The document provides instructions for Libertarian Party volunteers to conduct phone calls to raise funds for a petition drive. It recommends volunteers make 15 calls per evening between 7-9:30pm using a script to solicit donations of around $250. Volunteers are asked to record call details and pledge amounts each night and report results to the fundraising coordinator to help reach a $11,000 goal in 10 days to pay petitioners to collect the remaining 11,000 signatures needed.

1. Page 1 of2
Effective telephone Online Edition
Note: This
online version
fundraising methods may contain
additional
September material or
otherwise differ
1998 from what
By Mark Tuniewicz
appeared in the
LP National Treasurer printed edition.
Sometimes, funding an important campaign or ballot access drive can
seem daunting -- especially if you don't know where to start. "If only we
had the money," is an oft-heard refrain.
~ Wouldn't it be nice for your state, county, or local party
organization to have all the money it needed for a specific
lil project? Or if your campaign for local office had more
money than the incumbent?
I'm here to tell you: You can raise all the money you need
for that campaign or project. Here's how:
First, you need a cause! Campaigns, ballot access, hiring .
a paid staffer, any of these will work, so long as there is a clear and
easily understood perceived value associated with the cause.
Second, you'll need a plan: Variables here include number of volunteers,
number of members to be contacted, and number of calls per day.
Assuming an all-volunteer effort with 500 statewide members and 10
volunteers making five calls per night, the time needed to call everyone
would be about ten days ... plus a few extra for follow-up calls to folks
missed the first time around. (Calls should be made Sunday-Thursday
from 7:00-9:00 pm, or during the day on Saturday).
Only have six volunteers? Fine! It will take a bit longer to finish, but will
be well worth your effort. Have more? Great! Chances are, you have
more members to call, too!
You'll want to create a quick script for the volunteers to use on the phone
so that your message to donors will be consistent. The script should talk
about the important reasons why their contribution is needed now, and
focus on the benefits of the project being completed. Then, the caller
asks for a donation which is large enough to make a difference -- say,
$250 or so, depending on the area you are in.
Here's one nice touch I've seen recently reported in Campaigns &
Elections magazine: Involve your dozen or more largest contributors
("major donors") by approaching them first and in-person. Your State
Chair -- or someone with similar credibility, like a well-known candidate --
should explain the cause at hand, share your written plan with them, tell
how the money will be used, and what has been raised thus far. These
donors will be asked for "matching funds," and it's important to assure
them that their check won't be used until the telephone fundraising effort
matches them 100%, dollar for dollar.
/"""
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2. LP News September 1998 - Effective telephone fundraising methods Page 2 of2
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This type of matching arrangement is a great motivator: Major donors are
more comfortable since they are not being asked to go it alone with only
their own contribution. These up-front donations of $500 or more help /"-;,
motivate rank-and-file donors, since callers will tell them that each dollar
they give will actually be worth two because of the matching effect!
A certain amount of discipline is useful during the calling effort. Example:
Elias Israel, the Executive Director for the LP affiliate in Massachusetts,
ran a telephone fund raising drive based on a design by Michael Cloud in
June of 1998. Eli arranged for volunteers working from home to
telephone him each evening to report their specific results: How many
calls attempted, who was reached, who got messages left, and who
pledged money to the cause. Eli, in turn, kicked out electronic mail
updates to the team each day summarizing the amount of major donor
matching pledges remaining, total raised from each source, and
remaining goal amount. Over a two week period, nine volunteers called
about 450 members, with the State Chair calling about a dozen major
donors.
The result of Massachusetts' first effort at telephone fundraising: Almost
$14,000 raised in 15 days -- more than enough to fund the paid portion of
the Massachusetts statewide ballot drive. Think about what that amount
(or more, depending on your participation level) could do for you in this
important, pre-election time.
To be successful, you must raise money regularly and efficiently. This
method is far superior to direct mail in many ways: It's personal, fast,
project-specific, and tends to involve a good number of activists working
together. Not only does telephone fundraising build teamwork, a
successful fundraising drive reinforces the values which cause our
supporters to donate in the first place -- and this success breeds future
successes.
You can do this. It will work for you. Start now for the November
elections, and you'll have the biggest campaign war chest in your state's
history. Period.
* Contact Mark Tuniewicz (nhliberty@aol.com) or Elias Israel
(eisrael@la~ma.org) for an e-mailed copy of the LPMA fundraising plan.
Thanks to all the LPMA volunteers and donors for the inspiration for this
column. E-mail Mark with your ideas for future "How-To" topics.
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3. How To Raise Money For The Petition Drive By
Phone Calling
A Manual For Cook Campaign Volunteers
The fundraising plan described in this manual was designed by Michael Cloud. Mr. Cloud
is arguably the best fund raiser in the history of the Libertarian Party and has held key
strategic roles in some of the top campaigns in party history, including Harry Browne
1996, Harry Browne 2000, and Carla Howell 2000.
This manual was compiled by Elias Israel. At the time of its writing, Mr. Israel was the
Libertarian candidate for Lt. Governor of Massachusetts and the Executive Director for
the Libertarian Association of Massachusetts (now the Libertarian Party of Massachu-
setts).
Page 1 of 8

