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Political campaign staff are the group of people who formulate and implement the
strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " ar ...
of a
political campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracy, democracies, political campaigns often refer to election, electoral campaigns, by which representatives a ...
. Campaign staffs are generally composed both of unpaid volunteers and paid employees of either the campaign itself or a related
political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
. The staff may include
political consultant Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely tel ...
s who provide advice and assistance to a campaign.


Structure of a campaign

Campaigns are generally run by a
campaign manager {{Political campaigning A campaign manager, campaign chairman, or campaign director is a paid or volunteer individual whose role is to coordinate a political campaign's operations such as fundraising, advertising, polling, getting out the vote ( ...
who coordinates the campaign and assures that efforts are being focused effectively."CAMPAIGN ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES." CAMPAIGN ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES (n.d.): 1-3. Wellstone. Wellstone. Web. 22 Jan. 2016. Garecht, Joe. "5 Team Members Every Campaign Needs." Local Victory. Joe Garecht, n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2016. . In small local campaigns, the campaign manager will often be the only paid staff member and will be responsible for every aspect of the campaign that is not covered by the candidate or volunteers. In larger campaigns, such as a United States presidential campaign, hundreds of staff members will cover the required tasks. While campaign managers are often the lead strategists in local campaigns, in the United States larger campaigns hire consultants to serve as strategists and the campaign manager focuses mostly on coordinating the campaign staff. Campaign managers will often have deputies who oversee various aspects of the campaign at a closer level. Directly below the campaign manager on the organization chart is the deputy campaign manager and directly below them are department directors who coordinate specific aspects of the campaign. These staff members often have deputies as well. In some campaigns, an executive chairman of the campaign committee will be appointed. The responsibility of an executive chairman will vary widely by campaign, usually an executive chairman is a consultant on internal matters such as campaign staff appointments and major internal policy. Below the department level, campaigns vary widely in their structure. On larger campaigns, there will be various coordinators for certain functions within each department. For example, within the fundraising department, there might be a staff member who focuses only on
direct mail Advertising mail, also known as direct mail (by its senders), junk mail (by its recipients), mailshot or admail (North America), letterbox drop or letterboxing (Australia) is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail. The ...
fundraising. The foundation of the campaign structure are the interns and volunteers. Their tasks can include addressing envelopes, entering data into
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
s, and
canvassing Canvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with individuals, commonly used during political campaigns. Canvassing can be done for many reasons: political campaigning, grassroots fundraising, community awareness, membership driv ...
voters on behalf of the campaign.


Departments and their respective purposes


Field department

The field department focuses on the "on-the-ground" organizing that is required in order to personally contact voters through canvassing, phone calls, and building local events. Voter contact helps construct and clean the campaign's voter file in order to help better target voter persuasion and identify which voters a campaign most wants to bring out on election day. Field is generally also tasked with running local "storefront" campaign offices as well as organizing phone banks and staging locations for canvasses and other campaign events. On the statewide level, field departments are generally organized by geography with an overall statewide field director who oversees the efforts of several regional field directors who in turn manage several local offices. * State Chairperson * State Finance Chairperson * Congressional District Chairperson * County Chairperson * State Director ** State Deputy Director for Volunteer Operations (Grassroots) *** County Coordinator **** Precinct Captain *** Coalitions Coordinator ** State Deputy Director for Administration *** Scheduling and Advance Coordinator *** Payroll Coordinator * State Policy Director ** Legislative Advisor * State Communications Director Other field workers below this level include: * Volunteer Coordinator: tasked full-time with recruiting, retaining, and scheduling volunteers * Field Organizer: the lowest level of field staff, these paid workers generally do direct voter contact full-time as well as assisting the Deputy Director * GOTV ("Get out the vote") coordinator: generally either brought in within the last few months of the campaign or a re-tasked staffer, GOTV coordinators plan the local GOTV efforts. In addition to voter persuasion and voter identification, field staff will often provide information for the campaign headquarters as to what is going on in the communities they work in. Field staffers are the primary liaison between the campaign and local influentials such as interest group leaders and prominent community activists. Field departments are also often primarily responsible for the local distribution of " swag" i.e.
lawn sign Lawn signs (also known as yard signs, bandit signs and placards, among other names) are small advertising signs that can be placed on a street-facing lawn or elsewhere on a property to express the support for an election candidate, or political ...
s, bumper stickers, buttons, and other such materials.


