TL;DR
NDTC’s Fundraising Staff Cohort, a 7-week fundraising training program, just wrapped with 200+ enrollees and real results for learners.
We’re bringing that same energy to the field starting with the Campaign Field Bootcamp on Saturday, May 2nd at 11 AM ET.
Register now. Space is limited to 100 people, and this is the training your campaign needs before the season heats up.
Seven weeks ago, we launched something big.
NDTC’s Fundraising Cohort, Fund the Win, brought together candidates and campaign staff for a structured, seven-week deep dive into the fundamentals of fundraising. And we mean it when we say cohort: weekly live sessions, a consistent community, and a commitment to building skills that stick.
Now that it’s wrapped, we want to share how it went and give you a preview of what’s coming next.
Why Fund the Win Worked
More than 200 people enrolled in our Fund the Win cohort when we opened the doors. Week after week, they showed up on Wednesday evenings to dig into the mechanics and mindset of fundraising from making the ask to refining their messaging to actually picking up the phone.
We’ve offered this curriculum for years, but what made the cohort different was the community.
Participants (what we call our “learners” at NDTC) came back every week ready to learn, ask questions, and apply what they were gaining in real time to their own campaigns. By the end of the seven weeks, something had shifted in the conversations, in the questions being asked, in the way people were talking about call time.
Fundraising can feel intimidating. It can feel like you’re asking someone for a favor, or worse, like you’re bothering people. One of the core goals of Fund the Win was to reframe all of that to help learners see fundraising not as a burden, but as a skill. One they could own, practice, and grow into.
Mission accomplished.
What Learners Are Saying
The feedback from Fund the Win learners says it better than we can:
“Re-framing call time and asking for money as an opportunity for the donor rather than an inconvenience has been really helpful.”
“The templates make it much easier to apply what’s being learned — they help overcome the initial anxiety of doing things correctly.”
“I love the community. The live training is especially useful because trainers share their experiences, and we can ask questions in the chat.”
That last one gets at something we heard again and again: the live format matters. There’s a different energy when you’re in a room (even a virtual one) with people who are in the same boat as you — asking the same questions, facing the same fears, and cheering each other on. We offer this format along with our on-demand courses to meet learners where they’re at and best serve their needs.
What’s Next: A Field Game Focus
Fund the Win showed us what happens when Democratic infrastructure invests in campaign staff and their development. Learners come in shaky on their confidence, and they leave with solid skills, tools, and a community. Ready to execute a winning campaign.
If fundraising is the fuel of a campaign, the field is the engine. Door-knocking, voter contact, volunteer recruitment, and organizing infrastructure is where campaigns are won or lost. So we’re dedicating the same structured training to it that we brought to fundraising, and it’s right around the corner.
Our Campaign Field Bootcamp: Laying the Groundwork to Win is a single Saturday morning session designed to send you back to your campaign ready to work, and it’s happening on Saturday, May 2nd at 11:00 AM ET.
This bootcamp is designed to give field staff and candidates the foundational skills they need to build a winning field operation, from turf cutting to volunteer management to the metrics that actually matter. Whether you’re new to field work or looking to sharpen what you already know, these are high-value, focused sessions you won’t want to miss.
Space fills up fast, so we’re giving you advance notice to save your seat today.
Why This All Matters
We’re building something at NDTC that the Democratic Party has needed for a long time: a real infrastructure to support the people who do the work and succeed.
Candidates, staffers, organizers. These are the people who knock on doors, make the calls, and keep campaigns running. They are the real face of the party in their communities. They deserve professional-grade support and training. Not just when they’ve already made it to a high-profile race, but early, when they’re just getting started, when the skills they build now will compound over an entire career in politics.
Fund the Win was proof of concept. And the Campaign Field Bootcamp on May 2nd is your on-ramp. Register today.
We’ll see you there.
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