(8 Best Tools) Software for Political Campaigns

(8 Best Tools) Software for Political Campaigns

Choosing the right software for your campaign from the start is important.

You want a platform that works well, so you don’t have to change technologies halfway through your campaign.

In this post, we’ll look at the 8 best tools you should look for in a software for political campaigns.

Click here to start your free political campaign software trial today.

Fundraising Software for Political Campaigns

With all the campaign softwares on the market today, the most advanced ones focus on fundraising.

Requiring a high-level of data security, combining multiple technologies for contacting donors and capturing contributions, and should be easy enough for all your staff to use.

Here are the 8 things your political campaign software should do:

  1. Track your calls
  2. Manage contacts
  3. Text contacts
  4. Email donors
  5. Custom submission forms
  6. Provide advanced reporting
  7. Accept donations
  8. Generate compliance reports

Some platforms will have fewer features and others will have more, but these 8 tools are crucial to your campaign’s success.

Let’s look at each of these tools in more detail.

1. Track your calls

If you’ve run any sort of campaign, you’ll know how difficult it can be to effectively track calls.

Instead of asking staff to track their call activity manually and risking incorrect or lost information, your political campaign software should do this all for you:

  • Automating call time
  • Keep up-to-date notes on calls
  • Create follow-up tasks
  • Send emails after a completed call

Tracking calls will help you better understand exactly how much time staff is spending on the phones while making their lives easier by centralizing all important information.

2. Manage contacts

The purpose of using well-equipped software for political campaigns is to keep things organized, especially as your contact list grows.

It’s not uncommon to have lists as long as tens or even hundreds of thousands of people.

Storing all contact information in one centralized location makes tracking donors and pledges far easier.

It also helps when you’re speaking to contacts via email or on the phone because you can keep additional notes about the person to inform future points of contact.

With call tracking, your contacts list becomes a rich source of donor data to tap into.

Using custom submission forms, you can populate contacts with whatever information you find useful when generating reports.

Turning your contacts list into a priceless source of data and helping you make important campaign decisions.

3. Text donors

Text messages have the highest open rate of any form of communication, with an open rate of about 99%.

This is because recipients typically need to open a text to remove the notification from their screen, unlike an email that might get trapped in a spam folder or drowned out in an inbox.

Your campaign software should have a feature allowing you to text recipients directly from the platform itself.

Text messaging donors is great for reminders, encouraging donors to give again, letting them know about local events, and much more.

On average, 97% of text messages are opened within 15 minutes of being received. Making them great for getting urgent messages out to your members if necessary.

The embedded texting tool should also let you broadcast a message to your contacts all at once.

4. Email donors

Email is still one of the most effective ways of removing barriers to communicating with voters, donors, and volunteers.

It’s an extremely scalable and cost-effective form of communication.

Unlike social media accounts vulnerable to hackers, algorithm changes, and changing platform policies – a growing email list of contacts is your most valuable asset.

No one can throttle your reach or cut you off from your email list.

You’ll use email to send donation request letters, thank you letters, campaign updates, and more.

Combined with the ability to manage contacts and track calls, emailing donors is another core function you should expect to see in most good political campaign software.

Advanced platforms will offer a drag-and-drop email builder to help you create the best-looking emails for your campaign.

5. Custom submission forms

Gathering information from donors and volunteers is vital and should be easy.

The best campaign platforms allow you to create custom submission forms with your own styling to suit your needs.

Like the email builder, your campaign software should give you an easy drag-and-drop form builder for data capturing.

More advanced form builders allow you to create forms using conditional logic fields.

Meaning, that you can create custom questions and responses based on input from the user. A very flexible and powerful tool for any political campaign.

Not only can you use this data to stay in touch with contacts, but advanced reporting lets you turn an almost infinite range of data into useful campaign insights.

6. Provide advanced reporting

The secret to your success is understanding the thousands of data points gathered throughout your campaign.

More importantly, being able to extract and use data based on your own specific requirements.

The most advanced reporting tools will let you filter and organize data by demographics, contributions, and contact history.

For example, if you’re hosting a local event, you can extract data for people based in a specific area who recently contributed to your campaign.

Your data becomes infinitely more useful when you arrange and present your reports in a way that informs your campaign strategy.

7. Accept donations

Only the best campaign software will offer a feature for accepting donations.

Rather than requesting donations using unreliable or expensive bank transfers, making administration a nightmare – you can use a built-in payment gateway letting you instantly process contributions, track donors, and produce detailed reports.

You can also create custom contribution forms with preset or flexible payment options so donors can decide how much they want to give.

These forms are hosted at your own branded domain, so you can link to them from your website, and send them to donors using email, or via text message.

They make receiving donations easy, so you don’t have to worry about bank transfers which are notoriously costly and take ages to complete.

8. Generate compliance reports

When fundraising for a political campaign, it’s important to have all your compliance reports in order to stay on the right side of state and federal finance laws.

Campaign finance reporting can be tricky and takes up a lot of your time.

The great thing about using a political campaign software that handles payments for you is it can quickly generate these compliance reports for you, saving you loads of time and unnecessary headaches.

This is easily done by entering campaign contributions online and using custom algorithms to match donors.

Ensuring you’re compliant both federally and across multiple states, avoiding any reporting or compliance issues.

Conclusion

There are many softwares for political parties, but the kind every campaign needs is a fundraising platform.

Without a proper fundraising strategy and technology to support it, your party is going to struggle to stay afloat.