4. 1. How To Raise Money For The Petition Drive By Phone Call-
ing
This document is a manual for volunteers in the Cook for Governor campaign
who are going to be calling the Libertarian Party membership in Massachu-
setts for funds. Using the information in this manual, you should be able to
learn how to make fundraising phone calls for the Cook campaign's petition
drive, what to do with the pledges and other information you collect, and how
to be an instant success at all of it.
1.1. Background
To get our statewide slate of candidates on the ballot, we need to submit
17,000 signatures to the Elections Commission or Registrar of Voters in the
351 town in Massachusetts. Our deadline for the completion of petitioning is
June 25, 1998. Only by targeting this date can we be assured that we'll have
the numbers that we need in time to have the registrars certify them and re-
turn them. Then we have to turn them in to the Secretary of the Common-
wealth for final counting and certification.
At present, we have approximately 6,000 signatures in hand. In order to
reach our goal, we'll need about 11,000 m.ore signatures before the dead-
line. Although there will be some volunteer petitioning going on, the bulk of
our signatures will be collected by paid petitioners. Paid petitioners are more
reliable and more manageable than volunteer petitioners. However, each sig-
nature that they bring in will cost us about one dollar. Therefore, we need
$11,000 to complete the petitioning and we need it within the next 10
days in order to have sufficient cash flow available to pay our petitioners.
In order to raise the needed funds, we will be calling the Libertarian Party
membership here in Massachusetts to solicit the support that we need. This
manual will provide you with the information that you need to perform those
fundraising phone calls consistently and easily.
If you follow the instructions in this manual, you should be able to raise
$400.00 per hour of effort.
If we fail to get our candidates on the ballot, we have virtually zero chance of
collecting enough ballots in the general election to return our party to major
status. Without major party status, our presidential candidate in 2000 will
have to petitipn to be on the ballot all over again and it will cost up to twice
as much per signature. Also, because the nominating convention for the
presidential candidate will be in July, we'll have a much shorter amount of
time than before to collect the needed signatures.
Page 2 of 8

5. Failure to get on the ballot will also have dire consequences for the growth of
the party here in Massachusetts. We must keep and maintain ballot status in
order to be considered a viable party by the voters and the press.
1.2. Phone Calling Process
The calling process has three parts:
1. Preparation
2. The Calls Themselves
3. Reporting Your Results
You must do each of these things every night that you do your calling. Every
evening, you'll start out by making sure that you have the materials, the
knowledge, and the mindset to do your calling. Every night, you'll make ex-
actly the number of calls scheduled for that evening. And every night you
must follow up by phoning in your results to the fundraising coordinator.
Each of these items is explained in detail below. Please be sure to read each
of the following sections carefully before you start calling every evening.
1.2.1. Preparation
To be prepared to do telephone fundraising, you must first collect the materi-
als that you'll need. You will need:
1. This instruction manual
2. A list of 15 names to call, provided to you by the fundraising coordinator
3. A telephone
4. A comfortable chair and your favorite non-alcoholic beverage
5. A total of 90 minutes without interruption
Gather these things together and get comfortable. Once you have the materi-
als that you need, sit down and read this manual. Read it over every time you
get ready to make calls and don't skip over things. By reading these instruc-
tions again every time, you'll reinforce the messages that we want to convey
and you'll improve your chances of success.
1.2.2. Making the Calls
Once you have prepared the materials, selected a comfortable place to work,
and gone over these instructions, begin making calls. Begin by simply dialing
the numbers. Don't agonize over them. Don't think about them. Don't play
Page 3 of 8

