The most important part of fundraising is making sure that you’re abiding by applicable campaign finance laws. Here we’ll provide a broad overview of North Carolina campaign finance laws. Nothing can replace the advice of an experienced lawyer or treasurer, so take this as it’s intended: a starting resource for further investigation, not the end-all of the intricacies of campaign finance.

1. Know who to ask for help. When in doubt, contact the people who do this for a living: your County and/or the North Carolina State Election Board. They will either know the answer or direct you to someone who does.

2. Research what laws apply to you. You are running as a candidate at the municipal (e.g. Town Council), county (e.g. County Planning Board), state (e.g. NC State House), or federal (e.g. US House) level. There are different rules at every level,  so be aware of them. This determines your main regulatory body throughout the campaign.

3. Find a good treasurer. Every candidate committee must have a treasurer, and it can be anyone but your spouse. The treasurer is responsible for maintaining your financial records and filing required reports with the Board of Elections. Your treasurer must be trained by a Board of Elections course within three months of his/her appointment and once every four years after that.

4. Know when you have to file forms. North Carolina has deadlines for filing forms for your candidacy as well as filing campaign finance reports throughout the year. (As a fun fact, the filing fee is 1% of the annual salary of the office for which you are running; for the State House or Senate, that’s $207.) Know these dates. Don’t be late.

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Once you have been (rightfully) convinced that you should begin fundraising online, the next question is how to select an online contributions system. This system is a web-based solution that processes credit cards to transfer money from your donors to your campaign account. The number of these systems, though, is staggering. This post will hopefully be a quick overview with some general questions you should ask about every system, and then a more specific comparison of three major contribution systems on the base of price.

General Questions to Ask
1. How much will this cost? Online contributions systems generally make money in two ways. They charge a per-transaction fee, always less than fifty cents, on each contribution processed through your site. They also take a percentage of all your donations, usually less than 5 percent though oftentimes soaring to as high as 10 percent. Additionally you will find myriad fees for set-up, processing, and the like.

2. How will secure data be stored? You do not want to be responsible for keeping credit card numbers secure. Find out who will be responsible for secure data, where it will be stored, and who will address a security breach should one occur. Generally, online contributions systems process and store the credit card data on their end and then credit your account with the money.

3. How often will I be paid? The internet has made everything instantaneous, including the transfer of money. Many online contributions systems will deposit money in your campaign account as soon as the credit card information is processed. However, others will oftentimes distributed checks on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.

4. Will I be able to collect the data I need? Check local, state, and federal campaign finance laws to determine the information you need to collect from donors. For example, candidates for federal office must collect the employer of every person who donates more than $200. Make sure that you will be able to customize your donation form to collect the necessary information to comply with campaign finance laws.

5. Will I be able to brand my donations portal? This is often a question for your technical team as it is for the contributions system you select. You want the transition from your website or online presence elsewhere to your donations portal to be as seamless as possible. The branding, graphics, colors, and other stylistic elements should remain as consistent as possible. Donors want to know that they are donating to the candidate they have selected. Additionally, sending them elsewhere is simply jarring, like inviting friends to a BBQ in your backyard only to traipse over to the neighbor’s living room.

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We’re kicking off another focus week on RunSmart2Win. This week we’re tackling fundraising.

As the famous saying goes, money is the mother’s milk of politics. While technology has leveled the political playing field somewhat, money is still one of the best predictors of Election Day success. How do you go about raising the funds your campaign needs to win? Here are 10 essential fundraising principles:

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There has been much talk recently — on RunSmart2Win and elsewhere — about the new influence and impact of social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter on policial campaigning.  But Tyler Harbor, writing in Politics Magazine, reminds readers that nothing can replace the tried and true campaign tactic of door-to-door canvassing.

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With all of the big news stories over the last few weeks and months, you may have missed an interesting tidbit from Virginia last month. In the Democratic primary in the race for governor, Creigh Deeds beat two other candidates, Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran, both of whom were better-known and better-funded.

So how did he do it? Many observers are pointing to the Google blast strategy used by the campaign over the last 24 hours leading up to election day.

Creigh Deeds was running third out of three, a state senator from rural Southwest Virginia, running against two Northern Virginia candidates with vast sums of cash and statewide (even nationwide) name recognition. But things started to turn around after The Washington Post endorsed Deeds, giving him a boost in the D.C. suburbs, his opponents’ backyard. Still, most pundits predicted a tight three-way race heading into election day.

They underestimated the power of the Google blast.

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Just ran across a brilliant article by Jon Henke as read fron the blog The Next Right.

Getting straignt to the point, Jon writes:

The point: Republicans are moving into a veritable golden age of “look what they’re doing to you!” material, like we haven’t seen since the Carter era stagflation. There are going to be so many outrages in the coming years that we can use to illustrate the costs of government and the case for more limited government.

The problem: We’re entering a new era with the Old Guard. Republicans are thoroughly unprepared to do the kind of information organization, distribution and activism they would need to do to capitalize on this important opportunity, and - despite the fact that it’s comparatively inexpensive - I’m not really sure they are yet willing to build the kind of modern infrastructure they need to do it.