Meet the Trainer: Stacey Chavis on Why Your Mom (or BFF) Should Be Your First Official Campaign Fundraising Call
A Georgia-based political strategist and fundraising trainer on the mistakes campaigns keep making, why a personal touch still wins, and what it actually takes to run in a red state.
TL;DR
Your first fundraising calls should go to the people who already love you. Get some early yeses under your belt before you go wider.
Nobody is going to donate just because they heard you’re running. You still have to ask. Every single time.
Boring, one-size-fits-all messaging is not working, and until Democrats get serious about issue-based, community-specific communication, we’re leaving voters on the table.
At NDTC, our trainers aren’t just instructors. They’re organizers, strategists, and advocates who bring hard-won experience into every session. In this series, we’re introducing you to the people behind our trainings.
Today: Stacey Chavis, a political strategist and trainer based in Atlanta, Georgia, with over 20 years of campaign experience. Stacey has served as finance director and deputy finance director for the Georgia Democratic Party, worked for several members of Congress, and spent years as a regional director training candidates across the South. She also volunteers with the League of Women Voters, where she works on voter engagement and voting rights. We sat down with her to talk about the most common fundraising mistakes, what the party needs to do differently in red states, and what she’d tackle first if she had unlimited resources and a magic wand.
NDTC: You work in Georgia, which means you’re running Democrats in tough terrain. If you could wave a magic wand and change how the party approaches red states, what would you do?
Stacey: Throw out the boring messaging. The tried-and-true, we’ve-always-done-it-this-way message is not working. It is not working. You need different messaging to reach your 18-to-35 voters. You need different messaging for people in the middle. You need different messaging for senior citizens. One size does not fit all, and pretending otherwise is costing us elections.
I’m an older millennial. My boomer parents took me to vote. They taught me about the history of how Black people in the Deep South fought for and won the right to vote, and those stories matter to me deeply. But those stories do not automatically resonate with every voter in every community. We have to do the work of figuring out what actually moves people where they are.
And for me, that means issue-based messaging that’s specific to the community you’re actually in. I’ll give you an example that might sound small but isn’t: in the city where I live, there was a debate about whether trash pickup should happen once a week or twice a week. For some people, once a week is fine. For families with a lot of people in the house (kids, extended family, lots of activity), twice a week is a real quality of life issue. People want green spaces. They want a park they can actually get to, not one that’s 25 miles away. They want safe transportation. They want good public schools. They want to know someone is paying attention to the texture of their actual daily lives.
We have to get back in the lab. Come up with new, creative ways to talk about these issues. And stop making it about how bad the other side is. Tell people what you’re going to do when you get elected. How are you going to vote on their behalf? What changes when you win? That’s the message that breaks through.
NDTC: How would you describe your training style?
Stacey: Direct, and fun. I’m here to give information and to listen. I want to make sure that questions get answered and concepts get broken down. I live by the four agreements, and I don’t make assumptions about what people already know. There is no stupid question in my room. I want people to have a good time with whatever time we have together.
I always bring stories from the field. Over the course of a 20-year career, you accumulate a lot of them: things that worked, things that didn’t, things that you definitely do not want to repeat. That’s what I’m there to share.
NDTC: What’s the most common mistake you see first-time candidates make with fundraising?
Stacey: Not setting aside enough time. So many candidates think they’ll do an hour a day and then move on to other things. In the beginning, you may want to reconsider that.
One of the things I love to do in fundraising trainings is walk through what I call circles of influence. Picture a series of circles expanding outward. The one in the very center is your family and your close friends. That’s where you start. Those are your first calls, the people who already know you, already believe in you, already want you to succeed. You get some yeses under your belt. You raise some real money. You build momentum.
I always tell people: if I ever run for office, the first three calls I’m making are to my mother, my father, and my brother. They all happen to live in the same house, so it’s really one call, but my point stands. Start with the people who love you. Work your way out from there.
And here’s the other thing nobody tells you enough: a “no” is not an indictment of you or your campaign. People have limited dollars. They have other races they’re supporting. I actually had a colleague call me earlier this year asking for a contribution, and I had to say no. Not because I didn’t want to support him, but because I live in Georgia, where we have elections all day, every day, and I was simply tapped out. When someone can’t give financially, they might still be able to volunteer, make calls, or help in other ways. Move on quickly, and keep the relationship.
NDTC: What’s something about fundraising that surprised you when you learned it?
Stacey: People will give if you ask them. That sounds obvious, but candidates get this wrong constantly. They put their candidate hat on, they get the word out that they’re running, and then they just... wait. They assume people will show up with a check.
You still have to ask. You still have to call your mother and ask. You still have to call your grandmother and ask. The assumption that people will give because they heard you’re running is one of the most costly mistakes a first-time candidate can make.
And when it comes to higher-dollar donors, that ask needs to be personal. I know it’s 2026 and people think they can handle everything digitally. But there is something to picking up the phone and making direct contact, or better yet, sitting across the table from someone over a cup of coffee and making your ask in person. Those small personal touches make a real difference, and they pay off later. The donors who gave to you once are the most likely to give again if you need them. But you need to thank them first, genuinely, specifically, before you go back to ask again. A handwritten thank you note. A postcard. Something that says: I noticed your contribution, and it mattered to me. Whether someone gave you $5 or $500, they deserve that acknowledgment.
NDTC: Last one: if you had every resource you needed and could achieve any “first,” what would it be?
Stacey: I would be the first person to eradicate homelessness in the state of Georgia — for men, women, children, families, and veterans. I would work to make sure everyone had affordable housing, access to the resources and benefits they’re owed, and the workforce skills to build a stable life and never experience homelessness again. That’s what I’d do. Make sure that everybody, especially in the summer heat we have here in Georgia, has a home with air conditioning, a roof over their head, and a door that closes and locks.
Stacey Chavis trains Democrats across the country through NDTC and is based in Atlanta, Georgia. She also volunteers with the League of Women Voters; if you want to get involved in voting rights and voter engagement work, find your local chapter at lwv.org. Her next NDTC training, Tech Time: Setting Up a Virtual Phone Bank, is coming up on July 27th.
Everything Stacey teaches – the circles of influence, the personal ask, the thank-you note, the messaging strategy – is available to any candidate or organizer who shows up. As always, NDTC trainings are completely free. No cost, no gatekeeping, no strings attached. Just the tools you need to run and win.
Sign up for Stacey’s July 27th training, and all upcoming NDTC trainings, at TrainDems.org.
Connect with us everywhere!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/traindems/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/traindems/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@traindems
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/traindems.bsky.social
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/traindems
Twitter: https://x.com/TrainDems