6. The types of fundraising that will work for a given state party have to do with the types of
expertise you have available to you and -- most importantly -- the number of donors you
have to work with.
To a first approximation, the number of donors in a state is roughly equal to the number
of unique national LP members plus state LP members. Then add to that anyone who has
given you any kind of money in the last year or two, even things like registration fees at
conventions. This is your "house list."
After UMP, the easiest source of funds is EVENT FUNDRAISING. A good convention,
which has as its aim from start to finish to energize and enliven those who attend, and to
show them worthy projects that the state party can engage in, is a reliable fundraising
opportunity. A reasonable estimate is that a fundraising pitch made properly at the end of
a dinner banquet should bring in $80 - $100 per person sitting at the banquet (above and
beyond event registration fees). A skilled pitch delivery at the end of a very good
convention can do as much as $120 per person.
MONTHLY PLEDGES are probably the next most accessible method, and possibly even
more valuable than event fundraising because they provide recurring income. Our friends
in Indiana have practically made a science out of this. Most of it involves relentlessly
asking people to join the pledge program, often in addition to or instead of their annual
convention donations.
TELEMARKETING is surprisingly accessible for most state parties. All it really requires
is a handful of dedicated folks to call the house list, explain a current project, and ask for
funds.
To do this most effectively, you should develop a calling plan and a script that tells each
volunteer what to say, what to ask for, and how to collect the contact and payment
information you'll need to process each donation.
DIRECT MAIL -- and direct response techniques in general-- are the beginning ofthe
"mass" methods for fundraising. As such, they're much harder for small state parties to
use effectively. With a house list of approximately 1,200 people, which would be typical
for a mid-sized affiliate, direct mail is usually too hit-or-miss. What makes direct mail
work is numbers: large lists reduce your per-piece printing and mailing costs, and they
give you more chances to make a hit. What's more, once your list gets into sizeable
thousands (above 5,000, say), then you can subset your list to test your mailings before
you commit all your money. With a small list, it's nearly impossible to do that right.
There is ONE FUNDRAISING LETTER THAT ALL STATE PARTIES SHOULD BE
DOING RIGHT NOW. This is a trick we learned from our friends in Colorado:
30f4

7. Right after your annual convention, total up the dollars donated by the attendees and the
money they spent on registrations, gifts, etc. (basically, any money they gave the state
party that day) and divide it by the number of attendees. This gives you your average
donation for the day.
Then write a direct mail piece talking about the convention, what happened, what your
plans and projects are for the year ahead, and tell the reader what the average donation
was. Ask them to match what their fellow Libertarians gave. Send this letter to all those
on your house list who did not attend the convention. Works like a charm, because many
people want to help but might not have been able to attend.
The last method listed above is INTERNET APPEALS, both email and web. For email
appeals, the same issue of list size as with direct mail comes up here.
For web fundraising, the ability to join on the web is definitely beneficial and will bring
in members and donations you would not otherwise have gotten. A technically astute
volunteer can set the whole thing up in a few weeks, but it is definitely worthwhile to pay
for graphics design and proper layout to make joining seem appealing and easy to
understand.
These are some basic skills and ideas that all of our affiliates can use to strengthen their
fundraising.
40f4