Over at Campaign Deputy, we understand what it takes to run a successful political campaign.

We’ve created tools specifically for people like you who need help finding donors and getting them to contribute to your cause.

Click here to start your free political campaign software trial today.

(Explained) How To Raise Money for a Campaign

Raising money for an election campaign can be daunting if you’re not sure where to start.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take today to start getting donors through the door and contributing to your cause.

Whether you’re new or experienced, these steps will help you create a scalable fundraising process.

In this post, we’re looking at how to raise money for a campaign. 

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How To Raise Money for an Election Campaign

There are many ways to raise funds for your campaign, some more effective than others.

Here are the 7 steps we’d recommend based on our research:

  1. Create a simple website
  2. Get donors to your website
  3. Gather contact details
  4. Request donations
  5. Collect contributions
  6. Sell campaign merchandise
  7. Grow your community

This is the most scalable way to raise money for a campaign, especially if you have a small team or limited resources.

Avoid strategies that don’t scale well, because you’ll soon reach your limits and your systems will break down.

#1 Create a simple website

No campaign is complete without a website explaining your policies and showcasing your success stories. 

It doesn’t need to be very fancy or have hundreds of pages, as long as it clearly states your objectives and explains how people can get in involved. Most campaigns only need a single page website with a budget of $1000-$2000 if you need one built.

Information your website must include:

  • Your party’s branding (colors, fonts, and slogans)
  • Your candidate’s picture and information to grow trust
  • Outlines of your most important policies and legislative efforts
  • Key campaign statistics to impress potential donors
  • Images from your campaign to connect and relate to donors
  • Contact and volunteer forms for people to get in touch
  • Donors forms to encourage contributions (and pledges)
  • Free downloadable resource (explained below)
  • Online shop to sell merchandise (explained below)

You might be tempted to overload visitors to your website with information, but try to avoid this. Websites typically get less views than social, email, or your donation page.

The clearer your message with a clear path for donors to follow, the better your website will perform.

#2 Get donors to your website

This is normally the tricky part, getting donors to your website.

Since most people won’t be searching for ways to donate to your campaign (ruling out search engine optimization), you’ll need to use organic social growth and disruptive paid ads to generate interest online.

Organic social

Be sure to add your website link to all your social media profiles.

Regularly sharing official views on current events, case studies of your efforts, latest success stories, and interacting with your community on social platforms is a great way to organically generate website visitors.

Especially if you can create viral moments online, like sharing positive news or discussing contentious topics.

The larger your online community grows, the more traffic you’ll push to your website.

Paid social

Using paid ads on social media is a great way to support and even accelerate your organic social growth. Facebook, as of 2022, still allows political ads. You will need to go through a verification process which can take days or up to a week.

Ads on platforms like Facebook let you target donors based on a wide range of criteria, including: 

  • Location
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Interests

This lets you test your campaign ads with different groups of people, seeing what resonates better and optimizing your ad spend.

This helps to raise awareness of your campaign beyond your current audience.

Another great option is to work with influencers who appeal to your ideal donor, especially if they’re widely liked and trusted.

We suggest taking advantage of both organic and paid social growth because both play an important part in raising money and awareness for your campaign.

#3 Gather contact details

Everything we’ve discussed until now is about getting in front of donors.

Remember, your goal is always to capture the contact details of visitors coming to your website – referred to as “de-platforming” your audience.

This is in case something happens to your social media accounts, like if they’re blocked or hacked.

You always want to ensure you have either an email address or contact number for your potential donors.

This way you always have direct contact with them no matter what.

There are 2 main ways to capture visitor contact details:

Campaign newsletter

The most obvious way to capture visitor details is by asking them to sign up for your newsletter.

Often people want to stay up to date with what your party is doing, so they’ll be more than happy to receive regular updates from you in the form of an email newsletter.

Free resource

Another proven method of gathering visitor details is by offering a free resource in return for their information.

It might be a detailed document discussing your policies, a voters guide, or anything donors might find interesting.

BONUS: Voter file

Getting access to the voter file is a great option if you want a large list of contacts to reach out to immediately. 

This can be a very effective method of attracting new donors as you’re speaking directly to a much larger group of people. Using this list during Call Time is an excellent way to connect.

The only downside of this method is you’re speaking to an audience who might never have heard from you before, decreasing the overall effectiveness of your outreach.

However, it’s a great addition to any campaign if you can afford it. Contact your local or state party for more details.

#4 Request donations

Now that you’ve attracted and de-platformed your visitor, it’s time to request donations.

Remember, you shouldn’t always be asking for money. 

It’s just as important to raise awareness of your campaign as it is to raise money for it, so be strategic about when you ask for donations.

There are 3 main ways to request donations:

Donation request letters

Emailing donation request letters is a great outreach strategy, and perfect for staying in touch with members.

Use a service like Campaign Deputy to regularly bulk-send emails to your members, some of which can be requests for contributions to your cause.

Email is very cost-effective, so it scales extremely well.

Donation request texts (SMS)

Fundraising for campaigns using SMS has been a proven strategy for many years.

Text messages have an extremely high open rate, so you’re guaranteed to get your donor’s attention.

You wouldn’t use SMS to communicate as often as you would with email. Texting should be reserved for important messages, like raising money for your campaign.

Donation request calls

The most effective way to get in touch with your donors is by simply picking up the phone and calling them. Not every candidate enjoys call time and for down-ballot races it’s a large part of your fundraising budget.

This is the least scalable method, but you can’t argue with its effectiveness.

