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1. Design the first tests to need almost nothing from the campaign. "Execute a test with us" sounds like asking a stressed campaign manager to co-run a science project. But the highest-value first experiments are holdout slices of programs campaigns are already buying: they're sending 20,000 social-pressure mailers anyway — the ask is "let us randomly withhold 2,000 and we'll tell you, from the public voter file after the election, exactly what your mail bought you." That's not a favor to you; it's free program evaluation for them. Zero budget risk, zero execution change, and turnout outcomes are administrative data you can collect without their cooperation after election day. Trust required: minimal. This works before you have any authority.

2. Borrow credibility instead of building it from scratch. Two parties are hungry for exactly what you have. Academics need field sites — the entire GOTV literature exists because researchers found campaigns willing to lend their programs; a PI partnership gets you IRB cover, free analysis labor, and instant methodological authority in front of funders. Vendors (relational apps, texting platforms) desperately need independent validation to sell — they'll co-fund tests and recruit their own campaign customers for you. Notice both of the gray-lit decks we found in your corpus were vendor/funder-commissioned tests kept confidential — publishing yours openly is itself the differentiator.

3. Bring funders a portfolio, not a demo. When you do go to funders, the pitch isn't "our tool is good" — it's "the evidence base for local races is thin (we can show exactly where — our own coverage data proves it), and for $X we'll run N randomized tests across M city-council and state-leg races in one cycle, published openly." Small races are where tests are cheapest, where the literature gaps are largest, and where your tool already scored 7/10. Funders fund designs, and you're uniquely positioned to show up with one — including the audit trail from this review as proof you grade your own homework.

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Testing Approach