A campaign budget worksheet for the candidate with no money and no staff

Washington can spend a trillion dollars without a plan, and a lot of people think that is how money works. It does not work that way in a town-council race. In a town-council race you have a shoebox, a borrowed printer, three friends who owe you a favor, and an envelope from the county clerk that says the filing fee is due Friday. In that world, a budget is not paperwork. It is the difference between a campaign and a hobby with lawn signs.

Here is the uncomfortable truth I would put on the first page of every candidate's folder: a local campaign rarely fails for lack of ideas. It fails because nobody priced the plan. The candidate has the right instincts, the right neighbors, and the right message, and then in October discovers that the mailer costs three times what was assumed and the signs were never ordered. This worksheet fixes that. It takes about an hour, a calculator, and honest numbers.

Why a budget beats good intentions

The strongest objection goes like this: money doesn't win elections, people do, so why waste time on spreadsheets? Fair enough, and the premise is half true. A candidate who is known, trusted and willing to walk the whole district can beat an opponent with ten times the cash. Nobody should ever tell you that you need a fortune to run for local office.

But "money doesn't win by itself" is different from "money doesn't matter." Three things follow from that gap.

1. Every campaign has a limited number of resources, and cash is the one you can swap for the others. A printed palm card saves your voice. A mailer reaches the street you could not walk.
2. A candidate who has priced the plan knows when to stop buying and start knocking.
3. A budget is a promise to your donors. If you ask a neighbor for $50, you should know where it goes.

So we price it. The example below is a hypothetical town-council race in an imaginary town called Millbrook. Every price is an assumption made for teaching. Replace each with a real quote from a printer, the post office, and your clerk before you rely on it. And before you spend or raise a dollar, confirm your state's rules on registering a committee, naming a treasurer and reporting what you receive and spend; those rules differ by state and sometimes by town.

The structure: fixed lines and variable lines

A campaign budget has two kinds of lines.

Fixed lines do not change with the size of your effort. You pay them whether you knock on 500 doors or 5,000. Filing, compliance, the voter list and the website belong here.

Variable lines grow with the amount of contact you want. Printing, signs, mail, digital ads and food for volunteers belong here. These are the lines you adjust when the money comes in lower than hoped.

A third column is worth adding: who pays. Cash from the campaign account, in-kind help (a friend lends a trailer), or the candidate's own pocket. Every one of these has a reporting rule in most places, and a worksheet that records the source from day one saves a headache at filing time.

The fixed lines

Line 1: Filing fee or petition cost

Most local offices require either a fee or a petition with signatures. Some require both, some neither. Ask the clerk or election office for the candidate packet and read every page. Hypothetical for Millbrook: $50.

Line 2: Compliance

This is the unglamorous one. A bank account for the campaign (never mix it with your personal account), a binder or software for records, receipt books, and postage for any paper reports. Hypothetical: $40.

Line 3: The voter list

You need the list of registered voters in the district. Many election offices sell it for a modest fee, and the rules on who may buy it and what it may be used for vary by state, so ask. Hypothetical: $60.

Line 4: A simple web page

A domain name and a one-page site with a donate-by-check address, your biography, your three priorities, and a way to volunteer. Hypothetical: $20.

Fixed subtotal: 50 plus 40 plus 60 plus 20 equals $170.

The variable lines

Line 5: Palm cards

A palm card is a small card you hand to a voter at the door or leave behind. It should carry your name, the office, three lines of message, a photo if you like, a contact point, and the disclaimer your state requires on political printing. The rules for that disclaimer are covered in yard signs, mailers and disclaimers, the rules of the road answered. Hypothetical: 1,500 cards at $0.08 each. 1,500 times 0.08 equals $120.

Line 6: Yard signs

Yard signs do not change many minds, but they do show a neighbor that you exist, and they tell the opposition you are serious. Price the sign and the wire stake together. Hypothetical: 50 signs at $4.50 plus $1.00 for the stake, which is $5.50 each. 50 times 5.50 equals $275. Check local sign ordinances before planting a single one; many towns restrict size, placement and the days before an election that signs may stay up.

Line 7: One targeted mailer

Mail is the expensive line, so use it on purpose. Do not mail the whole district. Mail the households that your win-number worksheet identified as persuadable or likely supporters. If you have not done that worksheet, start with the win-number worksheet, how many votes does your race really take. Hypothetical: 700 households, one piece each, at $0.30 to print and $0.65 to mail, a total of $0.95 per piece. 700 times 0.95 equals $665.

Postage rates are set by the Postal Service and they change, so ask your post office for the current rate for the class of mail you plan to use. Do not rely on my number. Use yours.

Line 8: Digital

A small social media buy aimed at the town's zip code, in the final two weeks. Hypothetical: $150. Everything on this line should be easy to turn off. If the ads are not producing volunteers or donations, stop them.

Line 9: Food for volunteers

People will work for pizza longer than they will work for gratitude, though they like both. Hypothetical: 5 work sessions at $35 each. 5 times 35 equals $175.

Line 10: Thank-you notes

Of all the lines on the sheet, this is the best value. A handwritten note to every donor and every volunteer. Hypothetical: 40 notes at $1.25, card plus stamp. 40 times 1.25 equals $50.

Variable subtotal: 120 plus 275 plus 665 plus 150 plus 175 plus 50 equals $1,435.

What it costs to reach a person

The budget is only half the story. The other half is what each dollar buys. The best habit a small campaign can build is calculating the cost per contact for each method.