Once again, calling members should be reserved for important communications only or you risk irritating your members.

#5 Collect contributions

Believe it or not, collecting contributions is the easy part.

Campaign Deputy can get you set up and ready to accept donations within an hour of your announcement.

It’s as simple as sharing your donor link with members, and they can donate using their credit or debit card.

No need for direct bank transfers anymore, with extended waiting times and high transfer fees.

#6 Sell campaign merchandise

Since you now have a website, it’s not difficult to implement an e-commerce store on it.

This way you can sell campaign merchandise like t-shirts and mugs to help raise money for your political party. You can find print-on-demand vendors so you do not have to manage the inventory.

Often supporters of your campaign will want to advocate for you, so it simultaneously spreads the word about your party while raising funds.

It’s like having volunteers canvassing on your behalf.

#7 Grow your community

The most effective long-term strategy to raising money is growing your online community.

This includes your audience spread across:

  • Social media profiles
  • Email lists
  • Discussion forums 

The larger your community grows, the more advocates and donors you’ll attract.

Larger donors are also more likely to work with you if you have a large community of supporters.

Conclusion

Now you have our 7-step strategy to raise money for your election campaign.

These strategies have proven effective for both the commercial and nonprofit spaces, and it’s sure to work for you.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one service provider, look no further than Campaign Deputy.

We have all the tools you need to run an election campaign, from growing your community to gathering contributions from members.

Click here to start your free trial today!

How to Write Donation Thank You Letters

The first donation you get from someone is often the most difficult.

Donors are taking a leap of faith when agreeing to contribute to your cause, especially if they’re new to your organization.

Getting someone to donate again is far easier, so you should always send thoughtful thank you letters to your donors to keep them informed and engaged in what you’re doing.

In this article, we’ll look at why and how to write donation thank you letters as well as what you should include for increasing their impact.

Book a call with Campaign Deputy and see how you can automate your Thank You emails.

Why Write Donation Thank You Letters?

Writing thank you letters to donors is as important as the donation request letter itself.

By acknowledging someone’s donation, you’re showing your gratitude and increasing their likelihood of giving again.

In addition to showing gratitude, here’s why writing thank you letters is a good idea:

  1. Your donors feel more engaged in your cause and are more likely to want to see it succeed, resulting in more donations.
  2. There are thousands of good causes to give to, so a thank you letter keeps your campaign at the top of your donor’s mind.
  3. Your donor might forward your thank you letter to someone they know who might also want to contribute.
  4. Thank you letters make your donors feel valued, so they’re more likely to want to continue giving to your cause to see it succeed.
  5. Regular communication, like thank you letters, are a great way of nurturing the relationship with your donors so you can bring them along your journey with you.

Writing thank you letters is also good practice for a fundraising organization. 

It’s something donors have come to expect when giving to a cause because it’s their way of keeping track of contributions and how they’re impacting the world.

Now, let’s look at exactly how to write your donation thank you letters.

(3 Steps) How To Write Donation Thank You Letters

It’s always best to keep any communications with donors short and to the point.

They’re already giving their hard-earned money, you don’t want to take up more of their time than necessary.

The first section of your letter is your introduction.

Step 1: Introduction

Your introduction is where you connect with your donor once again.

You should make your thank you letters feel as personal as possible, and you do this with a good introduction.

What to include in your introduction:

  • Always address your letter to your donor using their name (never use generic terms like “Dear Sir/Madam” or “Dear Donor”).
  • If possible, include the amount your donor contributed to your cause to remind them of their donation and the fact that you’re grateful for every penny.
  • Mention your wider purpose to remind donors why they gave in the first place.
  • Acknowledge whether it’s their first donation or if they’re a regular contributor.

Keep your introduction short but impactful.

Here are 2 examples of good introductions:

Example 1 (first donation):

Dear Jessie,

Thank you for your generous contribution of [amount] towards [your cause]. We truly appreciate every bit of help we receive from amazing donors like yourself. Since this is your first donation to [your organization], we wanted to reach out and tell you exactly how you’ve impacted [your goal].

Example 2 (multiple donations):

Dear Sam,

Thank you once again for your generous contribution of [amount] towards [your cause]. With your continued support, [your organization] can keep working towards [your goal] knowing we’re backed by the most amazing donors who want to see us succeed. Your donations are changing lives.

Once you’ve got a short and succinct introduction, it’s time to create the body of your thank you letter.

Step 2: Body

Here you’ll go into more depth, explaining how your most recent donations have been used.

The goal is to give your donor a more complete understanding of how their contribution has impacted your cause, and what it’s allowed your organization to achieve.

Be specific, referencing an individual case to make the benefits as tangible as possible.

Here are 2 examples of how to do this:

Example 1:

Thanks to you, we’ve been able to [help/provide] [benefactor/s] with [benefit]. This means [benefactor/s] can now [achieve goal], this would’ve been impossible without your continued support. 

Example 2:

With your help, more [benefactor/s] are able to [achieve goal] without fear of [disadvantage]. Your donation has [helped/provided] [benefactor/s] with [main benefit], which is only possible with continued support from donors like you who believe in [your cause].

The more specific you can be about the goals achieved because of their donations, the more invested and valued your donor will feel.

Remember, your thank you letter should be short, but nothing is stopping you from linking out to a blog post about your organization’s most recent accomplishments.

This gives your donor an option to read more without the intimidation of a long email.

