What
you should know before you decide to run for public office
by:Maurice Bonamigo, October 2005
First
thing you need to know is, “do
not put yourself in the spotlight until you are ready to become a target!”
You have to remember that you will stand
in the spotlight before the public and the opposition.
Most importantly,
any candidate who is not raising money cannot be taking seriously.
Generally most of your smaller campaigns
will rely on loyal and trusted employees, ranging from friends and family
members. However, it must be remembered that most of those staffers are
not trained to perform FEC
Operations, serve as financial and legal advisers, and develop and maintain
relations with fund raisers to maximize their profits. You have to realize
that the advantage of using the financial service is too great to be disregarded.
By hiring a campaign financial professional,
you will be saving money, you will be consolidating your businesses, and
they will protect you from any ill reporting or discrepancies in bookkeeping.
Not to mention organization, stability, and accuracy. You will also have
access to the best legal advice, counselors who know the rules and understand
the great areas of a complicated set all laws.
FEC reports MUST be submitted with supporting
evidence of every transaction. You must hire professional finance personnel
to ensure this.
The few essential tips:
Saving money:
If you are using a campaign financial service you will save on the cost
of additional employees and allow your staff to focus on their areas of
expertise. i.e. constituents in the district for special-interest issues.
Your teen should now be able to work specifically on organizational, grassroots
operations, the most important in fund-raising. By doing so you will no
need to have a “virtual office”, saving you the cost of rent
in utilities in helping you to cut unnecessary expenses.
Your campaign checkbook must be in safe hands at all times to avoid multiple
signers. A proper financial service will work closely with you to help
attain proper control of your campaign monies.
A well qualified financial service will always work closely with the existing
campaign fund-raisers to generate donor lists and they can also offer
additional advice on how to maximize dollars from your contributors.
Remember, your financial interest should be at the top of your priority
list!
FEC Reports
Your campaign financial services will take the responsibility and pressures
of monitoring the FEC
Rules, regulations, and deadlines of the campaign.
Your contributions will need to be entered into the reporting system by
the financial staff immediately.
Any missing information will be collected by financial service for complete
and accurate reporting.
A good financial service should carefully analyze every bill that is received.
By minimizing the number of miscellaneous expenses and evaluating carefully
the spending pattern will save a campaign some monies immediately.
A proper financial service will prepare the FEC reports and submit them
immediately after they have been reviewed.
Your Value
The biggest value that your campaign will gain when hiring a financial
service is that of adding valuable analysis to the campaign staff, this
will be received on a regular basis. This should include evaluations of
contributions and expenses. Analyzing these reports will allow you to
maximize donations from each contributor,
address financial activity, and compare costs and benefits of different
fund-raisers and other events.
Your financial service will help you prepare phone lists from different
individuals, organizations, and also
Insight into target donors.
One Main Office
By housing your campaign headquarters and financial operations under one
roof will help your campaign function more efficiently. You will find
that accuracy is guaranteed and your advice is always a phone call away
to financial and FEC professionals who are there to help you with the
highest contributor dollars and to build your fund raising portfolios.
You
are now ready to become visible to the public eye. You are now ready,
proud, and set to become a political target!
