Everything a first-time Colorado candidate needs to legally launch a campaign: the decision to run, committee formation, filing officers, contribution limits, reporting calendars, disclaimers, fundraising, and the first 90 days. Cited to statute, constitution, and rule. One hundred pages. Twelve templates. Six emails. $149 flat.
Most first-time candidates get one of two options: a free PDF on the FEC website that explains nothing useful, or a $10,000 consultant retainer for things you could learn in a weekend. The Field Manual is the missing middle.
Four deliverables. All digital. Licensed to one campaign for one cycle, with every figure verified against the live Colorado and federal sources.
One hundred pages. Plain English, no filler. Eleven chapters running from "should I even do this" to your first disclosure report, with every limit and deadline cited to C.R.S., Article XXVIII, 8 CCR 1505-6, or, for federal races, 11 CFR.
Twelve fillable Word documents, each built to capture exactly what your lane's filing system asks for. The campaign ledger, committee registration and officer designation, donor records and refunds, the reporting calendar, bank reconciliation, the disclaimer cheat-sheet, call time, compliance and complaint response, race assessment, budget, and the launch timeline.
Six weekly emails after purchase, each one focused on a specific phase of launch. Know what you should be doing in week one, week two, week three — without re-reading the whole guidebook.
Your $149 credits in full toward any website tier. If you upgrade to Tactical, Operational, or Strategic within twelve months, the kit was effectively free.
Every chapter ends with a checklist, a list of templates that apply, and the deadline you should be hitting if you're on track.
The grind and what it costs. Privacy and harassment risk before you announce. A four-pillar self-audit, your why-me-why-now narrative, a worked vote-goal calculation, and the disqualifiers that mean wait a cycle. Then the office ladder, eligibility, and ballot access.
Which committee type your office actually requires, the candidate affidavit and its ten-day clock, where your affidavit goes, and registration before you raise or spend a dollar.
How to get an Employer Identification Number in twenty minutes, free from the IRS, and in what order. What the EIN is and is not. When a campaign genuinely needs a CPA.
The registered agent's real exposure, what the job consists of week to week, how to find one, when to add a second, and a candid look at serving as your own treasurer.
Which institutions will open a committee account, what to bring, the separate-account rule, card controls, and what to do the first time a personal card gets used by mistake.
For Colorado candidates running federal. Forms 1, 2 and 3, what triggers each, the indexed federal limits, the primary and general split that first-timers get wrong, and electronic filing.
The chapter you will use most. TRACER, your filing officer, and the Article XXVIII limits by office, laddered from special district and school board through municipal, county, legislative and statewide. Reporting calendars and the late penalty. Home-rule cities read their own schedule, and we say so.
Standing the processor up correctly the first time: limits configured, occupation and employer capture, the affirmations a donor must click. Then the donor ladder, the ask, and what to do in the first 48 hours when prohibited-source money arrives.
What must be recorded and when, the weekly and monthly routine that keeps it honest, disclaimers on physical material, and the ten things first-time campaigns get fined for. Templates for all of it.
Your domain, your hosting, your handles, your list. Why the committee must buy and hold the domain itself (a vendor who pays for it has made a reportable in-kind contribution), why the disclaimer size rule and a stock template footer do not survive contact, and why the do-it-yourself site builder is the most expensive cheap decision on the list. Plus locking every social handle before you announce.
Twelve weeks, five phases, each task pegged to the hard deadline it answers to. Domain and handles in week one, before any public filing. The site live at announcement, not after it.
The Field Manual is education, not legal counsel. We are not your attorney. We are not your CPA. We are not your treasurer. Final responsibility for the legal compliance of your campaign rests with you and the licensed professionals you retain.
Campaign finance law changes on a schedule and the manual is a snapshot of a moving target. This is Edition 2026.1, built for the 2026 Colorado cycle, and it expires at the end of it. Corrections reach every buyer free within the cycle; the next cycle needs the next edition. No guide replaces an attorney who knows your race and your circumstances.
For most first-time candidates, this gets you 90% of the way to a properly launched campaign. For the remaining 10% — the truly state-specific or situation-specific questions — get an attorney. The Field Manual will help you ask them better questions.
No. The Field Manual is educational. It explains how campaign finance and election filings generally work, with templates and checklists you can adapt. For binding legal advice on your specific situation, retain a licensed attorney in your state.
Yes, and that is the point. Every limit, deadline, filing officer and form in this manual is cited to Colorado law: the Revised Statutes, Article XXVIII of the state constitution, and the Secretary of State's rules at 8 CCR 1505-6. A guide that covers fifty states covers none of them well enough to file from. If you are a Colorado candidate running for federal office, the federal chapter is cited to 11 CFR and the FEC's own materials.
That is who it is built for. The Colorado chapter ladders from special districts and school boards through statutory municipalities, counties, the legislature and statewide office, because a special-district self-nomination and a state house run are not the same filing. Home-rule cities set their own limits by charter, so the manual tells you to read your city's own current schedule rather than printing a number that may not be yours.
You receive a $149 discount code valid for any website tier (Tactical, Operational, or Strategic) for twelve months from purchase. Stackable with the founders' cycle discount. If you never buy a website, the credit simply expires — no obligation.
Colorado adjusts its contribution limits each four-year cycle and the FEC re-indexes federal limits every odd-numbered year. Filing calendars and forms move too. This is Edition 2026.1, current for the 2026 cycle and expiring after it, and every page says so, because a candidate relying on a stale figure is the one thing this product must never cause. Within the cycle, corrections and any material change reach you by email at no cost. The next cycle takes the next edition.
Yes, within your own campaign. The Field Manual is licensed, not sold: one purchaser, one campaign, one cycle, non-transferable. Your treasurer, manager and household can all work from it. Reproducing it, reselling it, or passing it to another campaign is not covered, and those campaigns should buy their own copy.
No, and we would rather say so plainly before you buy than bury it after. This is a digital product. It arrives complete and instantly, and once it is on your machine it cannot be returned. All sales are final: no trial period, no cooling-off window, no refund for a change of mind or for deciding not to run. That is the trade at $149 instead of a consultant's retainer, and it is why the whole table of contents, every chapter description, and this answer are on the page before you reach the checkout. Buy it when you are ready to use it.
What we will always do is make sure you receive what you paid for. If a link fails or a file will not open, tell us and we will get the material to you. There is no time limit on that.
Immediately. Edition 2026.1 is finished and current for the 2026 Colorado cycle. You get the guidebook, all twelve templates, and your tier credit code on purchase, and the first email of the six-week walkthrough lands the same day.