Step 3: Conclusion

Now that you’ve thanked your donor and explained how their contribution has helped your cause, it’s time to move to your conclusion.

Your conclusion should focus on dealing with any remaining uncertainty your donor might have, and it’s a great way of getting some feedback or input from them (should they have any).

You do this by giving donors a direct contact person in your organization who can answer any questions or concerns they might have, as well as including any relevant links to your website.

Here are 2 examples of how to do this:

Example 1: 

Should you have any questions or would like to know more, feel free to contact [person’s name and title] at [email address]. Or call [him/her] at [phone number] and [he/she] will be happy to speak with you.

Example 2: 

Want to know more about [your cause], our friendly [title], [person’s name] is always available to speak with you. You can contact [him/her] at [email address] or call [phone number].

You’ve now successfully thanked your donor, explained how valuable their contribution is to your cause, and how they can get in touch if they’d like to know more.

Remember, all your thank you letter should be doing is thanking your donor.

Here’s what NOT to do in your donation thank you letters:

  1. Never ask for another donation in your thank you letter. This letter is all about gratitude and maintaining the relationship with your donor. You can always reach out again with a donation request letter.
  2. Don’t wait too long to send thank you letters. Your donor should receive your thank you letter within 2-3 days, or they’ll forget they donated and you’ll lose momentum.
  3. Avoid sending donation receipts in your thank you letters. Once again, your thank you letter is not about their donation, it’s about thanking them for their impact on your cause.
  4. Avoid generic sign-offs like “Regards, [your organization]”. Rather, sign your thank you letter using your name (and title) to make it feel more personal.
  5. Avoid using technical jargon that might confuse your donor. Keep your language as straightforward as possible, so there’s no misunderstanding their impact.

Thanking people for their donations is one of the most overlooked aspects of fundraising.

If you can do it effectively, you’ll increase the chances of building a good relationship with your donors and getting them to give regularly.

Book a call with Campaign Deputy and see how you can automate your Thank You emails.

How To Write Donation Request Letters

Using email to appeal for donations has always been a great way of connecting with potential donors.

It’s a non-intrusive and very scalable outreach technique allowing you to get your message across clearly and easily.

In this article, we’ll give you the perfect framework for writing donation request letters with a few examples to inspire you.

Interested in a demo? Sign up for a short demo.

4 Step Framework for Writing Donation Request Letters

The AIDA writing framework has been used successfully in the commercial space for many years. Allowing consumers to understand the value of an offer and getting them to take action.

We can use the same process when gathering donations for your campaign.

Remember, keep your letters long enough to get your message across but short enough to avoid losing their interest.

You’re not trying to explain every aspect of your campaign, you’re trying to get them to take a specific action – to donate.

Avoid using high-level language that would disconnect your reader from your message. Use a conversational tone so your letter doesn’t sound like a mass-produced corporate newsletter.

Now, let’s get into the only writing framework you’ll ever need for writing amazing donation request letters.

The AIDA framework consists of 4 main parts:

A – Attention

The first step of any donation request letter is capturing your donor’s attention.

You do this in the subject line of your email.

Remember, if you can’t get your donor to open your email then it doesn’t matter how good the rest of it might be. They simply won’t donate to your cause, because they have no idea it exists.

The perfect subject line should be short and intriguing to justify opening your email.

Here are 5 examples to get you started:

  1. What can you afford?
  2. Time is running out
  3. We’re so close
  4. Today is the last day to help
  5. It’s not too late to help
  6. Be a hero today

What to avoid when writing a subject line:

  • Avoid lengthy subject lines
  • Try not to be clickbaity (spam filters can block your emails)
  • Avoid using too many special characters like $ symbols or emojis
  • Don’t use terms that trigger spam filters 

Once you’ve got your donor’s attention and they’ve opened your letter, you move into the interest-building phase.

I – Interest

Here you start building the narrative of your letter.

Interest is built in the first 1 or 2 paragraphs of your letter.

When building interest in your cause or campaign, it’s important to think about how this appeals to your donor and what might stop them from donating their own hard-earned money.

The 4 main reasons people DO NOT donate to a cause are:

  1. They don’t have the money
  2. They prefer volunteering instead
  3. They prefer donating goods or services
  4. They don’t trust the organization

Overcoming these objections is the key to a successful donation request letter.

Here are 2 examples to get you started:

Example 1:

We’ve spent the last [number] years recruiting the most amazing volunteers, and kindly received [products / services / donations] from local businesses like [company name]. However, we need to do more and with your help, we can [your cause / campaign].

We understand it’s not easy giving, especially in a climate where fewer a fewer organizations are backed by good intentions. We aim to change this view by [being transparent / regularly reporting], so you’ll know exactly where your contributions are going.

Example 2:

We want to acknowledge all our volunteers who’ve kindly given their most valuable asset of time towards [your cause / campaign], and companies like [company name] who’ve so generously given of their [products/services/donations] to move our campaign forward.

But now, we need your help. Giving can be difficult, especially when you don’t trust the organization you’re trying to help. We get it, and we’re making efforts to increase [transparency / reporting] of all donated funds, so you’ll never need to question where your contributions are going. 

The only purpose of your introduction is to get donors to read the rest of your request letter.

By overcoming objections you know they already have, you’re earning their attention and eventually their contribution to your cause.

Avoid moving directly into your request or telling them a motivating story.

Nobody opens an email to read a novel, you must get to the point as quickly as possible to maintain their interest.

Once you’ve piqued your donor’s interest, it’s now time to build their desire for giving.