A contact is a real communication with a voter. Not every piece of mail is read, not every door answers, and not every call connects. So you divide cost by the number of contacts you assume you will get, and you replace the assumption with your own results as soon as you have them.

Mail

At $0.95 per piece, the cost per household reached is $0.95 if you count delivery as contact. Be honest that a delivered piece is not the same as a read piece. The mailer has to compete with the dentist's reminder and the pizza coupons.

Doors

The cash cost of a door is the palm card. Say you leave a card at every door, and one door in three produces a conversation (hypothetical). Then three cards are used per conversation. 3 times $0.08 equals $0.24 in cash per conversation. Add the volunteer's time: if a volunteer attempts 18 doors an hour (hypothetical), that is 6 conversations an hour, since 18 divided by 3 equals 6. A volunteer's hour is not free. It is the scarcest thing you have. But it is the cheapest persuasion available, which is why door-knocking that works, a walkthrough from the turf map to the thank-you is the first chapter of most local plans.

The academic literature has an interesting thread here. Field experiments run by political scientists, Alan Gerber and Donald Green among the best known, have generally found that personal contact does more to move turnout than mail does, though results vary by setting and the details of the message. Read it as a prompt to test your own results, not as a law.

Phones

If volunteers use their own phones and a free calling list, the cash cost is close to zero. Say one dial in four reaches a person (hypothetical), then four dials per conversation. The cost is time, and the rules about calling and texting are covered in running a phone bank, scripts, lists, rules and what to do with the results.

The comparison

Notice what the table says: the cheapest method costs the most of your time, and the most expensive method costs the least of your time. A candidate with plenty of volunteers but no money should lean on doors and phones. A candidate with money but little time can lean on mail. Most candidates are the first kind. That is not bad news. The campaign you can afford is the one that matches the resources you actually have.

Putting the whole sheet together

Add the lines:

Check: 170 plus 120 plus 275 plus 665 plus 150 plus 175 plus 50 equals 1,605. Ten percent of 1,605 is 160.50, rounded up to 161. 1,605 plus 161 equals 1,766.

The contingency is not padding. It is the line for the printer who raises the price, the sign you have to reprint because of a typo, and the surprise fee. Every real campaign has one, and the ones that skip it blow through their plan in the final week.

What to cut when the money comes in short

Nobody gets everything. Rank the lines in three tiers before you raise a dollar, so you know in advance what to cut.

• Tier A, cannot run without: fixed lines ($170), palm cards ($120), volunteer food ($175) and thank-you notes ($50). 170 plus 120 plus 175 plus 50 equals $515.
• Tier B, strongly helps: yard signs ($275) and the mailer ($665). 275 plus 665 equals $940.
• Tier C, nice if affordable: digital ($150).

Check: 515 plus 940 plus 150 equals 1,605. Good.

If you raise only $600, you fund Tier A and part of Tier B. If you raise $1,000, fund Tier A and a trimmed mailer to the most persuadable 300 households instead of 700. The point is to make the cut on a calm Tuesday in May, not on a panicked Friday in October.

Where the money comes from

A budget of $1,766 is eighteen people giving $100 each, or 18 times 100 equals $1,800. It is also thirty-five people at $50, since 35 times 50 equals $1,750, which is just short, so call it thirty-six. This is a very different challenge from raising $100,000. It is the kind of ask a candidate can make from a list of friends, family and neighbors. The technique is laid out in the fundraising call sheet, how a first-time candidate asks for money, and the thing to know before you start is the law: what you may accept, from whom, and how it must be recorded.

Three guardrails worth setting on day one:

1. Keep campaign money separate. A dedicated account, a treasurer or designated record-keeper if your state requires one, and every receipt saved.
2. Know the disclosure thresholds. Some states exempt very small campaigns from full reporting and others require a registration or a short report no matter how small. Ask the clerk or the state's campaign finance agency in writing. If your race is federal, the rules are different: a federal candidate must register with the Federal Election Commission after raising or spending more than $5,000, and you can read how that works at fec.gov. For anything bigger than a council seat, start with How campaign finance law works, and why you should check the FEC for the numbers.
3. Treat in-kind help as money. If a printer gives you a discount or a supporter lends you a truck, many jurisdictions count that as a contribution with a value you must record. Ask before you accept.

If you lend your own campaign money, record it as a loan or a contribution as your state's rules require. Never let the books get vague. It is your name on the filing.

Spend like it is your own money

One principle sits underneath the whole worksheet, and it is a conservative one. Spend other people's money the way you would spend your own. Treat every donated dollar as a small act of trust from someone who could have spent it on their family. That means the best-looking mailer is not always the right mailer, and the cheapest sign is not always the cheapest decision. It means a candidate who asks voters to trust them with the town budget should be able to show a clean campaign budget first.

Start the sheet this week. Fill the lines with real quotes by the end of the month. Hand a copy to your treasurer and keep one in the folder. Then update the numbers every Sunday night until the polls close.

The bottom line

• Price your campaign before you launch it: fixed lines, variable lines, a contingency, and a source for each dollar.
• Work out the cost per contact for mail, doors and phones, and spend where the cash and the volunteers you actually have will go farthest.
• Rank every line in tiers now, so a shortfall means a calm trim and not a scramble.
• Open a separate account, save every receipt, and ask the clerk in writing what your state requires you to report.
• Treat every donor's dollar as a trust, and thank them in writing within a day.