van based contribution and commitment e-mail that drafted and ready to send that explicitly site how much someone is giving or my computer is about to die.

[00:32:05] Thank you know, example I like and often do. Thank you note. Physically mailed over a certain threshold once the drugs, you know, it's just a best practice to make sure that you're continuously engaging folks. There's not one of them. One of the most common complaints I hear from donors is they feel like an AGM and they feel like they don't hear from organizations outside of the one lane that someone put them in a donor. So don't assume that they do not want to host a house party, that they don't want to volunteer their time, that they don't want to engage your network, serve as a surrogate for the campaign. As a public validator, write in letter to the editor or an op ed and learn about why someone wanted to get involved and give their their money and their time and find a way to engage them in day to keep them involved. These are not groundbreaking strategies, but it's really surprising to me how often campaigns are quickly and book even really seasoned professional. We'll put someone in a silo to keep them there. And I really encourage you to break down those silos and embrace fundraising as a part of your overall engagement strategy. So, again, one of my favorite visualizations of who you should be asking for money. I think that's one of the hardest things for a candidate in the beginning to proceed. What should I be asking? I love breathing and ask as really the response is a continuum of yes. Very, very rarely does someone truly start the car, start the response after they've been asked to engage as no, take me off your list. Lose my number. Almost always as they are a little bit more of a continuum between knowing you, either someone not yet ready to commit. The timing doesn't work for them right now. They're keeping the door open or or they, you know, want to support you. And I really appreciate it. So make sure you always keep that door open. You aren't disengaging from someone unless they explicitly ask you to. Yes. You need to be prepared for people to say no, thank you. And you should respectfully appreciate that limit. But I would often try to find a way, even if they're not able to support you financially, is to make sure you're earning their support. As a voter, make sure they can vote for you. Your you you do have them as a fan of your campaign and you are gonna keep the door open for engaging them. As a donor later, keep them on your email list. Ask them if you can add them to your distribution of continual campaign events so they know what's going on. Especially when someone is. No, not right now. You were you were humbly reminded that what you're asking for is for someone to prioritize your campaign over the many other worthy causes. They're being asked to support. So embrace where your donors are.

[00:35:57] And if they can't support you right now, don't close the door that they won't do so in the future. Obviously, if someone says yes. Make sure you have a really great, prompt, efficient, easy follow up and thank them for their commitment. You explicitly state with their commitment was. You explicitly state what the commitment is going to help you do what is going to help fund allowing them to see their dollars at work. And and it will help them to stay motivated with being involved. So making an ask embrace where the contribution is going and this is where all candidates should know how and why the money is spent. You will never feel bad on asking someone to invest in you if you know that the money is not going into your bank account. It's running in an incredible operation to turn out voters. And so I I really think that you shouldn't be intimidated, should be humbled by the experience, but not intimidated to ask someone to make that, you know, your audience with that confidence of who, why they're motivated, what their capacity is with a given history and you can crafting appropriate ask. Sometimes just having that information allows you to embrace the confidence to be able to do that. And number three and listen. Yes, you are a seasoned candidate and you have asked many people for their support. Door to door at thousands of events. But. What most supporters actually want is for someone to listen to why they want to get involved. So actually take the time to to hear what motivates them into it to be donors, whether at the practice making and ask. This may seem incredibly simple, but call a friend of yours. Call someone that you know would give you want to see back and practice and then pick up the phone and actually call someone that you are going to ask for money and make sure that you're doing a direct and effective ask to do so.

[00:38:19] Build some urgency, give a deadline. Give a specific direct ask and then wait. And I think one of the hardest things for a candidate to do sometimes is to just make an ass and to wait for someone to respond to it. Following up is simple. But making sure the process you have and the efficient way of tracking it is really needs to be a priority. Here are some other best practices on making it. Have your 1 to 2 sentence, your 15, 20 second. This is why I am running. And you've done it on the candidate side. It's pretty much the same approach. But I think framing it as I'm running for my local school board because I know that all day kindergarten is something that needs to be a priority for our school. And you know that this is something that. He's going to make a difference to the student for generations to come. It's a generational shift.

