How to win your school bond campaign
Written by Niki Juhasz
The lawn signs are out, the commercials are on, and the handshakes are happening. You know what that means: it’s election season! And for many of our partners, that means securing funding for your school district is on the ballot.
We recently reviewed successful and failed bond campaigns across the US, and here are some key takeaways!
Lesson 1: Build Awareness and Understanding
Say it with us: IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS. A K12 Insight White Paper shares that the average person has little understanding of how schools are financed or what a bond measure is. This is such an important point to remember as you prepare your campaign. Instead of just building a persuasive campaign, you are creating both an awareness AND a persuasion campaign.
For your bond campaign to pass:
The community has to know about it. Have you ever gone to the polls, seen an initiative you didn’t recognize and immediately checked no? This happens every election season! Making sure your community knows your bond initiative is on the ballot is the first step to a win. In a sales funnel, this would be the “awareness” step.
The community must understand it. Once your voters know about the initiative, they must understand:
what a bond initiative is,
exactly what the money will fund,
why it is important, and
how it impacts them personally.
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Ensure your messaging answers all those questions and use it with all of your communications. Your community will likely have questions, too. Consider hosting community feedback sessions at your schools, in community centers or in faith-based hubs. Offer in-person and online options to ensure you’re including your whole community.
Lesson 2: “Sell” Your Local Economy
Want to win? That means engaging voters who don’t have children in school. Those community members may feel disconnected from your district – or worse, resentful of a potential tax hike. Explaining how passing the bond initiative will improve the local economy can be a successful strategy for this audience.
Speak to your community’s values. While not all adults in your community will have children in schools, most will care about things like their home’s value and safety in their neighborhoods. Explain the bond’s benefits to the local economy to make it personal! For example, a good school system both teaches and brings in talent for local businesses and positively impacts home and property values as well.
Focus on safety in your messaging. It’s hard to find a person who wants children attending unsafe schools. Explain to your audience that students are at danger because of outdated HVAC systems, old security or rattling “temporary” school buildings. This message is proven to resonate with audiences even without school-aged children.
Give the community context. In many cases, voters hear “huge” bond numbers and see the dollar signs circling. Show them what the numbers really mean for them! For example, in a winning campaign, one Oregon school district shared that for homeowners with a property value of about $300,000, the tax increase would be less than $100 a year. Using comparisons can be a great tactic here.
Looking for more key takeaways? We’ve broken down three more targeted recommendations in our Winning Public School Bond Campaigns resource.
Now go WIN that campaign! We’re cheering you on.