D – Desire

Now that we’ve overcome the objections donors might have, it’s time to start building their desire for your cause.

You do this by outlining what you’ve already managed to do, or what your vision for their contribution might be. Desire is created when the person reading your donation request letter wants to feel part of what you’re doing because they can see the benefit of it in their own mind.

They want to feel like they’re an active participant in the change you’re bringing about, and the best way to do that is by outlining exactly what you’ve got in store for their contribution to your campaign.

When listing these benefits, avoid using large paragraphs of text. It might seem logical to explain each benefit in detail, but you’re more likely to lose your reader’s attention and they’ll close the email.

People don’t like reading large blocks of text, instead, use a skimmable format like bulleted points or numbered steps.

The clearer and to the point you can be, the more likely your donor is to finish reading your message. 

Here are 2 examples to get you started:

Example 1:

We appreciate how busy you might be, so we’re not going to ask you to read about every aspect of our campaign right now. However, we’ll be happy to provide more details should you want to know more.

In summary, here’s what your contribution will be supporting:

  • [Benefit 1]
  • [Benefit 2]
  • [Benefit 3]
  • [Benefit 4]
  • [Benefit 5]

With your help, we can [your cause] and make our combined dream a reality.

Example 2: 

Our campaign has a lot of moving parts, and we know you’re not interested in reading an essay right now. However, should you have the time and want to know exactly what you’ll be helping us achieve you can read more here.

In summary, here are the steps we’re taking to [your cause]:

  1. [Step 1]
  2. [Step 2]
  3. [Step 3]
  4. [Step 4]
  5. [Step 5]

We can only achieve these steps with contributions from kind and giving people like yourself.

Donors will value your succinct message and appreciate the option of requesting more information should they need it.

Remember, to goal is to take up as little of their time as possible because in their eyes this is their most valuable asset. If you value their time, they can be sure that you’ll also value their money.

Now that we’ve successfully captured the interest of our donors and built their desire for getting involved, we need to ask them to take action.

A – Action

When asking your reader to donate, you need to be very specific in your request.

People get confused when they’re presented with too many options, or when the request is to vague.

But how exactly do you ask for a donation in an email?

Make the next step as obvious as possible by instructing them, rather than simply including a link.

Here are 3 examples to get you started:

  1. Click here to give what you can towards [your cause] and help us [main benefit].
  2. We hope you share our vision for [your cause] and want to be involved by donating here.
  3. Take a stand with us by clicking here to [your cause] and creating [main benefit].

Make sure the only links you include from your donation request letter are to your website to provide more context if they need it, or to the contribution page where they can donate.

Don’t include links to your social accounts or pages that might distract your donor from your message.

Your goal is to get their attention, generate interest in your cause or campaign, build their desire for getting involved, and finally get them to take a specific action.

Nothing more and nothing less.

Use the AIDA framework for writing letters to your donors and you’ll see a much higher contribution rate because you’re respecting their time and have a clear path for them to follow.

Interested in a demo on how to create a donation request in Campaign Deputy? Sign up for a short demo.

Tags

When we launched Campaign Deputy we created Lists as a way to group together people. Similar if you were exporting any CSV or Excel file and using those. As time went on, we started to see some issues with Lists. Some accounts had hundreds of lists and List maintenance became an issue. Tags was one of our most requested feature and we spent a long time reading training materials, watching videos, and exploring how other people use Tags day to day.

Multi-Level Permissions

One part we noticed early on in our research is that there was not much in terms of permissions for other systems. We have a lot of campaigns, groups, PACs, and non-profits, that have volunteers that only need specific access to the system and are worried that a volunteer may accidently add or remove the wrong data. Which is why we launched with four levels of permissions. Admin, Edit, Apply and View. Admins can do everything, while Edit only allows you to change or add tags. To delete you would need to contact an Admin. Apply would allow you to tag contacts in the system while View only allows you to View tags on a profile. Without at least one of these permissions your login will not be able to View, Edit, or Apply tags in the system.

Extra Metadata

Another item we noticed is that people would add in the date of the Tag and have a separate file of all the tags and a description column. We added a description section to each Tag and show the date and description of the Ttag when searching.

Parent Tag

We also wanted a way to group tags together. Internally we use Campaign Deputy for our Sales and Marketing. We have multiple channels for both and an example would be a Parent Tag of Sales . Then each channel, for example Google Ads, can be a tag that rolls up to the Sales Tag. At the moment this is categorize the data and the Tag page. We have plans to allow for searching for any tag with a parent of tag X in the future.

Forms

Forms have had the ability to add a person to a List for a while now. You can now Tag a person when they complete a form as well. This supports multiple tags at once as well. A common example is to tag a person as a Volunteer when completing a Volunteer form. We have plans to add a way to tag a person if they use a certain field.

Tags are available to all accounts. You can create Tags in Settings->Tags. You can also apply tags to all of your records using our Universe Search which can add and remove tags based on a search. Take a look and let our support team know what you think!

Updates November 2021

Our latest update for November is live and we wanted to give everyone an update of all the new features.

Events – New Interface

Events are now sorted by Start Date and with new tabs for Upcoming and Past Events. Along with our integration notes, External Events are in the External tab if you have any integration setup with Action Network or Mobilize.

Updated PhoneBurner Experience

We updated the PhoneBurner experience for those using that integration. The PhoneBurner team setup sharing their disposition from our account along with Custom Fields to make it easier to get started. We do ask that you only use the sign up link our support team gives as those disposition and custom fields are automatically shared with it. Any other signup for PhoneBurner requires our support team to put in a ticket with PhoneBurner to manually link the accounts.

