Frequently Asked Questions
If you cannot find an answer to your question in the FAQ, please use the help form to contact us. Members with user accounts should make sure to log in before filling out and sending their help request.
Questions About the Campaign For Liberty
| What is the Campaign For Liberty's purpose? |
Our Mission Statement reads: "To promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity." For more information, please visit our About page. |
| What type of organization is the Campaign For Liberty? |
The Campaign for Liberty is a
501(c)(4) non-profit organization. A "501(c)(4)" is an organization
not organized for profit and operated "exclusively for the promotion of
social welfare." It is essentially a tax designation. There are
many different tax categories for political organizations, each with
its own pros and cons. In our case, the pros include having no
limit on the amount that individuals may donate, while cons include a
restriction from endorsing political candidates. Those who would
like to donate to an organization that can support political candidates
should donate to a Poltical Action Committee (PAC) such as the Liberty
PAC. Donations to 501(c)(4)'s are NOT tax deductible. |
| How does my state become an official Campaign for Liberty partner? |
The ability to become an official partner is dependent upon activity in the state; each state is different. When a sufficient number of Local Coordinators have signed up, a partnership may be formed and leadership will be formally elected by members. The distribution of Local Coordinators across the state is also a factor. Interim state coordinators are consulted to aid in determining the formula to be used for each state. Once a partnership is created, state organizations will be run with their own budgets, largely autonomous from HQ. |
| Who is on the National Staff? |
The staff roster is shown here. |
| How do I contact Campaign for Liberty? |
Contact information can be found here. |
| Where can I find financial records for Campaign for Liberty? |
For a copy of Campaign for Liberty's most recently released IRS 990 Form click here. You may also obtain a copy of this information by calling our Springfield Office at (703) 865-6271, sending an e-mail to teri.capshaw@campaignforliberty.com, or sending a self-addressed, stamped, envelope to Campaign for Liberty, Attn: Teri Capshaw, 5211 Port Royal Rd., Suite 310, Springfield VA 22151. |
Profile/Account Questions
| I've signed up as a member of Campaign for Liberty, but I don't remember receiving a username or password. I don't seem to be acknowledged on my state page... it's as if I'm no longer a member! |
On October 1, 2008, the Campaign For Liberty launched the website in its present form. Before then, our website did not have an option for members to set up user accounts with user names and passwords, and our members did not consent to having their names displayed on our website. Therefore, although you may be on our email list, and you are a member, you are not listed on our website and are not able to participate on our website until you sign up for a user account. You can sign up for a free user account here. |
| I'm trying to create my profile page. I would like to be able to view the HTML code as I develop it. Is there a way to do that?
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An editor is provided for you to add formatting, graphics, video, etc. to your profile page. HTML is not available for profile pages at this time. For more information about the text editor, click here.
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| I want to upload photos for
others to see. How can I do this? |
Because photos take a lot of
website space, we recommend that you use a free photo management
application like flickr.com. You can upload your photos there,
then provide a link to them. |
| Can I upload documents to my profile
page? |
At this time, documents (including audio and video) may not
be uploaded to the website due to space constraints. It is
recommended that you store your documents on another website
and provide links to those documents. |
| It looks like I was charged
twice for my membership fee. What could the problem be? |
For check cards, most banks will hold the funds for 2 or 3 days. But not all banks release funds as quickly—it could take up to 5 days. This "pending" time is the period where you may think you have been "charged" twice. As soon as the corresponding amount is matched up with the amount held, it is released. The pending transaction is simply removed from the transaction list on your account. At that point it's as if that transaction never took place, and as a result, the account balance goes back up.
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| I entered wrong
information while signing up and can't find a way to change or update it. Help! |
Simply log in and send us your correct information using the help form on this website.
