Success story
Building budgeting software for a political campaign startup
Managing a budget for a business or household is relatively straightforward. Managing one for a political campaign is a whole other story. Political campaigns need to raise a bunch of money along their run and then artfully spend it down at key points in time. Even for seasoned political campaign managers, this can be a challenge. Tracking funds from donors, managing a spending plan, and making sure money gets out the door on time is a big job.
Managing the Old-fashioned Way
Conner Johnston and Josh Wolf know this challenge all too well. Both
are seasoned campaign managers and have led teams for several
democratic runs.
During their time as managers, they solved the unique challenges of
budget management for their campaigns by working together on an
intelligent (and massive) spreadsheet that crunched their numbers in
just the right way. And they knew they had something great.
“We knew we were onto something when our colleagues from other campaigns
asked us for a copy of the spreadsheet”, said Conner.
Their spreadsheet was so in demand that Conner and Josh decided they
wanted to build a business around it with a brand new web app.
That's when they started My Warchest: a suite of innovative tools
to help progressive campaigns win.
Innovations with the help of Elevate Digital
My Warchest retained Elevate Digital to build out their web application.
The team knew they needed something elegant and fast to compel campaign
managers and to remove the sluggishness of traditional spreadsheets.
Right from the start, it was clear that there should be one primary
focus: give users the experience of the spreadsheet but take away the
spreadsheet itself.
Elevate Digital was able to answer that call by drawing on experience
moving spreadsheet-managed data into a modern and polished web app. This
meant extracting the key concerns of the user from the spreadsheet
experience and providing an intuitive user interface to get the job done
without worrying about the underlying mechanics.
The design and ergonomics of the app that Elevate Digital provided were key to its success amongst managers. Users love how easy it is to reason about their expecting donations and how to spend down at the appropriate times.
Key Feature Areas for Campaign Success
A prime example of this reinvention is Warchest's budget area. It
has things one would expect from a budgeting app like topline
aggregates and department breakdowns. But it also includes a budgeting
interface that is specifically geared towards political campaigns.
Managers are able to quickly unroll their departments by months,
weeks, or days leading up to the big day and to apply their numbers
accordingly. For situations where the spend should be evenly
distributed across time, the app provides an intelligent
cost-spreading feature.
Forecasting donations has always been a tricky endeavor in campaign
management. Harder still is a way to visualize and reason about when
the aggregate donations might land. This is where Warchest brought
innovation to the table. With the help of Elevate Digital, an
intelligent donation forecasting tool was designed and implemented
that gives managers a clear view of the funds they can expect and when
to expect them. Visualizations into this forecast allow managers to
have confidence in their spending decisions right down to the day
level. This feature area has been a key reason for Warchest's
success amongst managers and is something that sets them apart from
the competition.