Final Weeks of Your Election Campaign: A 3-Step Guide

- Stick to your core school bond or advocacy message. Now is not the time for new talking points; repetition is a critical persuasion tool that helps your audience retain information.
- Share highly specific Get Out The Vote (GOTV) details. A great campaign only wins if people vote, so give your supporters granular information like polling hours, locations and early voting options.
- Prepare your post-election communication plan today. Decide whether your organization will issue a statement or not by using a clear "Speak Out or Step Back" framework.

We’re working on school bond campaigns.

We’re working on advocacy campaigns.

We’re making sure voters know which candidates are in favor of policies that support children and families.

You – our clients, colleagues, peers and friends – you’re busy.

No matter where you turn, the election is buzzy.

The final two weeks before the election are some of the most important – and therefore, some of the most challenging.

Here are a few reminders as you barrel towards November.

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

Now is not the time to introduce a new message to the mix. Use what you’ve got.

You should be repeating your key campaign messages over and over and over until you’re absolutely sick of saying them. When you’re sick of saying them? That’s when they’re just starting to click for your audiences.

Research shows that repetition can both make your argument (or campaign!) more attractive and build support for your cause. As a matter of fact, it’s a critical part of persuasion. In addition to this, when we learn through repetition, we remember the information better and retain it for longer.

Get Out The Vote (GOTV)

The clipart image includes a woman holding a sign and flyers encouraging people to vote. She's wearing an orange sweater and blue pants.

You could have the most memorable campaign in the world, but it doesn’t matter if the people who believe in your message don’t go vote. In addition to your campaign message, make sure that voters know how and when to vote.

The more customized this information can be, the better. If you can get as granular as sending someone their polling location and poll hours – do it. Talk to people about their early voting options. Make it easy for someone to make their plan to vote.

Prepare Your Post-Election Communication

No matter what the results are, I know many of us will be making the tough decision of whether to issue statements or responses about the election results. Or not.

We have a Speak Out or Step Back tool to help you decide.

Download the Worksheet

Inside you’ll find:

The five specific steps you can take when deciding if your organization should speak out or step back
A checklist that helps you walk through every step, from thinking through your organization’s contribution to your team’s capacity

Katie Test Davis
Katie Test Davis is the Founder and CEO of Forthright Advising. She has two decades of specialized experience in public relations and advocacy for the child and family sector. Having led in-house communications for three public school districts and managed strategic campaigns for national child-focused nonprofits, Katie understands the immense pressure leaders face during election season. She partners with districts, foundations and nonprofits to turn complex advocacy challenges into clear, data-driven strategies that build community trust and secure critical wins for children.

Forthright Advises

Final Weeks of Your Election Campaign: A 3-Step Guide

No matter where you turn, the election is buzzy.

The final two weeks before the election are some of the most important – and therefore, some of the most challenging.

Here are a few reminders as you barrel towards November.

5 Questions Every Strategic Comms Team Should Ask

I have a short, cautionary tale brought to you by my early-career mistakes. Here’s what’s in it for you:

My blunder is your happy guide to modeling a culture where asking great questions empowers everyone and makes your work better.

Early in my career in the U.S. Senate, I got a call from another Senate office asking my boss to sign onto important legislation.

There was just one teeny tiny problem… I didn’t know what to do next.

Nonprofit Form 990 Public Records: A Guide for Communicators

I am really good at communication. I am TERRIBAD at math.

Accounting, even for my own business, takes A LOT of focus and explanations for me to understand. My eyes glaze over at spreadsheets.

I’m telling you this so you believe me when I say that if I’m writing you an entire email about a tax form, it is directly relevant to your communications.

I don’t just dilly dally in tax forms for funsies. No ma’am, no way. But times they are a-changin, and as communicators, we need to tap into the 990 game.

But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Audience Engagement Strategies: Why Small Events Work

Have you noticed that people… aren’t reading stuff very closely right now? (Not you, you’re doing a great job reading this blog so far!)

Do you notice colleagues are more checked out than usual?

Burnout, compassion fatigue, cognitive overload – you name it, our audiences have it. We’ve got short attention spans, and even shorter fuses.

So what’s a communicator to do to get attention? Throw a party, of course.

How to Ghostwrite for Nonprofit Executives: A 5-Step Guide

While ghostwriting is absolutely one of my favorite projects, it's taken me years to get it right. (Or should I say write?). Today, I'm sharing some of my favorite best practices.