We will update it as soon as possible. If you do not log in it will take longer to process your request. |
| I want to change my password and/or address. How do I do this? |
Simply log in and select "Edit account/profile settings" in your Dashboard. You will find the option to change your password and address there. Coordinators must send in a Help request is they want to change their address. |
| What is an avatar? How do
I create one? |
An "avatar" is an icon. On
our website, avatars can be no larger than 64x64 pixels. You can
use any .gif, .jpg, or .png file that is that small or smaller as an
avatar. You can use a photo editing program to re-size a larger picture down to size, and use that for an avatar. There are also many websites that provide free avatars. |
| My profile photo or avatar
doesn't meet the size requirement. What do I do? Why is there a size requirement? |
You can re-size your photo or
avatar by using a program like Photoshop, Paint or Paint Shop
Pro. For a free photo editor, check out paint.net (google
it). If you are unable to re-size your photo or avatar,
please send us a message through the help form and we
will help you. Photos and avatars must have a manageable size requirement to prevent a slow down of loading pages due to large photo files, and to prevent our server from being bogged down with large files. Dimensions are restricted to prevent pages from being stretched beyond normal size. |
| My profile photo or avatar meets
the requirements, but won't upload. What is wrong? |
Even within the three image
formats (.gif, .jpg, .png) there are many sub-formats
(interlaced/non-interlaced, indexed palette/24-bit palette, various
compression levels, etc) and sometimes they just don't work. We
are working to accommodate more image formats. After uploading your photo or avatar, your computer's browser "cache" (storage) will need to clear in order to see it. You can clear your cache by clicking "Tools" at the top of your browser page and following the instructions. |
| How do I delete my user account? |
Simply log in and use the help form on this site to let us know that you no longer will be needing your user account. |
Blog Questions
| I'm having trouble editing text in my blog.
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For more information about the text editor, click here. |
| Are my blog postings public information?
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Blog postings are searchable and bots may publish blog content and responses. |
| What are Campaign For Liberty's content standards for posting?
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You can find our content standards here |
| Why isn't my blog entry that I just published listed in the Recent Member Posts section on the front page? |
The standard is anything that follows our content standards and is fairly constructive and unoffensive gets put in the Member's Recent Posts section. To prevent objectionable content from appearing on the front page, all posts must be approved before they appear on the home page. We update this section several times a day, so don't expect your entry to be immediately posted on the front page. The Recent Member Posts section exists to showcase the hard work and insights of Campaign For Liberty members, but it cannot be constantly monitored. Therefore, members must accept that, from time to time, deserving entries might not appear on the front page, through no fault of their own. Also, if your blog post contains a recent news story we may add it to the Newswire (with a thanks to you, of course!) |
| Can I recommend a blog post to HQ for the Member Blog Spotlight? |
Yes; simply send your recommendation to Matt Hawes.
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| How do I find the blogs of other
members? |
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| Oops! I accidently banned a member from posting comments on my blog entry. How do I go about undoing that? |
Go to your dashboard and on the lower right-hand side (on the sidebar) you'll find the option to un-ban a fellow member from posting comments!
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| I have one post that I have checked that I wanted to be "sticky" and it is currently listed in the middle of my posts on my weblog. Why won't it stick to the top? |
You most likely have other entries that have been stickied. To change that, go to "Weblog" on the "My Dashboard" drop-down, find the sticky old entries and click where it says [Edit] and there will be an option to un-sticky the entry there.
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| I looked at my profile today and see that none of my recent blogs are showing up |
You will need to unsticky old blog posts so that newer ones will be listed on your profile.
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| Why are comments appearing above my entry? |
When you paste HTML from other websites, it isn't always valid... you may post the opening, but not closing, of a table. When this happens, the HTML puts everything after the end before the beginning of the table, which is why the comments appear above the entry. A good way to paste text from other websites is to copy it first into Notepad and then copy and paste it into the text entry box. It will keep the line breaks, but remove all the bad code and formatting. |
| I have my personal blog which I post to on a semi-regular basis and I'd like to be able to ping my profile or campaignforliberty.com blog so other C4L members can visit it. Alternatively, if I could set up an RSS feed within C4L and point it to my blog, I could get the data via that method. |
C4L has an RSS feed for each member's blog (note: although your login is case-insensitive and space work for underscores, your RSS feed is neither. If you are unsure, visit your user profile, right-click the link for your RSS feed, and choose "copy link" to copy the URL of your RSS feed to the clipboard). Your blog software may or may not support adding an RSS feed to your blog; check with your blog software. C4L does not provide tools for your member account to extract data from your personal blog and import into your C4L blog, but you should be able to do the reverse (post your C4L blog to your personal blog) using the RSS feed. We cannot support third-party software such as your blog, but can help troubleshoot if the RSS is for any reason invalid.
