G8 is the Party’s funding scheme to help to campaign in local elections. The fund is made up of money given generously by the Federal Party, the English Party, the Scottish Party and the Welsh Party.
ALDC administers the fund on behalf of G8. The criteria and process are set by a G8 Committee consisting of representatives of all the four parties and ALDC.
Please note: that G8 is only for local elections, so is not to support the devolved Parliament/Senedd elections in Scotland and Wales. It does not support local authority by-elections (see ALDC’s Fighting Fund to apply for grants for by-elections or to donate).
For the 2021 local elections, G8 is looking to make a difference in four ways:
1. Ward Based Grants for Direct Mail
G8 will be paying for direct mail in target local election wards in 2021. This is direct mail which is printed and posted out by G8 to target voters in winnable wards.
This is the form of support that many of you may have seen before. We are offering two direct mailings that will be sent out to voters in your ward. The first mailing will, depending on the size of the ‘squeeze’ pool in your ward, be a squeeze mailing or survey. The second piece will then be a squeeze mailing. Having done this over a number of years, evidence shows us that squeeze mailing is the most effective form of direct mail that we can provide.
We will provide templates for the mailings and are working with Election Workshop to provide the logistics. We will also be offering additional support with artwork and selecting the right data but you must request these services when making your application.
To be eligible wards must have:
- a realistic chance of a Liberal Democrat gain.
- candidates in place.
- the expectation that across the whole authority there will be a ‘full slate’ of Liberal Democrat candidates (a candidate in every ward). We accept that there might be some special circumstances and you can explain these in your application.
Note: We will also fund a smaller number of challenging Liberal Democrat
defences.
Depending on the size of your wards/divisions, the absolute maximum number of wards/divisions we will support in a local authority area is between 2 and 5 (i.e. 2 very large wards to 5 smaller wards). If you have County and District elections on the same day we will take this into account when making these decisions.
We want to encourage Liberal Democrat candidates and councillors to be more diverse and representative of the communities we seek to represent. This is why we are asking for diversity information about your candidates and we will take this into account when making decisions.
The first piece of mail will be delivered w/c 15 February 2021.
The second piece of mail will be posted w/c 8 March 2021. This mailing is designed to land before election expenses begin.
The deadline for applications is 17:00 on Monday 9 November 2020.
To apply, please fill in the following Typeform
For enquiries, please contact: garethlloydjohnson@aldc.org
2. County Wide Tabloids
G8 will pay for up to 50% of the cost of a county-wide tabloid in areas with County Council elections (which includes those Unitary authorities which used to be Counties). Some teams may wish to provide ‘localised versions’ – i.e. the outer pages of the tabloid being different in different districts. You need to pay for this yourself, the cost is roughly £65 per edition.
A template will be provided by the Campaigns and Elections Team, for you to customise for your area. This is a tabloid newspaper (4 pages). Enough copies printed for you to hand deliver across target divisions or wards. These will be delivered to you before Christmas 2020 and we would expect most people to deliver these from 2 January 2021 onwards.
The costs of the tabloid (the full cost) are: 
Criteria:
- You must have County Council (or County Unitary) elections in this area.
- You need to tell us the target wards/divisions that the tabloid will be delivered in, and who the candidates are in each ward/division.
- You must have the expectation that across the whole authority there will be a ‘full slate’ of Liberal Democrat candidates (a candidate in every ward).
We accept that there might be some special circumstances and you can explain these in your application.
We want to encourage Liberal Democrat candidates and councillors to be more diverse and representative of the communities we seek to represent. This is why we are asking for diversity information about your candidates and we will take this into account when making decisions.
Applications need to come via a field team staff member (a Federal Party Campaigns and Elections, ALDC or Regional Party staff member).
Any of the above staff can submit an application, but to help you here is a list of one contact per region to get you started:
- North East – Thom Campion – rdo@northeastlibdems.org.uk
- Yorkshire and the Humber – Rob Jacques – robertjacques1981@yahoo.co.uk
- North West – James Baker – jamesbaker@aldc.org
- West Midlands – Joe Harmer – joe.harmer@libdems.org.uk
- East Midlands – Zöe Franklin – zoefranklin@aldc.org
- East – Jon Whitehouse – rdo@jonwhitehouse.org.uk
- South East – Will Forster – development@southeastlibdems.org.uk
- South Central – Tom Wood – tomwood@southcentrallibdems.org.uk
- Western Counties – Richard Pinnock – richard.pinnock@libdems.org.uk
- Devon and Cornwall – Caroline Leaver – carolineleaver@aldc.org
The closing date has now passed.
The deadline for submission of artwork will be Mon 23 November 2020.
The tabloids will be delivered in the w/c 21 December 2020. You will need to identify an individual and a single drop off point for delivery.
3. Strategic Grants
There are a small number of cash grants available for areas with local council elections that fall into one of two categories:
- Councils where we have a realistic chance of taking control in 2021 or 2022.
- Councils where we are part of the administration and may realistically lose this position in 2021 or 2022.
These grants are not open to application with decisions being made nationally in line with the Party’s strategic priorities. If you are to receive one of these grants a staff member from ALDC or LDHQ Campaigns and Elections will be in touch with you.
4. Kickstart Subsidy
Some G8 money goes to subsidise the cost of ALDC’s Kickstart weekend training events. This year that subsidy means that Kickstart Online will be delivered completely free of charge. ALDC would like to thank the G8 committee for their continued support for top quality training delivery within the party.
You can find out more about Kickstart Online – the full timetable is online now.
More about Kickstart Online (28-29 November 2020):