New Import Experience

A common question our support team has received is to view past Imports, download old Import files and view any errors associated with the import. We are launching a new Import experience next month to help with these questions. You can view how many records were processed, added, or in error along with if the import is in process or complete. Imports can also have names and you download old Import Files. We may decide to only keep old imports for a certain timeframe to help clear up space.

Importing Contributions

Along with these changes, you will be able to import Contributions without having to contact the Support team. Our Support Team has been using this feature internally for weeks now and it is working great. You have the option to also attribute contributions to an Attribution Code as part of the update. Dates can be somewhat of an issue with excel files (or even for genetic scientists it seems in excel). We recommend uploading contributions in csv format and our supported date formats are listed under the Import Best Practices link.

Add an Import to a List

Another common request is that once an import is imported, sometimes adding it to a list was missed. You can now go back to an Import and use the Action menu to add the import to a list.

Self-Signup

Internally we have been testing our new signup process. It still needs a few more features and we will be ready to release it. Most sign-ups will still need approval by our Support Team to make sure no one signs up and gets an account that doesn’t qualify. Sign-ups currently take 4-48 hours depending on the account and we want to get that under 2 hours.

Bug Fixes

Depending on the amount, you may not have been able to enter an itemization, for compliance purposes, without contact support. We have changed this verification logic to allow for more compliance use cases.

The caret on some inputs in the Universe Search did not properly align with the text. This has been updated.

Attribution Codes searching in Universe Search and Segments was updated to a new input to fix compatibility issues with Safari and make searching easier.

The search icon on a popup for adding a Person to an Organization was updated to our latest styling.

The Contribution Report was slow for accounts with a large number of custom fields. This was resolved and performance of the report is back to normal for all accounts.

Updates October 2021

Our latest update for October is live and we wanted to give everyone an update of all the new features.

Event RSVP Searching

You can now search by RSVP Status in both the Universe Search and Segments. This includes searching for those who are RSVP and excluding those who are RSVP’d by status.

Custom Fields – Contribution Report

Custom Fields now show for the Contribution Report. Like the Universe Search, you can Show/Hide which Custom Fields you want to show on the page and export those. All of your available Custom Fields are available. Reminder that Custom Fields are per Person, and may show multiples times if a Person gives more than once.

Custom Field Searching

Technically this was released in September, but you can now search your Custom Fields in the Universe Search and Segments. For Text and Lookup fields greater than is not available option and is available for Decimal Custom Fields.

Call Time Manager – Add to List

Sometimes you need to Tag, Remember, Follow Up, Invite, a Person and searching the notes field is sometimes not enough. We have added the ability to add a Person to a List while using the Call Time Manager. Accounts average about 5-15 lists, with some accounts exceeding 50 lists. To keep Call Time Manager as focused as possible we creating a setting to specify which Lists you want shown in Call Time Manager. By default, no list is picked. You can update this Settings and the new Call Time Manager area.

Updated PhoneBurner Experience

We updated the PhoneBurner experience for those using that integration. The PhoneBurner team setup sharing their disposition from our account along with Custom Fields to make it easier to get started. We do ask that you only use the sign up link our support team gives as those disposition and custom fields are automatically shared with it. Any other signup for PhoneBurner requires our support team to put in a ticket with PhoneBurner to manually link the accounts.

Upcoming Updates

New Import Experience

A common question our support team has received is to view past Imports, download old Import files and view any errors associated with the import. We are launching a new Import experience next month to help with these questions. You can view how many records were processed, added, or in error along with if the import is in process or complete. Imports can also have names and you download old Import Files. We may decide to only keep old imports for a certain timeframe to help clear up space.

Along with these changes, you will be able to import Contributions without having to contact the Support team. Our Support Team has been using this feature internally for weeks now and it is working great. Dates can be somewhat of an issue with excel files (or even for scientists it seems in excel). We recommend uploading contributions in csv format and our supported date formats are listed under the Import Best Practices link.

Self-Signup

Internally we have been testing our new signup process. It still needs a few more features and we will be ready to release it. Most sign-ups will still need approval by our Support Team to make sure no one signs up and gets an account that doesn’t qualify. Sign-ups currently take 4-48 hours depending on the account and we want to get that under 2 hours.

Bug Fixes

If a login had 2FA enabled, was created after certain date in 2021 and access to the Message Center, their access to the Message Center was lost after the 2FA prompt.

4-year Anniversary – Release Notes

Campaign Deputy is celebrating it’s four-year anniversary today when we publicly launched back in July of 2017. Campaign Deputy launched with the help of some takeout food, a kitchen table and a 2-liter that was not diet (oops). Since then, we have helped campaigns from a School board seat, Council, Mayor, County Treasurer, State Representative, House of Representatives and Governor.

New Look

We switched to a new look and a new domain (us.campaigndeputy.app) with a select group of users and now have everyone migrated over to the new site! Campaign Deputy was updated to be more mobile friendly, a new more standard look, and faster. Our goal is to improve every year and the software gets a boost from our vendors doing the same. The switch to .app starts every connection over HTTPS and uses DNSSEC for added security features.

New Pricing

Don’t worry, we are lowering pricing. Our State, Congressional, State-Wide and Senate pricing now start their additional email pricing at $1.00/thousand. Volume Pricing starts at 250,000 additional emails. We are also creating a new High-Email plan for Congressional, State-Wide and Senate to include more emails a month as part of the base plan.

