From organizer to Campaign Manager
Lessons learned from a first-time down-ballot Campaign Manager
Welcome to Campaigner, a weekly newsletter exploring the tactics that drive winning political campaigns and highlighting the players pushing the buttons. Produced by Arena & FWIW Media.
What’s it like to go from field organizer to campaign manager in just a few short years? For this week’s Campaigner, we spoke with Arena Academy Alum Chartu Lopez-White, who’s currently a Campaign Manager on a State Senate campaign in North Carolina. Read on to hear about her experience getting involved with politics, and what she thinks down-ballot campaigns should keep in mind as they try to win over voters.
Q&A with Chartu Lopez-White
Campaigner: How did you get your start in politics?
Chartu Lopez-White: All my life, I wanted to go into culinary arts and become a chef. That was my plan. I was working at a restaurant in North Carolina around the time a lot of these terrible bills were being debated - the bathroom bills, etc. Because of the [anti-lgbtq environment], I saw a lot of people and workers in restaurants I was working in were firing people just for being LGBTQ. That kind of spurred me to start getting involved.
So, I started working with Equality North Carolina, going to protests and things like that, and I just fell in love with it. So I was doing my application for culinary school, and I ended up applying to UNC Greensboro to study Political Science.
After I graduated, I actually didn't go straight into the campaign world - I started working with AmeriCorps for two years, first with FEMA and then with HUD, which was really rewarding. And then Trump was elected. We all know what happened.
When the presidential election came around, I was like, “Okay, I need to like actually do something to get involved.” I started following all of the Democratic candidates. I read all of their biographies. The one that just attracted me the most was Pete's biography - so I ended up applying for an Organizer position down in South Carolina. I attended Arena Academy online, which connected me to become Danica Roem’s Deputy Fundraising Director for a few months, and now I’m Campaign Manager for Jamie Holcomb in NC State Senate District 23, in the Chapel Hill area.
Campaigner: A lot of our readers are involved in state legislative campaigns at some level. What do you think are some of the most important considerations for smaller campaigns to be successful?
Chartu Lopez-White: One of the things I learned on Danica's campaign is to always approach things with a local first perspective. Candidates are running to be public servants first of all, and are there to help the people that are voting for them.
It’s important to make sure campaigns are keeping that in mind in everything you do. Not making things about big, national issues that everyone's talking about, but instead focusing on what's going on in your neighborhood, in your community, and the people that you're going to represent. You're running to help them solve their problems. That needs to be your main focus, both when you’re elected and when you’re running.
Campaigner: So now you’re a campaign manager for a state legislative election. What do you do all day? Give me a day in the life.
Chartu Lopez-White: (Laughs) It's a little bit of everything! It's a lot of fundraising. It’s a lot of digital stuff - social media and digital outreach are what we're really focusing on, especially with younger voters at universities in the district. Probably a mix of fundraising and digital are the main things I do all day right now.
Campaigner: Let’s talk about fundraising - what strategies do you all rely on the most, and what has been most effective?
Chartu Lopez-White: There’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy to fundraising. I feel like there are a lot of old-school tactics still going on in the fundraising world, especially regarding the candidate and staff doing hours and hours of call time. I think campaigns need to have a good mix of digital, events, call time, and everything else. You need to look at your district, look at your candidate, and you need to play to their strengths.
One of the things I actually learned from my Regional Organizing Director and my team while organizing with Pete was making sure that you're talking to people and leading with empathy, making a real connection before you make an ask. Within the campaign world, we pretty much accept that as the way to do organizing, but I don’t know if we've really gotten to the point where that's the way we approach fundraising. That's such an important piece of it - having empathy for the people that you're calling that you're asking for money from and for the candidate. You need to figure out your candidate’s strengths, who they like talking to, what issues really get them going, and then make sure you’re building a digital fundraising or call time program based on that.
Then, when you're calling people, it's important for people to know that you're there to help them first. They aren’t just a check. They are not just a hundred-dollar ask. This is an actual human being who has a lot of stuff going on and they're not here just to give you money. Making sure you’re having a conversation and making a real connection is how you build a more sustainable fundraising program. I think fundraising needs to be approached more like we now approach organizing.
Campaigner: Being a Campaign Manager for the first time has to be tough, and scary. It’s gotta be difficult to know where to start. What resources have you found or things that you've learned immediately that have been helpful?
Chartu Lopez-White: When I started managing this campaign, I immediately learned how many people want to give you advice all of a sudden. (laughs) One of the things I'm still learning is how to trust my own experience and my own knowledge. Instead of just going with what somebody tells me, actually taking the time to be like, okay, no, this is what I think is the right thing to do, based on my experience of what I've done in the past. That’s one of the biggest things I’ve taken from this so far.
I think when you're first starting out though, it’s helpful to just reach out to people that you know in your network and not be afraid to ask for help, not just advice. “Hey, can you help me do this? I'm pretty sure this is the path I want to do now. Can you help me do it?” Having a good team and just making sure to ask for help is critical.
Campaigns, especially Democratic campaigns when you're working in the South, are about making change. Yes, success within a campaign is doing everything you can do to win but you're also connecting to your community, and when you're done with that campaign, whether you win or lose, you've made whatever place you're running in a better place. Maybe that’s getting more people involved in politics, or helping elevate an issue that was really important to a community.
One of the previous campaigns I worked on as a field director, we lost - but then he was able to go on to run the Democratic party for that county. I believe If he didn't run that campaign and connect with all those people, he never would've even thought of doing something like that. Winning is important, of course. But also making sure that you're making sustainable change within your community with your campaign.
Campaigner: What's something that you've noticed from Democrats or political campaign types that they don't talk about enough?
Chartu Lopez-White: I see a lot of friends and family complaining that they don’t see Democrats “doing anything.” “What are they doing?” “Nothing has changed” Blah, blah blah. I don't think we talk about our accomplishments enough. I don't think we share enough what we have done for the community. Not just nationally, even with many of our local politicians, what are they doing? What are our city council people doing? We need to get better at saying “Hey, this is all that we accomplished,” not, “this is everything that's going wrong.” Right?
Campaigner: Anything else you’d like to add?
Chartu Lopez-White: I'll go back to what I kind of said before, which is: with everything that you're doing, make sure that you're leading with empathy and you’re building community in the process.
Arena Training and Toolbox Highlights:
Want to manage a campaign or a team like Chartu? Apply to Arena Academy 201 to level up your people and program management skills. Join tonight’s info session at 6:00 p.m. ET to learn more>>
Chartu mentions that as a campaign manager she spends a lot of time fundraising. Check out our Call Time Tracker tool to level up your call time and fundraising skills>>
That’s it for Campaigner this week! If you enjoyed reading this issue, give it a share on the socials! 🙏