[00:39:46] You know, whatever the motivation is, frame phrase it as it's going to cost one hundred thousand dollars for me to reach fifty thousand voters that live in my community. I need to build a campaign that will allow me to get my message out there and have the staff and community that will get this done by the primary that is made stick. And so I hope you all can consider supporting my campaign at. Fifty dollars by the end of the month. I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much for being a great friend and ally. And I'm truly honored to have your support. And have you consider making an investment in my campaign? There's a lot of ways to engage donors. This is some examples on guiding the conversation on how the funds will be used on the larger fund raising goal. I know it seems ridiculous, but the average congressional race is about two million dollars. So my race for state representative. That car, about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars is actually a great investment. And this is going to allow me to have a platform to make a difference in our community. You know that it costs about twenty dollars to have a yard sign for everyone on my block. So help me make that investment. Understanding where the money's going. Understanding why someone wants to give being able to make a confident pitch continuously to a great universe and you know, is going to allow you to build the machine and the operation that will allow you to win. So, Morgan, I hope this work and having to answer any questions.

[00:41:52] So I think you saw the positives. How do you have any stories or anecdotes about how candidates, especially in Uganda, should be raising money and how they should start having conversations with donors and how they should think about how much to ask donors?

[00:42:10] Yes. So as I mentioned, sit down, map your network looking up someone's previous contribution. Certainly. And there's many states that have public disclosure databases that this information is really easy to access. You can see the previous history of someone's donation. One of my favorite anecdotes on this, though, is from a prolific Boston fundraiser who actually focuses on women in fundraising. She was one of the first woman in the 90s to be a really active national fundraiser for rule of thumb was that someone can make a political contribution that is equivalent to the last pair of shoes that they bought it. You know, an amount of money that for something that they clearly valued, but not something that was onerous. And it was a great rule of thumb for I know even from myself that evolved from when I was 18 years old to now 35. That number for me, it shifted. And I and I know that a lot of women will not embrace that. That is a bit of a fun way of looking at it. But, you know, in all seriousness there. And just because someone has a lot of capacity is not the greatest indicator that someone is going to be your largest donor. There is not a direct line between capacity and willingness to give. You need to find that motivation that actually gets the person to be more involved. So, you know, ask for something that is aligned with what they have previously given. But don't necessarily underestimate, you know, a the aim to be high. But in the ballpark, I hope that helps.

[00:44:13] So, Kathy, how would you when can an enviro message be really helpful in raising money from major donors or small donors?

[00:44:22] How does it how can that be a helpful thing?

[00:44:25] Yes, I will say enviro door donors. In my experience, some of the most savvy and really enjoyed at work with on the major donor front. I found that enviro focused donors get the Lombok understand that there are electoral win. There are setbacks that were going to happen over a long journey, tying your message to why the race campaign level of office fits into that narrative. And you know, if you have a really tough primary or tough general, how you're moving the larger conversation, the drumbeat for progress in your community on an issue is really going to be on the. The lower dollar grassroots fundraising front. This is where timeliness is the most critical. Be the exact same message. Then when your enviro issue, the reason that these donors are motivated is in connecting that directly to your campaign is the most effective way of getting someone to understand the why, but also can understand why now. And closing that gap is really the most effective thing that they can do.

[00:45:51] So when you see that your opponent has denied climate change is real or when you see that you know that the incumbent is not standing up for, know, safe water in the community, whatever, the issue may be calling that out in a timely way and using your message of why someone needs to get involved is the best way to make sure that the grassroots donors are understanding how this is all interconnected.

[00:46:26] Great.

[00:46:28] So how would you kind of adjust your approach with enviros and enviro groups because they can kind of looking at the circles of benefits straddle many different places. They could be aligned on ideology. They could be aligned on ax to grind and hate the other guy. How do you calibrate that?