Updated Message Center

We updated our Message Center to send out emails faster, and to load statistics faster. Our delivered/open/click moved to a serverless model to calculate for each email campaign as we outgrew trying to calculate those on the fly. The Message Center now loads faster, and we send out emails 200% faster than we did this time last year. We added a Raised column that integrates with ActBlue and A/B Testing for an email campaign. Email Campaigns have the choice to use Templates and create a sender directly in the Campaign Editor. We improved our Merge Tags with Liquid templates with 4 custom preview profiles and a detailed error message when there is an issue with the Liquid syntax. No more hunting for that extra {{ in your email. New merge fields and advance syntax is available in our support portal or from your Account Manager.

Updated Forms

Forms received an upgrade with our new Landing Page and Zapier (more below) forms. Landing Page forms allow you the ability to create a custom page using our drag-and-drop editor to build a very stylist page for both the page and thank you page. They also support redirect options and a custom setting for the iOS 14 conversion tracking. A deeper integration with our Message Center allows you to track a donation from Email->Form->Redirect to ActBlue automatically.

Custom Domains

Need a custom domain for your brand or for iOS 14 updates? We now, officially, offer custom domains for the act.campaigndeputy.com hosted site. Once enabled, Campaign Deputy switches the links internally to your domain. The same attribution tracking follows for our domain and yours for dollars raised.

Source Codes

Campaign Deputy now tracks two types of Source Codes, one at the Contribution level and one at the Person level. For ActBlue, source codes are translated from the refCode parameter and assigned to the Contribution. If the donor does not already have an Origin Source Code, Campaign Deputy will assign it for their first Contribution. Already have donors you want setup with a Source Code before they donate? Our Import process allows you to assign a source code as part of the import process. When you send an email from our Message Center, you can use the Tracking Parameters feature to update your Source Code for all of your links in one place not eight.

Custom Fields

Our first Custom Field was back in 2018, and was more of a “Contact Support” option. Now you can setup Custom Fields in the Account Settings with three different types, Text, Decimal, and Lookup. Those are all available in the Universe Search with Decimal allowing you to search for > or < for a specific amount. Want to add a Lifetime Value field, add a Custom Field with a Decimal type and reference it in your Segments. Our Import process has been updated to import, and update, Custom Fields on records as well. Learn more at our Custom Fields Feature Update post.

Event RSVPs

We had a few people use our Forms as a RSVP feature, which separated it from our Events area in the system. We recently launched Event RSVPs to enhance our Guest List feature. Built on the same tech as our Landing Pages, you can customize your RSVP page with our drag-and-drop editor. We have included a base template that works great on desktop or mobile bowsers to help get you started. Event RSVPs pages support Thank You Pages and custom Redirects. If you have a Custom Domain hosted by use they use that domain as well.

Compliance

Recently we became an approved vendor for Campaign Finance in Pennsylvania. This is in addition to our FEC compliance, Kentucky Compliance Upload, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Alabama, Virginia (COMET) with a few more states pending approval. Don’t see your state listed, contact us. Some states do not require an approval process and can be added quickly.

Series

Other systems call them Drip Campaigns, Welcome Series or Ladders, we call them Series. Series were built out last year and received a major upgrade. You can create a Series with unlimited Conditional Splits. Series already support sending out emails, delays, and adding a person to a list. With Conditional Splits you can send out a reminder to donate, and another if they don’t, and another if they don’t. You could do a third or add them to a suppression list. The options are truly unlimited, though we recommend a large monitor if you take us up on that offer.

Zapier

We launched a Zapier integration last year and now you can request your Zapier API Key from your Account Settings. Zapier integrates with our Forms to allow you to trigger an auto-response email or to start a Series. If you want to add people, there is also a Zap to add people as well.

Integrations

We created a new Integration with PhoneBurner, DonorBox and working on an integration with Mobilize. We are exploring an integration with AirCall and Justcall as well. A VoteBuilder API can be requested through your State Party if you want a VoteBuilder integration. Don’t see an integration you are looking for? Contact us to start that conversation.

Campaign Deputy API

Back in early 2019, we were ready to launch our first mobile app to help fundraising teams collect donations in person. Plans changed and we launched P2P texting as one of the lowest cost vendors for P2P last cycle. Now, we have a few organizations who want to build an integration with us and we have relaunched our API. Our API Documentation includes example code in major languages like Javascript, Java, Node, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, Go, C#, Swift, and Curl for the command line users out there. One major part we changed with our API is the permissions. In Campaign Deputy, users have somewhat broad permissions over certain areas. Our API has finer grain access controls, called Scopes, that allow for a very exact set of permissions that a web application couldn’t support. Scopes will allow you to setup an API Key that gives a website access to a “Scope”. For example, our sales form uses the Scopes “create_person”, “create_task”. If someone had that API Key, they couldn’t access your database since they wouldn’t have the “read_person” Scope. This also meets the NIST Cybersecurity Framework guideline of “least privilege and separation of duties”.

Have a question that we did not cover above? Use the form below and we can setup a time to talk.

Contact Us

You will receive an email from our sales team with their availability for a short demo and an option to setup a free trial based on your account type.

Phone

(202)-915-0500

Custom Fields

One of our top 3 requested features has released, Custom Fields. We have been building this feature behind the scenes for a while. The VAN ID was built out as a default Custom Field for everyone in early 2020. We had a few state-wide campaigns use Custom Fields in 2018 and our Support Team could add a new field if requested. We found most did not need a Custom Field, the ones that did really needed a custom field.

