Political Campaign Plan Template and Guide

On every political campaign, there are many moving parts. All of which need plenty of attention and planning. That’s why a campaign plan is such a vital tool for any candidate. A plan allows you to manage the many different parts of your campaign with ease and sets you up for success.

But, creating an entire plan is no small feat. In fact, many people don’t run because they are unsure of how they would go about creating and running a campaign.

That’s why NDTC wants to walk through the campaign plan template we offer in order to provide you with resources to plan your campaign and examples of how to apply these resources.

What’s a Campaign Plan?

The term “campaign plan” probably sounds overwhelming. Images of complex spreadsheets and intense strategy may come to mind. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Simply put, a campaign plan is how your campaign is set up and how it will function. This includes information about your district, budget, and field efforts, among other things. By mapping out all of this information and creating an appropriate plan your campaign will be prepared for anything the race can throw at it!

NDTC’s template provides structure to make your life easier as you create your own plan. The easy-to-follow template, paired with the formulas, skills, and context of our online courses, will guide you through the process of creating a plan and lay the right foundation for a successful campaign!

The template is divided into six main sections:

• District Overview
• Field Plan
• Fundraising Plan
• Communications Plan
• Budget Summary
• Compliance and Legal

If you aren’t sure how to complete a section or want some tips, every section notes the accompanying NDTC on-demand courses that can help.

How To Use the Template

Since every candidate and race is unique, we encourage you to make a copy of the template, so you can add your strategies and plans into this structure, and if there’s more you’d like to include it’s your call!

(For any questions about how to use Google Drive check out our guide here!)

After downloading the template you can either fill out the sections as they appear or focus on specific sections most relevant or urgent to you. Once you have a place to start you can review the notes and guidelines within the section and start building your plan.

Each section prompts you to fill in information about your campaign such as district demographics or anticipated expenses. That way your plan includes all the information you’ll need for every element of your campaign.

By following these prompts you’ll create a comprehensive plan.  Then you can then share this with the people on your team, so you’re all on the same page.

Learn from an Expert

Looking for a more comprehensive guide to building and using your campaign plan? Look no further than this excellent NDTC virtual training, featuring Jordan Berg Powers! Here, Jordan gives a wonderful in-depth planning guide for vote goals, communications, fundraising, and more.

Download The Template

Meet Megan

In order to get an idea of the best way to use the template, we will look at how Megan Hammond would complete the different sections of her own campaign plan.

If you have taken any of NDTC’s courses you likely already know who Megan Hammond is. If you haven’t met her, Megan is our imaginary sample candidate who is running for School Board in Bear County, New Mexico.

(Want to learn more about Megan? Check out our blog featuring her and her campaign here!)

Megan helps us to illustrate best practices and demonstrate campaign resources, so over the course of the month, we will use Megan and her campaign as an example of how to fill out a campaign plan for a local race.

Every campaign is different, so every plan is different! Megan’s plan is just an example of how our template looks when it’s finished. So, each week over the course of this month we will share and explain the different parts of Megan’s campaign plan to illustrate the best ways to use the template and devise the best strategy for you to win!

Let’s Get Planning!

Download the template now and let’s get planning.

Download The Template