8. the numbers in your head. Just Dial Them! Rush in immediately and any ini-
tial uneasiness that you feel will vanish right away.
You Just Have To Dial 15 Numbers
It's important to remember that your goal is simply to make 15 calls, not nec-
essarily to talk to 15 people. If you get an answering machine, leave a mes-
sage and move on. If you get a busy signal, put that number aside and call it
again in few minutes after you've tried some others. If you get no answer,
again put the number aside for a little while and try it again later or on an-
other night.
When To Call
The evenings to call are Sunday through Thursday nights. Most people are
out on Friday or Saturday evenings anyway. The best part of the evening to
call is between 7:00PM and 9:30PM. Never start your calling before 7:00PM
and never make any calls after 9:30PM. If you're scheduling your 90-minute
slot, either start at 7PM and go until 8:30, or start at 8PM and go until 9:30,
or some combination like that.
What To Say
See section 1.3 for a complete description of the scripts that you should use.
Don't vary them. Use them verbatim if possible. Don't embellish them. Cam-
paign donors and party members are often friends and neighbors with one
another. They talk to each other. It's vitally important that when they do talk
to each other, they'll see that we're all saying the same thing to everyone. It
will help the credibility of the campaign for all of the campaign messages -
especially fundraising messages - are consistent. Conversely, if people talk
to one another and find out that the messages are inconsistent, they will lose
faith in the campaign and they won't contribute.
What To Record
For each call that you make, record on your call sheet what date and time you
made the initial call, whether you spoke to the person directly or left a mes-
sage, whether they called back, how much they pledged, and what the check
number is (for those who pledge). See the script below for how to collect all of
this information.
When To Stop Calling
Your goal is to make 15 calls or work for 90 minutes, whichever comes first. If
you finish with your 15 calls early, stop working. Don't punish yourself for
doing your job. Reward yourself by knocking off for the evening and getting
on with your life. This is volunteer work, not a prison sentence.
Page 4 of 8

9. Give Yourself Permission To Fail
You have to give yourself permission to faiL If some idea of a "perfect" eve-
ning of calling keeps you from making the calls, we'll all be worse off than if
you just make a few calls anyway and do the best that you can. It's OK if you
aren't Dale Carnegie reincarnated and ready to sweet-talk your way into
people's hearts. You don't have to be. All you need to be is a dedicated volun-
teer honestly trying to help out the Cook For Governor Campaign in getting
candidates on the ballot.
1.2.3. Reporting Results
After you complete your calling, you must call the fundraising coordinator to
report your results. Report your results every night without exception. If you
put it off, you're likely to forget some important piece of information or, worse
yet, you may forget to report in entirely. This effort can't succeed without
timely and complete information.
The fundraising coordinator is:
Elias Israel
105 Lexington Street
Burlington, MA 01803
(781) 270-9441
Call him every night immediately after you finish your phone calling and tell
him the following things:
1. The name of every person that you called.
2. Whether you spoke to them or left a message, etc.
3. Whether they pledged, and if so, what was the amount.
4. If they pledged, the check number on their check.
1.3. Anatomy of A Successful Call
This section outlines the information that you need in order to make the
phone calls, ask people for help, and answer their questions. To understand
the success strategies for these calls, please review section 1.3.1 below, enti-
tled "The Three Keys."
Section 1.3.2, "The Phone Calling Script," will provide you with the exact
wording and pacing that you should use when speaking to donors on the
phone, and will provide you with step-by-step instructions for collecting the
information that we need to track our progress.
Page 5 of 8

10. 1.3.1. The Three Keys
There are three keys to a successful phone call. These are three things that
you have to communicate to the person on the other end of the phone:
1. We have a real deadline. If we don't make it, the campaign is as good
as over.
2. They're getting something real for their money. They're not giving
their money for nothing. We're doing this to get our candidate on the bal-
lot, to make our play to re-establish the Libertarian Party as a major
party in Massachusetts, and entirely eliminate the need to do petitioning
in 2000.
3. They're not going it alone. We are speaking to a number oflarger do-
nors who will provide matching funds for every dollar that they donate.
Every dollar that they give will be worth $2 to the campaign.
Real Deadline
We have a real, hard deadline: June 25. That's just 21 days away. Right
now, we have around 6,000 signatures in hand. To meet our goal of 17,000
signatures, we'll need to collect 11,000 more in the next 21 days. Each of
those signatures costs us $1.00 because we've gone the professional route and
hired paid petitioners to collect them. That means we need to raise
$11,000 in the next 10 days.
The folks at the national LP are helping us recruit even more petitioners to
make sure that we have enough manpower to get the job done. But we have
to have the funds in hand to pay these petitioners or we won't get the signa-
tures that we need.
What They Get For Their Money
Completing the petitioning is crucial because without it our Libertarian
ticket will not be on the ballot in 1998. Not only would that be hugely demor-
alizing for our party membership here in Massachusetts (and completely
counter to our recent exciting growth and professionalism), it would mean
that we can't regain major party status in 1998.
If we don't regain major party status, then our presidential candidate in 2000
will have to do the same petitioning all over again, at up to twice the cost and
with just half of the time. By raising the money that we need now and win-
ning the 3% we need to regain major party status, we'll save the LP and our
presidential candidate up to $30,000 or $40,000 in 2000. If we get on the bal-
lot, we have every expectation of being able to get the 3% of the vote that we
need in at least one of the statewide races, but we need to get on the bal-
lot if we even want to have a shot.
Page 6 of 8