I’ve ghostwritten for more superintendents, CEOs and leaders than I can count. Here are the steps I never skip.

And for you CEOs and leaders who are getting ghostwritten for – these same tips apply!

Inclusive Leadership Language: Why Word Choice Matters

My first job after college was at a PR agency.

I was working with – and I’m not sure how else to phrase this – men’s men. Think: veterans starting their own government contracting businesses, construction CEOs, cybersecurity leaders and more. There was plenty of little lady-ing.

But there were also many, many lessons that I’m still using in my career today, 15 years later. I’m including one of my favorites, and some additional best practices, below.

Beat Decision Fatigue With a Simple Scoring Matrix

You know those days where you just want someone to tell you where we're going to dinner?

Sometimes, I get really tired of making decisions – partly because as busy leaders, we make decisions at work all day, every day.

We ask questions such as:

Should we complete this grant application?
Which events should we go to?
Is that conference worth it?

And sometimes, your teammates don’t agree on the answer.

That’s why at Forthright, we use – you guessed it – a data-backed approach to make these decisions.

Nonprofit Communications Lessons From Persuasive

In our world of child and family advocacy, few communicators have navigated the trenches quite like Marrianne McMullen.

From managing high-stakes crises in the Obama administration to shaping narratives at DC Public Schools – where I had the immense privilege of working for her – Marrianne has spent her career masterfully championing policies that support children and families. Today, she serves as the Director of Communication & Dissemination at Chapin Hall, an independent research and policy center focused on child and family well-being.

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of her book, Persuasive, I sat down with my former boss and mentor to reflect on what it takes to effectively move the needle.

How to Reframe Crisis Messaging to Inspire Action

When I say the word hope, I can hear some of you out there sighing through the internet tubes. And honestly, fair enough. In our field right now, hope can sometimes get packaged up like a vague platitude or a promise that misses the point.

But, hear me out. Today, I’m talking about the kind of hope that’s fierce and very, very practical.

Data consistently tells us that messaging has to trigger a sense of hope if you want to make sure your audiences don’t default to defensiveness.

Intergenerational Workplace Comms: 3 Tips to Connect

Age gaps exist all across the organization.

From your eager intern to your seasoned board members (and your program staff to your executive director), you're likely communicating across up to 40 years of generational differences.

Here are some tips and tricks to help you stay aligned.

Child Advocacy Collaboration: How to Stop Stalling Progress

When we launched our research process – the one that led to our new Frenemies + Jargon: Breaking the Habits That Stall Child and Family Advocacy report – I had suspicions about what we’d find.

We heard that as a field, we’re often fake friends.

Let’s break down what we heard and what we can do about it.

3 Ways to Help Your Busy Communications Director

Our average coaching client is a communications director. For the sake of this blog, let’s call her Chloe.

Chloe typically works at a public school district, a foundation or a nonprofit.

She landed in her director role coming from the policy, program or development team. She may only have a few years of direct communications experience, but she’s a natural.

Most of the time, she’s a team of one, and she’s carrying everything communications for her organization.

That’s where we step in as a coach.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek at what we normally help out with.

Sharing Bad News With Your Nonprofit Board Members

So, you need to tell your board of directors or your school board some bad news.

First, blerg. Sorry about that!

Second, we’re here to help.

I've had the opportunity to be involved in some excellent examples of how to do this well – and, unfortunately, I’ve also had to help clean up a few, um… shall we say, less-than-stellar attempts.

Here is a key approach that I’ve seen work well over the years.

How to Optimize Your Website for AI Search Engines

We know that right now, the families you serve, the partners you need, the funders you want to attract and the policymakers who need to know your work have completely changed how they use the internet.

The way they use conversational search on platforms like ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, and Gemini means we simply need to make sure your organization is the trusted AI citation your audiences find.

3 Easy Call to Action Tips for Your Communications Strategy

My cats have me trained.

Yeah, you read that right.

THEY trained ME.

Are we suckers? Oh, absolutely. No question.

Yet, there are some very solid communications lessons to be learned from being a human… trained by… a cat. Here’s what we can all learn.

Nonprofit Communications, Communications Campaigns, School District MarketingKatie Test DavisOctober 20, 2026school bond campaign strategy, nonprofit advocacy communication, get out the vote strategy, school district election messaging, pre-election checklist, post-election communication plan, GOTV for nonprofits, public school bond election, campaign message repetition, voter education strategy, mission-driven communications, advocacy campaign tactics