Communications department

The communications department oversees both the press relations and advertising involved in promoting the campaign in the media. They are responsible for the campaign's message and image among the electorate. Press releases, advertisements, phone scripts, and other forms of communication must be approved by this department before they can be released to the public. The staffers within this office vary widely from campaign to campaign. However, they generally include: * A communications director who oversees the entirety of the campaign's messaging, message planning, media relations, and the whole communications staff. * A press secretary who monitors the media and coordinates the campaign's relations with the press. Press secretaries set up interviews between the candidate and reporters, brief the press at press conferences, and perform other tasks involved in press relations. * A rapid response director who makes sure that the campaign responds quickly to the attacks of the other campaigns. They and their staff constantly monitor the media and the moves of their opponents, making sure that attacks are rebutted quickly. * Creative team managing all visual communications and ensuring consistency of campaign materials/merchandise (both print and digital) through web design, graphic design, advertising, promotional items. Often these staffers work closely with the IT department.


Political/field department

* Operations * Activists, Grassroots, and Volunteers * Outreach * Education Researching and developing a set of policies requires a large team to research and write each plank. Researchers also provide information to the campaign on issues and the backgrounds of candidates (including the candidate they work for) in order to be aware of skeletons in the various candidates' closets. The latter practice is known as
opposition research In politics, opposition research (also called oppo research) is the practice of collecting information on a political opponent or other adversary that can be used to discredit or otherwise weaken them. The information can include biographical, leg ...
. On smaller campaigns this is often folded into the communications department.


Fundraising (Finance) department

The finance department coordinates the campaign's
fundraising Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...
operation and ensures that the campaign always has the money it needs to operate effectively. The techniques employed by this campaign vary based on the campaign's needs and size. Small campaigns often involve casual fundraising events and phone calls from the candidate to donors asking for money. Larger campaigns will include everything from high-priced sit-down dinners to e-mail messages to donors asking for money.


Legal department

The legal department makes sure that the campaign is in compliance with the law and files the appropriate forms with government authorities. In Britain and other Commonwealth countries, such as Canada and India, each campaign must have an official agent, who is legally responsible for the campaign and is obligated to make sure the campaign follows all rules and regulations. This department will also be responsible for all financial tracking, including bank reconciliations, loans and backup for in-kind donations. They are generally required to keep both paper and electronic files. Small campaigns will often have one person responsible for financial disclosure while larger campaigns will have dozens of lawyers and treasurers making sure that the campaign's activities are legal. After the election, the compliance and legal department must still respond to audit requests and, when required, debt retirement.


Technology department

* Chief Information Technology Officer ** Office of New Media ** Office of Applications and Networks ** Office of Data and Strategy The technology department designs and maintains campaign technology such as voter file,
websites A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...
, and
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
. While local (county, city, town, or village) campaigns might have volunteers who know how to use computers, state and national campaigns will have information technology professionals across the state or country handling everything from
websites A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...
to
blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
s to
databases In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases span ...
.


Scheduling and advance department

The scheduling and advance department makes sure that the candidate and campaign surrogates are effectively scheduled so as to maximize their influence on voters. This department also oversees the advance people who arrive at events before the candidate to make sure everything is in order. Often, this department will be a part of the field department. On small campaigns the scheduling coordinator may be responsible for developing and executing events. The scheduling coordinator typically manages the candidate's personal and campaign schedule, field and advance team schedules, and gathers important information about all events the campaign and candidate will attend.


References

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