11. Bottom Line: Every dollar that they give now is 3 or 4 dollars that
they won't need to give in 2000. We're saving them money. That's the
proposition.
Matching Contributions
Our contributors are not going it alone. No one likes to think that they are
the only ones propping up the whole party. That's why we're using a "buddy"
system. A small number of large donors are being approached at the same
time to raise additional money. But none of the money that we raise from the
large donors can be used until we've raised a matching amount from smaller
donors. Because of this, each dollar that they give is really worth $2 to the
petitioning effort and the campaign.
Use this to your advantage when talking to people. Say to them: I've got a
checks for $500 each from several large donors, but I can't use them until I've
got a matching amount from other donors, too. I've collected pledges worth
$350 (e.g.) from other donors tonight, so if you can give just $150, we'll get to
use one of those $500 checks right now.
1.3.2. The Phone Calling Script
OK, you're in your comfortable chair. You've got your materials and your fa-
vorite non-alcoholic beverage, and you've gone over the materials. You're
ready to make the calls.
Here's the script that you should use:
You: Hi, My name is your name and I'm your title in the LP
or the campaign. I'm calling to talk to you about our peti-
tioning effort to get on the ballot and to ask for your
help.
Notice that you're going to tell them what you're calling about right up front.
About titles: If you're a candidate, say so. If you're a board member or other
officer, mention that. If you're "just" an campaign volunteer, say "I'm a cam-
paign volunteer." Everybody's got a title of some kind.
Them: OK.
If they fight you at this point, move on. Some people won't want to hear about
it. Some will ask you to call at another time, and some will want to engage
you in some other topic of conversation. End the call politely if they don't
want to give and move on. Schedule a time to talk to them if they don't have
time now and write down the schedule time. Then end the call and move on.
If they want to talk about some other thing, tell them you'd be happy to have
the Campaign Manager, or the Party Chair, or the Party Executive Director
(whichever seems most appropriate) call them back at some other time to talk
about it. Then go back to the topic you called for.
Page 7 of 8

12. You: The Cook for Governor campaign is working hard to get
all of our statewide candidates on the ballot in November.
Right now, we have x,xxx signatures of the 17,000 that we
need. That means we need yy,yyy more signatures before our
deadline of June 25. Because we're using professional, paid
petitioners, each of those signatures will cost us $1 a
piece. That means we have to raise $11,000 in the next 10
days.
It's very important that we get our candidates on the bal-
lot this year. Because if we don't, we'll lose our very
good chance to regain Major Party status here in Massachu-
setts. If we don't regain major party status, then our
presidential candidate will have to go through this peti-
tioning process allover again, at around twice the cost
and with just half the time. If we do get our major party
status back, our presidential candidate gets to be on the
ballot for free in 2000. That means that every dollar that
we collect tonight represents 3 or 4 dollars that we won't
have to spend on petitioning in 2000. We could save the LP
up to $30,000 or $40,000 in 2000 by raising just $11,000
today.
Dean Cook and his campaign staff are meeting with some very
influential donors here in Massachusetts. Those donors are
going to set aside matching funds for this petitioning cam-
paign. That means that every dollar that we collect tonight
is actually worth $2 to the petitioning effort and to the
campaign, but only if we can raise the money to match it.
By Massachusetts Law, each person can donate up to $500.
Can you help us today with $500?
1.4. Tips and Techniques
Page 8 of 8