CAMPAIGNING GUIDELINES:
These guidelines aim to ensure that all NAWIC elections are held in a fair and professional manner, befitting the organization's tradition and in adherence to its core mission. All campaign communications for annual elections by the National Association of Women in Construction should reflect the association's professional and business setting, whether from the national office, candidate, director, officer, or general membership.
General Membership:
1. As a member in good standing, it is recommended that you inform yourself through study and discussion regarding the current candidates for national and applicable regional positions.
2. Members can advocate for and campaign alongside candidates they believe will empower the organization to achieve its mission and vision. They must adhere to the same guidelines as candidates.
3. All campaigning and communication should be done professionally. Communication shall not defame or tarnish a candidate’s reputation, be detrimental in any way to the national, regional, or chapter organizations, or violate NAWIC’s Code of Conduct, Code of Professionalism, Code of Ethics, and NAWIC’s Social Media policy.
4. All campaign communications should be done via personal email and not leverage any official email address furnished by national, region, or chapter.
5. NOTE: Use of any national, region, and chapter email for campaigning, endorsing or opposing is a violation of the NCC CoP COE.
Regions and Chapters:
a. Regions and Chapters are prohibited from using NAWIC funds to support the campaign of any candidate, not limited to but including the payment of communication software fees, travel, hotel and/or other travel expenses, or other campaign related expenses.
Candidates:
1. Candidates can announce their intention to run as early as the Fall Conference in the year prior to their being announced as certified candidates.
2. Candidates may campaign by any means of written or verbal communication.
a. All campaign communications must adhere to the NAWIC Code of Conduct, Code of Professionalism, Code of Ethics and NAWIC Social Media Policy.
b. All campaign communications should be done via personal email and not leverage any email address furnished by national, region or chapter.
c. All campaign e-mails must provide an opt-out option.
3. All placements and usages of the NAWIC logo must follow the brand guidelines and use only the approved national logo.
4. In order to campaign at a Region Event, including networking and podium time, any candidate including write-ins who is not the national representative, must have a personally paid registration for the event and work with the Region Director and their representatives regarding their intention to speak two weeks prior to the event.
a. Only exception to this is for travel, hotel, and/or other travel expenses when a Region Director is presiding over her Region’s event.
b. Any region event program ad is the candidate’s personal expense.
5. When a seated national officer is running for an additional term or different national officer position, that seated national president will assign only one region forum to that candidate as a national representative.
6. Candidates may campaign throughout the entirety of the campaign season. Campaign season will begin on February 15th or the day that candidate certification is communicated by the national office, whichever is earlier. Campaign season will end on May 31st.
a. Write-in candidate's campaign season begins on the date of candidate certification communication from the national office.
b. In the event of a run-off election, those candidates involved in the run-off will be allowed to continue campaigning up to run-off election day.
7. Post Election campaign guidelines
a. Candidates may not communicate election results to anyone prior to an announcement by the National Office.
b. Candidates may request their individual results by region from the National Office after they have been notified.
Region Directors:
Region Directors, as representatives of the national board, must show all available national candidate videos supplied by the national office unless a region-specific video is provided within the time frame stated above in candidate guidelines. All candidates in attendance at the forum must be given equal podium time if they are paid registered attendees or assigned national representative. Those not in attendance can elect to have a representative speak on their behalf or speak virtually if available. The representative may not be a seated member of the National Board.