One major piece of us waiting to build out custom fields is that we wanted it to be extremely useful. Database design is tough, and we had enough use cases to understand what everyone wanted. We built out three different types of custom fields, Text, Decimal, Lookup. Most systems only have Text as a custom field, not very useful if you wanted to search based on a number. Lookup was another type provided by a campaign for when you only need a handful of values. I’m sure everyone has seen an Excel file with data in the wrong column, or 3 columns worth of data in one. Lookup helps by limiting what you can enter. Lets say you have a lookup of A, B, C. Your searches/segments are quick and easy, it will always be either A, or B, or C.

Custom Fields can be searched for in the Universe Search as well.

If the Type is Decimal you can search by greater or less than for your searches. If type Text/Lookup you can search by equal, starts with, contains.

Custom Fields are also available during Imports. Decimals support values of $1,500 or 1500.24. Text supports up to 255 characters and Lookup supports the values you pick. In the example above that would be A, B, C. Lookups also support “a “, or “b” to try to find a match.

Contact Us

You will receive an email from our sales team with their availability for a short demo and an option to setup a free trial based on your account type.

Phone

(202)-915-0500

Event RSVP Tracking

In Early June we launched Event RSVP tracking to a group of beta testers and it was a huge success! A campaign, or organization, can have multiple types of events and our users have been asking how to track RSVPs as part of their fundraising process. These events typically mailed out or emailed out to a group of guests a host knows. Our Forms worked for a time, while this Event RSVP integrates more with our Event system and compliance aspects of fundraising. Some states require total raised to be recorded per an event. With our ActBlue integration with custom refCodes and our own donation platform, this is even easier to track. Also exciting as it’s the launch of our first Campaign Deputy designed template.

Each Event has an option to make the Event public. This allows the RSVP feature to set a Unique URL and edit the default template for the form. The form supports custom fields as well as some additional fields specific to Events, Additional Guest and the Unable to Attend option. Once a person signs up for an Event, you will see them in the Guest List tab and Response tab. The Response tab has the full details, including custom fields, of their response. You also have full control over the output of the Event page and the Thank You Page. Redirects are also an option with URL Parameters that will get passed to your redirect URL for those who use Source Reporting.

Contact Us

You will receive an email from our sales team with their availability for a short demo and an option to setup a free trial based on your account type.

Phone

(202)-915-0500

Facebook iOS 14 changes with ActBlue

With the recent privacy changes with iOS 14 and Facebook we have a solution to track your conversion events with Facebook using our Forms.

Now edit the Thank You Page with your custom message and add a HTML Block with the Javascript code below. Make sure you have already added your Facebook Pixel ID in your setting.

Copy paste the code below in. The /100 is from ActBlue as they pass the value over as total Cents not as a dollar amount, so $21.21 would be 2121 as the amount.

function() {
const actblueParams = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
fbq("track", "Purchase", { currency: "USD", value: actblueParams.get("amount")/100 });
})();

For the Javascript developers, we poly-fill the URLSearchParams for Internet Explorer users which makes the code a lot easier to read than parsing out the location.search parameter by hand.

Now redirect your http://act.campaigndeputy.com/thankyou/{formname}?amount={{amount}}&refcode={{refcode}}&name={{name}}

What about custom domains?

Glad you asked, talk to your account manager to get the DNS entries needed. Depending on your account there may be a small up-charge. Someone from your team will need to apply the DNS entries. If you are using SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly or Campaign Partner the DNS change likely will need to be made in those systems. If not, ask who registered the domain at a place like Name.com (preffered), Google Domains, Godaddy, 1&1 or Gandi.

Email Editor Updates

We have made several updates to our email editor based on feedback from our community. About 9 months ago we wanted to move to a more advanced template option beyond a find and replace that was used when it was first launched. One of the major drivers for the change was our Call Time Manager. The first email editor lacked the sophistication that we wanted for all types of donor communication. .We settled on an open source tool that allows us to customize a template, add new features to it over time and is fast so we can send out emails to those large groups. We also wanted to keep the look and feel of the industry standard Liquid templates that seem to be everywhere.

Autocomplete for Liquid Fields

Type { and the list of available fields show with type ahead

We have added location information and donor history to the email merge fields. This allows for some great ideas for customizing your emails.
{{if city='Louisville'}} RSVP to our event {{else}} RSVP to our Zoom event {{end}}
{{if lifetime_contributions>10000}} thank you for being huge supporter over the years{{else}} we appreciate every donation {{end}}
{{if zip}} be one of the {{math.random 10 25}} supporters in {{zip}} {{else}} we need 76 supporters by midnight {{end}}

Restricted Domains

We have a range of clients, from school board to Governor, PACs, non-profits and even one law firm. Historically, you could ask our support team to put in a block for a specific domain name based on your needs. (Looking at you .us school systems). Now those options are available for you in Account Settings. It’s also tiered in that you can block all .gov and .us or you can say .gov and .jeffersonkyschools.us to be exact for those local agencies that don’t use a .gov domain.

Upcoming Features

We still have more features in the works for our email system. We have a few people Beta testing our AB Testing, new segment filters and a GIF countdown timer. The GIF countdown timer is the biggest upcoming feature as generating 10,000 GIFs on open was a fun challenge for our team. We will be deploying that in both a West Coast and East Coast datacenters once we do a week long verification.