Candidate Training & Campaign Management School

USHLI's Candidate Training and Campaign Management School is a 21-hour seminar course for candidates on "how to" run for public office and for volunteers on "how to" manage an election campaign. The seminar course may be offered in any local community having enough persons interested in taking the course. Shorter training versions (nine hours) are also available. Hispanics are so under-represented at all levels of government that there is no time for well meaning and well qualified candidates to lose because they were unprepared to run. In addition to having candidates who know how to run, the Hispanic community needs to have campaign workers who know how to win. That is what this program is designed to do.

Curriculum Fundamentals

The curriculum, which is the same one for candidates as it is for campaign managers, includes research, selecting a campaign committee, effective fundraising skills, media utilization techniques, identifying winning issues, volunteer recruitment and deployment, polling, field operations, formulating winning campaign strategies, targeting, press communications, advertising, etc.

This Candidate Training and Campaign Management School is designed to lead the community beyond civic participation - to elected representation, which is essential to having a more inclusive debate with a greater variety of viewpoints on the issues of the day. But the purpose of this program is not only to create a greater number of Latino elected officials with the skills, talent, and expertise necessary to serve their constituents well, but also to promote the values of servant leadership and community empowerment.

Requirements

A minimum of 15-20 participants is required in order to schedule a Candidate Training and Campaign Management School. The program is open to citizens as well as non-citizens. Participants who are eligible (citizens of voting age) must be registered to vote and willing to pay a small fee for the course, which must be paid in advance. Upon completion of the seminar, each participant that successfully completes the course will be allowed to keep the course manual as a reference guide. Graduates are also asked to complete an evaluation form to help course instructors make improvements and modifications to the seminar.