[00:46:48] And this is where enviro donors really are. Again, my favorite, because they are motivated by multiple, multiple issues and do understand that beating your opponent and removing someone from power that is actually pro proactively unhelpful to an issue they care about. Is it is a huge win even if they're not incredibly in love with your candidacy? Getting someone who will be an advocate for the issue they care about is a is a win. But you know, ultimately, a lot of the work that I've done is talking to these donors positively about what you are going to do for the issue that they care about. Yes, it's motivating for someone else to lose. And yes, it's motivating for someone to support you because they want to know they want to be behind the winner. But I think the reason that most enviro donors came to the table is because they're motivated by this issue. They get the short term implications. They get the long term implications. And talking positively about what you will do, I think is actually the higher focus and should remain as the positive focus for your candidacy, because that's what they're going to stick with you in the hard times. You know, it's reminding them why they why they came to the fight. And even when times are tough, they're going to stay with you.

[00:48:29] Horrible that this is the reality, but what could or should a campaign do to prep for the potential and the financial impact of something like the Coke network or fossil fuel interests dropping into your race? There is an idea here backing your opponent. They invested in so many. Even the tiniest races and a few big deal on these issues.

[00:48:52] And this is where. One reminding, reminding yourself that the most effective dollars that someone can give to a campaign the most you know, are directly giving to the campaign themselves. Dollars given and spent by these secret dark money know undisclosed donor entities have to buy really expensive media. They can. They can spend massive amounts of money. But reminding your supporters that campaign dollars given directly to the campaign get the best rate in paid media, go directly to funding the boots on the ground and folks knocking on doors in the neighborhood. I think proactively calling out super PAC and dark money when it happen is helpful. But I also think, you know, preparing your campaign is for an unexpected outside expenditure is nearly impossible. I've talked to candidates that have had a lot of money spent on them at the very end of their race and they're like, oh, I wish I would have kept fifty thousand dollars to counter this. You know, this unexpected delusion of TV ads or radio ads. But you know what? Like running the race. You set out to run. Staying true to your strategy. Staying true to why you got in this race and being very direct and explicit on what motivates you and where you stand on the issues. I think we clearly saw this in multiple cycles now. The candidates, the women are the one that no other North Star is. And people don't question their judgment. I think people can disagree on the issues sometimes. But ultimately, if you feel confident in how you're spending the money to run your campaign, why you're running and why you think you would be great in elected office. You know, voters tend to be pretty forgiving of, oh, I might not fully agree with you on X issue. I understand where you're coming from. Do I think like really just setting yourself up with a really competent campaign that you know why you're what you're running? And you know how you would respond to an issue and you stay true to that. You don't change which whichever way the wind blows is probably the best way to counter something that is unpredictable is someone coming in and spending on herd of amount of money late in a race like that.

[00:51:48] Right.

[00:51:50] Well, I think that's it for us unless you have anything else rubber.

[00:51:55] I have one last question. So when you're especially the first time candidates, when should they be thinking about how much money they need to raise? Is this something that they should think about before they even start thinking about initially running for office? Is this something that they should think about? Like right after they declare? Before they declare when when should they start having first? The first kind of conversations internally about how much money they need to raise.

[00:52:25] This is where I'm going to come off a little cynical here. Any candidate who is seriously considering running for office, this should be a part of your due diligence. I actually think this should be something that is taken into consideration.

[00:52:40] Do you actually know how many votes do I need to get to win? How much money do I need to raise to actually get my message across? That's the number you're looking for, though. I think if someone is seriously considering running, this should be a part of your due diligence before you totally jump in. I think some candidates pursue with an exploratory committee at various levels of a race of, oh, you know, I wasn't sure if I wanted to get in this race because I wasn't sure if I could raise the money. I think, unfortunately, that confidence is something that stops a lot of people from jumping in. But having the information, knowing what you need to raise and then taking some time to methodically plot out how you'll get there will allow you to be successful. I think, you know, you only usually get one, maybe two chances. Sometimes, you know, people run three or four times and continuously lose. But I would hope that most people would would, you know, take a methodical, thoughtful approach to running and really do some due diligence on how much it would take to be competitive. And I think you need to be that greatest funder, unlimited resources. You just have to have enough to run the race that you know, you want to run to win.

[00:54:18] Thank you so much, Kathy, for your time. This was fabulous. Yeah.

[00:54:23] No, thank you, guys. And good luck to everyone out there. Really appreciate you prioritizing the enviro as a priority for us for your refit. So thank you for your work.