Four Fundraising Lessons From Mitt Romney

In case you missed it, yesterday Mitt Romney organized a massive phone bank that raised $6.5 million -- and garnered him some good earned media. Not bad for a day's work (especially when someone else is doing the work!).

This was a smart campaign move. As Patrick Ruffini writes:

The most precious resource in any campaign is the candidate's time. The first half of the year will see each of the Big Three traveling to an unholy number of cities to do an unfathomable number of fundraising events. What's more, these events are very expensive to put on.

Now, obviously, your local campaign won't raise $6.5 million. But you can still learn these four lessons from Romney's big day:

1. The best way to raise money is to ask.
2. Events have a lot of over-head costs (including time). Asking for money over the phone doesn't cost much.
3. If you're creative, you can get earned media out of your fundraising.
4. Like Tom Sawyer, it's always good to have others do the work for you.

Now get to it ...