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Text Editor Questions
| I'm having trouble pasting text into the text editor. Why do I have to paste in plain text? How do I paste rich text into my blog/message/profile? |
A dialog box will prompt you to paste in as plain text because many people, copying rich text from Microsoft Word and other Microsoft products, inadvertently embed a lot of bad HTML that would look strange on the screen. You can still paste in using rich text by clicking the "clipboard with a W" icon (third from the right, top row) in the rich text entry form. Be sure to disable pop-up blocking for campaignforliberty.com. |
| How do I get a website address to show up as a hyperlink? |
Highlight what you'd like to turn into a link and then click on the image of a chain loop (left side of your text editor tools). You will then simply type in the entire URL into the pop-up box. If you do not type in a URL into the pop-up box the link will take you to the C4L homepage. |
| How do I paste a picture into the text editor? |
One way is to right-click an image on a website, then choose "Copy Image." Then, on this site, in a text editor, click the button that's a clipboard with the Microsoft Word "W" on it, and hit ctrl-V on the pop-up window to paste the image in. For more help, watch this instructional video by memeber JohnBaeza. |
| I have some Excel files that I would like to paste into a blog/message/profile. Is that at all possible? |
Due to space/security issues you cannot post file attachments at this time. You need to use a file hosting service (like filebucket.net or google docs) and link to the file using a hyperlink. You actually can paste Excel/OpenOffice selections into a blog by clicking on the Microsoft Word clipboard, and pasting into it. |
| How do I add a YouTube video to the text editor? |
Click the button that looks like a film strip, then copy the URL of the video.
This works for Google Video and others, too. For more help, watch this instructional video by memeber JohnBaeza. |
| When I write something on a blog or on my profile, it doesn't maintain paragraphs or spacing. It posts as one big, long paragraph. What am I doing wrong?
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Before you begin writing on your blog or profile, make sure that a toolbar is showing (options for bold, italics, font size, etc.). If not, just refresh and try again until the toolbar is visible. |
| My weblog doesn't do word wrap, so each paragraph is on one line, meaning that you can't read it without scrolling a very long way to the right, and back again. |
The reason why this happened was because of the usage of the <pre> tag. The blog normally adds line breaks automatically, but does not where the <pre> tag is used. Often this will happen when people copy material from Microsoft Word, other rich-text applications, or websites into their blog entry window. The HTML markup is automatically copied in, which may cause problems. One easy remedy for the non-tech-savvy Windows user is to first paste the text you wish to copy into Notepad, then select the whole thing, copy it again, and paste into the blog entry box. Notepad doesn't do any text formatting, so it's lost when pasted, and overwritten with the plain text when you copy it out again. You may need to re-create the links and other special formatting, but it's a great way to get it right the first time. |
Mailbox and Messaging Questions
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Event and Announcement Questions
| What is the difference between
an Announcement and an Event? |
An Announcement is created for a
general action or informational item, and expires at a date set by the
coordinator that posts it. An Event is a calendar item with RSVP
capability. Both show up on your members' Dashboard, dependent
upon your specific area of responsibility. For example, a
Regional Coordinator's Announcement or Event will be viewable to the
members in that region. |
| Why do I not see announcements on the state, region, and county pages? |
Announcements are intended for private use and are not supposed to show up on public pages; they show up only on the dashboard. |
| How is an event created? Who creates them?
|
Paid members, Local Coordinators and Coordinators can create calendar events. Dues-paying members and Local Coordinators can create an event that is viewable by all members in their county. Coordinators can also create an event directly from their Dashboard or on their Coordinator Tools page (viewable by those of your choice). Keep in mind, calendar events are not emailed out to members, but they are automatically included in email updates for members with user accounts in your area. Click here if you are having trouble with your calendar. |
| How do I see who's coming to my event? |
Go to your calendar, select the event (should take you to calendar.php?rsvp=xxxx) and you can view who is coming below the event description. |
| My calendar item disappeared. What could the problem be?
