Don’t Disappear on your Donors After Election Day

The temptation to retire your phone for good may be very high when you finally cross the finish line after the election. But one of the biggest mistakes a candidate can make is inartfully winding down their campaign and fundraising operations. In this article, we’ll share best practices for thoughtfully concluding your fundraising for a cycle in a way that honors the relationships you’ve built and relied upon, and ensures they endure beyond any single political cycle.

Why you should stay in touch in the weeks and months after the election

Too many candidates do not adequately plan for the days, weeks, and months after Election Day — and they come to regret that decision. The reason comes back to a fundamental principle of fundraising that we’ve discussed in several other articles: donors should not only hear from you when you are asking them for money. If that’s the case, you are managing transactions, not relationships.

So even while the campaign is coming to a close and in its aftermath, it is important to remember that investments you make in relationships will continue to pay dividends over the long haul — whether you decide to run for office in the future, raise money for other candidates and causes, or in any way seek the future support of these individuals around the vision that brought them to your campaign in the first place.

Consider it this way: while fundraising, have you ever thought to yourself that the conversation you were about to have- and the ask you were about to make- would be much easier if you had done a better job staying in touch with this individual? Now’s your chance. It’s the right thing to do, and your future self will thank you.

Strategies for staying in touch

Sharing updates on the results of the election in the immediate aftermath
Obviously, your supporters are going to be very eager to hear about the outcome of the election. In a typical year, most people don’t even know where they can go to follow election returns in real-time. But with all the changes to voting in 2020, you should be prepared to be very communicative about the process by which ballots will be tabulated in your race, including the anticipated timelines for count updates.

Sending mass-communication messages is helpful, but you should consider scheduling time for one-on-one outreach to your top supporters so that you can give them an even greater depth of analysis about how you interpret the results you see, and what it may portend for the campaign as more ballots are counted. They will appreciate and remember this. And it may be necessary to go back to them for additional support sooner than you think — when races are not ready to be called on Election Day (as may be true to an usually high degree in 2020), you tend to encounter unexpected financial costs associated with keeping your operation running longer than planned, and quickly need to fundraise to support those costs.

Of course, whether it happens on Election Night or sometime thereafter, at some point a result will be clear and you’ll want to be sure to make personal outreach to top supporters to give them the news. No matter the outcome, the personal touch will help fortify this relationship.

Thanking supporters and offering your reflections
Most campaigns and candidates understand the virtue of thank-yous, but post-campaign your outreach should be more than just the standard thank you card and mass email. While you undoubtedly expressed your gratitude while reaching out to supporters to keep them updated on election results (see above), one of the best ways you can leave a lasting, positive impression with your supporters is to really nail your final round of thank-yous.

To do this, you should give yourself and your supporters some space. Allow several weeks (or even a month or so) to pass, in order to allow time to collect all the final data and analysis on your campaign, and to give yourself sufficient time to reflect on it— what worked, what could have been better, what you see as the road ahead, and how people can stay engaged. Then, schedule some time to do individual outreach to at least your top supporters to share this insight, and to offer one last thank you.

Whether you won or lost, this kind of thoughtful approach to your thank-yous will ensure you close out your campaign in a way that preserves the relationships you’ve built for years to come.

Getting your relationship out of the election-zone
Once you have completed the above, the next effort should be to fully transition your relationship beyond the confines of any single election cycle. There are many easy ways to continue to stay in touch with your supporters on an individual basis. You can shoot a quick text to some around the holidays wishing them well. You can send a brief email sharing an update on your work on an issue to someone who mentioned during the campaign how important that issue was to them. You can place a call to get some advice from a supporter about a question you are wrestling with.

The most important thing, however, is that you apply a structure and a discipline to this — or it likely won’t happen, or will happen so unevenly it will prove relatively futile. So think of it as “call time lite,” and make sure you put some regular time on the schedule to do these check-ins, and manage your contacts and track your outreach much as you would do during a campaign to ensure that you aren’t letting anyone slip through the cracks. If you’re using smart tools, you can accomplish this kind of network maintenance in a way that is comprehensive, and takes less than an a hour a week of your time.

By the end of November, some of you may be within arms-reach of launching another campaign. Others of you may not anticipate ever running for office again. But no matter your specific political path, you will never regret transitioning out of your current campaign in a way that truly respects the people who have given so much to support your endeavors. So start thinking now about that work. With the right infrastructure, it can be highly effective and efficient — and, inevitably, you’ll someday be very glad you did.