What do We Mean by Cooperative Resources
We know that money is tight across the board. We need to be smart about how we use resources to maximize impact at the lowest possible cost. These are just some possible ideas, but there are plenty more.
COUNTY AND DISTRICT WEB SITES
Many of our counties and hardly any of our legislative districts have websites. In the last election we had candidates who could not afford a website. This is a huge problem, and one that easily solved. The state party offered a referral to a company that would build and host a site for $25 a month. For a county or legislative district that is a $300 a year expense. That is $1,100 a month for the counties alone. It does not have to be. The state could easily provide hosting for all county parties for around $50 a month total. In addition website templates can be used to create easy to maintain websites at little to no cost. This would allow counties to use their resources for other projects and cost the state about $600 per year. By the way we could host candidate websites as well. It is all well within the in-kind donation limits.
COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA SUPPORT
We have a budget line item for interns and fellows which could be partially used to support social media and communications in our developing counties and regions. This support is critical for showing localized presence in our developing counties. This would augment the efforts of our state-wide communications efforts. We must also be willing to use state social media accounts to more heavily promote local and county events.
FUNDRAISING SUPPORT
The state party could better assist in fundraising activities in the local counties and districts. For example we could do some limited “split” emails that were localized to the counties and perhaps the surrounding counties. The state party could also provide resources to help craft fundraising letters to potential county donors. Additionally it is critical to make sure that there is a state party officer present at local county fundraiser dinners. At the very least one event per county per year. The state party should assist with travel costs for the officer if requested. If David is elected there would be a vice-chair in North Idaho, a vice-chair in the Treasure Valley and the Chair in Southeast Idaho meaning that even for small events there should be a party officer within driving distance.