When should you start planning for the B.C. election? Right now.

Registering, fundraising, organizing—here are the essentials your third party organization must do now to get ready for 2024.

B.C.’s next provincial election, if all goes according to plan, will be October 19, 2024. 

No matter where your organization falls on the political spectrum, or what your relationship with the current government is, the campaign period is a ripe opportunity to get your message out there. Between now and the election, politicians are developing their platform commitments. Journalists are looking for topics to throw at them. Voters are searching for issues that resonate with their lives. And your supporters and members are looking for you to speak out for them. Make sure your key issues and your priorities are top of mind.

B.C. has some of the strictest laws for third party advertising in the country. And if you don’t plan early, you risk being ineffective in your third party election campaign.

Here are the steps to make sure you are ready:

1. Register as a “Third Party Advertising Sponsor” with Elections BC

A Third Party Advertiser (TPA) is any organization that advertises in the provincial election, that is not a political party or candidate. This includes charities, non profit organizations, and unions. 

During the pre-campaign period (60 days before the writ), TPAs can only spend up to $150,000 throughout the province on advertising that promotes or opposes a party or candidate, and only up to $3000 in a single riding opposing or supporting a specific local candidate.

During the campaign period—after the writs are issued, typically 28 days before election day—TPAs can again only spend up to $3000 in a single riding opposing or supporting a specific local candidate, or up to $150,000 throughout the province—this includes any advertising that promotes or opposes a party or candidate or takes a position on an issue associated with a party or candidate.

TPAs must be registered and file disclosure statements with Elections BC, and any advertising must include their name and contact information.

What counts as election advertising? Find out here.

2. Build your strategy

A solid election strategy (okay, a non-election strategy, too) starts with two questions: What is your goal? Who are your audiences? 

With the answers to these questions you can build out the rest of your plan: what is your message? What will the creative look like? Where will the ads appear?

Sure, it’s fun to produce impactful creative for elections. But if they aren’t rooted in a solid strategy—you don’t have a well-defined goal or a specific target audience—you won’t have an effective election campaign. And with spending limits being only $150,000 in the pre-campaign and $150,000 in the campaign period, you can’t afford to squander anything away.

What is your goal?

This is going to sound like a broken record, but we see so many poorly crafted goals that it needs to be said: Make sure your goal is SMART.

Hint: If your goal is “To elect [party X] as the government” it isn’t SMART. “To get the next governing party to commit to expanding the $10-a-day childcare program and train 1,000 new Early Childhood Educators” is a SMART goal.

Who is your audience?

With spending limits of less than $150,000, there are only so many British Columbians you can reach. This means that your audience should be defined with detail and chosen deliberately. 

It is important to identify your audiences as specifically as possible. “Parents with children in elementary school in Victoria” is a tighter audience than “People who care about education”—the more specific you can be, the more effective your creative will be and the more strategic you will be with your ad spend.

Unsure of who to target? Think about who your goal will be most appealing to, and where it is politically the most strategic to leverage. 

For example, let’s pretend you are a childcare organization. If you know that you will have the most support in a progressive city with lots of working parents, like our example of Victoria, that would be a great geographic target for your campaign.

Next layer on a political perspective. Where is there a high-profile candidate, like a party leader or former minister, who might be likely to support expanded childcare? Where is there a candidate who is a parent, who might personally identify with the challenges of finding affordable, accessible childcare? Which candidate might be looking for an opportunity because they are behind in the polls or won a previous election by a very thin margin? These are the ridings where you can make the biggest impact.

Next, sketch out what you want your audience to think and do as a result of your campaign. This will help you flesh out your strategy, creative, message, and call to action. Each part of that question—think and then do—speaks to a different part of your campaign, raising awareness and taking action, respectively. In particular, the question “what do you want your audience to do?” will be the key to pushing your issue forward during an election campaign, so make a list of the opportunities—attend a town hall, write a letter to a candidate, write an op-ed, vote—that are going to be available to your audience of potential action takers to bring your issues forward into the political arena.

3. Start fundraising

Yes, you heard that right. In B.C. elections, TPAs can only use funds from Canadians and permanent residents who have consented to having their money put towards election advertising.

This means unions who want to put member dues towards their election campaign, or nonprofits who gather donations from people who support their cause, all must have written consent and confirm the contribution is from an eligible person. Getting this consent can be done however works best for your organization, including by filling out this form provided by Elections BC, as long as it provides a record of the donor’s name, address, and amount and date of contribution.

Each individual can donate up to $1401.40 in 2023. In 2024 this number will likely be a little higher. 

A contributor can provide consent when they make the donation or afterwards. If giving consent afterwards, they must do it before the contribution is spent, or before 24 months has passed since they made the contribution, whichever comes first.

For organizations who depend on fundraising to keep their lights on, this is a great angle to start building an EOY fundraising campaign around. And you can use it twice, ask donors to contribute to the limit in 2023 and again in 2024.

If you are putting previously-made donations or member dues towards election advertising, technically you will not be fundraising, rather you are asking them to give consent retroactively. But the approach is the same. You need to convince supporters and members of the value of supporting your election work. You need clean supporter or member data with contact information, a compelling narrative, an motivating theory of change, and a dependable tech stack to help it all run smoothly.

Why start now?

Getting a jump on filling your election coffers will allow you to essentially double your contributions—your supporters/members can give in 2023 and 2024. But that’s not the only advantage. 

Between research and testing, learning about your audience, and designing your creative and suite of impactful ads—a good election campaign takes months to produce. 

What’s more, the ad market becomes really competitive during campaigns, so the earlier you can book your out of home, tv, or radio spots, the more impactful you’ll be. Plus, you want to get your frame out first and crystallize the narrative of your issue in voters’ minds, before anyone else does.

Not sure where to start? We can help. Point Blank’s team of creatives and strategists does it all—strategy, fundraising, lead acquisition, organizing, media buying, creative of all shapes and sizes, database management, and web development. (We also have a few ideas about how to gather your contributors’ consent in smooth and streamlined ways.) Find out how we can help get your third party campaign off the ground.