Even with government funding and international grants, voter education projects can require additional funding. There is even the possibility that, if additional funding can be acquired for certain projects, this can extend the reach of other aspects of a national programme.
Certain types of projects lend themselves to cost recovery or self-financing; and there are certain institutional arrangements that provide better ways of doing this type of work. This section defines cost recovery, suggests that some voter education programmes can pay for themselves, and explains how to set up a system to achieve this.
What is Cost Recovery?
Most nonstatutory organisations involved in voter education are registered trusts, charities, or nonprofit organisations. They do the work they do for the public interest. In terms of their national or international legal status, they are not profit-making companies.
However, they can recover their costs of doing business from a client or from a third party. These costs will certainly include, if carefully budgeted and billed, the costs of project development, organisational overhead, and future project sustainability.
What about Commercial Activities?
As voter education becomes a more specialised activity, and with the advent of voter education programmes being tendered out (competitively bid), there are companies that see the possibility of obtaining work on a commercial basis. This is true of suppliers to voter education organisations themselves, whether printers, commercial artists, advertising agencies, or distributors. Election authorities may be able to obtain the services of government agencies at cost, or to use their size to obtain special commercial rates, but nevertheless the majority of services are not offered pro bono.
Managing these services, whether as subcontracts or as primary suppliers, requires special attention and raises a number of separate issues. See Cost Recovery and Self Financing, Managing Contracts, and Commercial Advertising.
Making Voter Education Pay for Itself
There are a range of options open to programme planners.
Provide Education to Those Who Can Pay for It. Certain organisations have an interest in ensuring effective voter education for their members and are able to pay for this service. Companies, in particular, may consider civic education to be essential for their workforce. If they see the benefits of this in terms of higher levels of commitment to the company, less disruption due to political uncertainty, and improved human relations and decision-making skills, they are likely to include such training within their company budget.
In addition, they may be willing to cover the costs of materials and allow extra copies to be used beyond their company members.
Find Third-Party Paying Clients. Many companies also have social investment and marketing budgets that they may be willing to make available on a third-party paying client basis. Voter educators identify a target audience that has some links to the company. Perhaps it is the school children of company employees, or the security establishment in the vicinity of the company premises, or just the group that the company supports in other circumstances (disabled people, a theatre group).
An educational programme is designed for this group and the members are charged for the programme either on an individual or group basis. The third-party paying client picks up the bill.
Solicit In-Kind Contributions. While some companies or institutions may not be in a position to cover the costs of a voter education programme, they may be able to provide an in-kind contribution that reduces the over-all cost of the program. This might include the provision of office space, equipment, supplies, vehicles, or perhaps even staff persons.
Obtain Sponsorships or Local Advertising. Voter education materials go to large numbers of people. Companies may also want to associate themselves with the positive messages that are communicated. It is possible to structure arrangements in printed and broadcast material that enable companies to use their advertising budgets to cover costs.
As usual in these arrangements, advertisers are paying for exposure and do not have control over the message. But, they might have certain contractual expectations that have to be met: the number of people to whom the message goes, the quality of the production, and the nonpartisan and professional attitude of the message. Advertisers want professional service and do not want to become associated with slipshod workmanship.
This applies whether the advertising that is being sold is for a simple local newsletter in which the local butcher and corner shop will receive exposure or whether it is a national broadcast on television during prime time.
Encourage Voter Education Messages on Commercial Products. Companies distribute their own products. They pay for their production. It is possible to encourage them to do special election runs of their packaging. Many dairies and breakfast cereal packages are designed to support competitions, short run campaigns, and so on, and these have been used to advertise missing children and various health campaigns. Providing companies with a set of logos and standard messages that can be printed on packaging is a simple way to cover distribution and production costs.
In addition to products, many companies run their own in-house newspapers and newsletters. Standard articles will find acceptance in these media at no cost other than the basic preparation and focussing of the article.
Set Up the Necessary Systems. To run these and other cost recovery programmes, voter educators will need to set up a range of systems that are often beyond the normal order of business for either nongovernmental organisations or election authorities.
They will need to have a licensing operation to prepare and monitor the use of standard messages and logos, a billing department that can track and invoice all commercial and contract activity, and an agency that can handle the booking and placement of advertising.
The point of such activity is two-fold. It needs to generate income that can then enable other nonincome producing programmes to be extended. It needs to assess opportunities for low-cost or no-cost distribution of voter education messages through interaction with the marketplace.
It is essential to understand the purpose of this activity. Otherwise, it could gain its own momentum and begin to dominate decisions about where to place resources. It should also be kept entirely separate from decisions about the handing out of commercial contracts to do voter education or to supply services, or else it could lead to rather messy conflict of interest and
commission or fraud controversies. A company could easily decide to sponsor a publication in order to ensure that a printing job is given to them, and similar controversies are limited only by the imagination of the commercial sector.
