Campaign Structure
Organizing your campaign before launching is an important step. View the repository of files to find examples and templates to use as a starting point.
Setting Up Your Campaign
501c4s are a common type of non-profit organization that can engage in lobbying or political campaigning. 501(c)4s are tax-exempt non-profit organizations. Click here to learn more about the difference between a 501(c)4 and 501(c)3.
This organization can be a six month long organization or a on-going organization. Typically an on-going organization is formed in order to do continuous fundraising, local PTA’s may do yearly donations or staff has an automatic monthly payroll deducation of a dollar or two.
About six to nine months before the ballot goes to the voters a steering committee is formed. This usually consists of leaders from community groups, childrens advocacy groups, chamber of commerce, school board and citizens from the school district. This group makes decisions about how the campaign will be run. Who is the target audience? How much money do we need to raise are common questions the steering committee answers.
A successful steering committee has members on the board who are leaders in organizations that have members that will help the campaign, likely organizations are the teachers union, PTA, chamber of commerce.
A classic organizational structure for a steering committee is to create triads of leaders at each school in the school district. A typical triad includes a parent leader from a PTA or PTO, the Principal and a teacher rep, some will also use a classified rep. This triad works together to communicate to people within their school community about what is in the ballot issue, and how to help with things like Honk & wave, phonebanking and yard signs. The heads of these organizations are usually on the steering committee.