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When creating an event, you must choose the beginning date/time and ending date/time. If the end date/time is not properly noted, your calendar item may quickly disappear. |
Miscellaneous Questions
| How do I stop my recurring donation? |
Please send us a message here. In the title, write For Adam: Stop Recurring Donation. In the message body please include your name, email address, and phone number.
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| What happens when I approve (or deny) a contact? Please explain the Contacts feature. |
If you accept someone as a contact, that means: 1) They appear on your "contacts" page for handy reference 2) Up to ten of them will appear on your profile page (you can pick which ten), and most importantly, 3) You have an option in your mailbox to send to "all of my contacts," thus providing an easy way to send a bulletin to all of your friends. If you reject someone as a contact, that just cancels the request, and it disappears from your screen. You might want to refuse or remove a contact if the person sends nagging or unproductive messages. |
| I went to the Leadership Summit back during the Rally for the Republic and would like to have the picture I took with Dr. Paul
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Leadership Summit pictures can be found at our C4LMembers flickr.com page. |
| I received a bizarre e-mail from
someone that claims to represent the Campaign for Liberty, but this
really doesn't seem like something you would support. |
Due to the
popularity of the Liberty message and the Campaign for Liberty's
connection to Congressman Paul, many individuals and groups have
violated our trademarks and solicited support using our name and logo
illegally. The only messages that are officially from the
Campaign for Liberty appear on our website, are sent via email
through our email service providers, Blue Hornet and Paramount, or are the new "daily digest." If a message seems
strange, it's probably not authentic. |
| How do I find my Congressional District? |
Go to this website and enter your full address (use your 9-digit zip code, if available). Your representative will be listed there followed by party and congressional district number. For example: Emanuel Cleaver (D-05) means you're representative is a Democrat in your Congressional District 5. |
| Who puts articles on the state news wires?
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Any state, regional, or county coordinator in the state may post wire articles.
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General Troubleshooting Questions
| Some pages look skewed or my computer crashes often. I'm generally having a rough time using this website. What is the problem?
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If you use the Internet Explorer browser, you may experience a few problems viewing pages or your computer may crash often. You may wish to download and use another browser such as Firefox for a cleaner web experience.
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| Why don't I get the regular email updates that everyone's talking about?
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Your email updates option is most likely set to 'No, just occasional announcements'. You'll need to go to your user settings and change your email options to 'Yes, ...' |
| I recruited someone but they didn't receive my invitation. What happened? |
Sometimes when an email is sent from websites that is unsolicited it may be rejected by the recipient's email provider. However, if you are the first person to send them an invitation and they do sign up, you will receive the credit for recruiting them.
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| A new sign-up's profile page keeps saying no one found and the website then takes me back to my dashboard. Why? |
Once in a while, for no particular reason, a profile page doesn't get generated when a new user signs up. But every night, a script scans the user records and generates all the missing profile pages. His profile is now visible, as the script ran a few hours ago. Please allow up to 24 hours from signup for the profile page to appear. |
| The counties were on the maps of the regional pages, and now they are not - we need counties. |
In Internet Explorer the map loads zoomed all the way in and looks like a gray square. Recommended solution is to download and use Firefox; the alternate solution is to zoom the map out.
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| I've tried twice, double checking myself, to make a donation. This is what I receive: "We're sorry, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Please check the card number and expiration date; if it is correct, please contact the bank that issued your card." I contacted the bank, with the reply that they are NOT RECEIVING the TRANSACTION, - because something is wrong with your web site. |
This message occurs when a credit card is declined. When that occurs, the bank doesn't see the transaction in the customer's history. But that's what causes that message to appear.
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| Sometimes when I view pages (e.g. profiles, state pages) the content is pushed too far to the right hand side and I believe it should stop in line with the right hand side of the C4L background. What's the problem? |
The problem is that one of the blog entries featured on the page included HTML code that was defined to be too wide, forcing the content beyond the edge of content area. The picture size may also be too wide (beyond 640 pixels) It's very likely that the error occurred because the entry was pasted from some other source, mostly likely but not necessarily MS Word. The only sure-fire way to prevent these problems is to either 1) write the entire entry yourself, or 2) copy/paste whatever you were going to paste into some other program first, then copy/paste it back out again. If the program you paste into and copy out again is Notepad or something similar, it'll lose the existing links etc, which may be tedious to re-make but at least it's foolproof. Another option is to use Mozilla SeaMonkey (a browser almost identical to FireFox, but it includes a page editor) and paste into the page editor. That will preserve rich formatting, but then again, you'll still need to double-check the HTML source to ensure there are no wide fixed-width tables, as was the problem in this case. |
Local Coordinator Questions
| What are the requirements of a Campaign for Liberty Local Coordinator? |
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/rne.php |
| What tools are available for a
Local Coordinator? |
Local Coordinators have access to the following tools: Local Coordinator Boot Camp (research links and the ability to store details about your precinct), Grassroots Training (video and articles), voter data for your precinct, and a private forum (to discuss strategies with other Local Coordinators and Coordinators). The voter data and forum are coming soon.
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| How do I find my County, Regional, and State Coordinator? |
You can view your leadership team on your Dashboard, which is viewable after you have logged in.
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| I thought I signed up as a Local Coordinator, but I don't show up as one on the website. | To be fully "vested" as a Local Coordinator, you must sign a Nondisclosure Agreement. If you are a paid member, you will find the link to this on your Dashboard, on the lower left-hand side of the menu under "Local Leadership." If you are a non-paying member, it will say "If you haven't done so yet, click here to become a paid member today!" If you are a paying member, it will say "You have paid the necessary dues to become a Local Coordinator. Click here to find out more and/or complete your enrollment in the Local Coordinator program." Simply click the link and sign! You will find the Local Coordinator tools in the same area after you have agreed to the NDA. |
| I thought I gave $35 already to be a member, but your site is requesting $35 to be a dues paying member. When I filled out the online form I gave my credit card info, and selected 'no' to give any additional funds. What did I do wrong? | It's most likely that you had
inadvertently checked the box for a free
membership, rather than a paid membership. If you do that and do
not donate anything extra, the credit card information is ignored and your
membership is processed only as a free account.
Please check with your credit card company or bank and confirm that your card has not been charged. If not, then you will find an option in the top of the blue sidebar on your dashboard to upgrade to a dues-paying membership. If you HAVE paid, please obtain a transaction number from your bank/credit card company, and contact us through the help form. We'll investigate and upgrade your account. |
| What is the difference between a
Campaign For Liberty Local Coordinator and a political party precinct
leader? |
The two are totally distinct. You can be a Campaign For Liberty Local Coordinator or a political party precinct leader (or "precinct delegate," "precinct committeeman," whatever your state party calls it) or both. The goal of a Campaign for Liberty Local Coordinator is to become active in your neighborhood, educate those in your precinct, rally issues and find good, capable people who share your goals to run for office. A Campaign for Liberty Local Coordinator is a dues-paying member with access to Local Coordinator tools. It is good to be a precinct leader for a political party because you will have a voice inside the party; sometimes only precinct leaders and party officials may vote at conventions. So, if you want your voice heard in the party, filing for precinct leader is an easy way to gain clout. Many times the position is vacant, and it costs little or nothing to file. Check with your local party to learn the process for becoming a party precinct leader. |
| I want to be a Local Coordinator for another precinct. Why can't I be a Local Coordinator for more than just my precinct?
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The goal is to have at least one Local Coordinator in each precinct. Local Coordinators are responsible for their own back yard. Acting as Local Coordinator in more than one precinct diminishes the ability to effectively manage the responsibilities of Local Leadership. If you believe your precinct is well-covered and would like the responsibilities of a County Coordinator (recruit, train, equip and mobilize Local Coordinators), contact your State Coordinator. |
| Why do I have to submit a support request to change my address?
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Only County, Regional and State Coordinators must submit a support request. If a Coordinator moves to another county, region, or state, a determination will need to be made if you can remain a Coordinator in your new location (there may already be someone in place).
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I completed all my Local Coordinator Boot Camp steps. Now I am going to move. Can the information be shared with another Local Coordinator? |
The information will not be shared. It is most effective if each Local Coordinator does the research required to get to know their neighborhood. |
Coordinator Questions
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