Conservatives Theme Guide - Tim Wayne

This page last updated on 10 June 2014 @ 10:32 PM PST

Setup Guide for the Conservatives Theme v3

To start, you should do all of these:

Secure a domain name from a domain name host. NationBuilder recommends NameCheap. Godaddy is also OK.
Obtain a NationBuilder account. The account name should be the same as the domain name, minus the dot com. You should coordinate with the Tony Cox staff in order to get this set up properly.
Create a Facebook Like page for your campaign.
Create a twitter feed for the campaign if the candidate doesn’t have one. If you just created it, you will need to tweet out at least once.
You will also need:
- a good headshot of the candidate. If you don’t have one, get a placeholder (you can replace it with a better one at a later time).
- logo art for the campaign
- any preferred color palette choices (if any)
Compile a complete list of links to news articles you want on the site.
Compile a complete list of ANY video you want on the site - VIDEO IS GOOD. PEOPLE WATCH VIDEOS (even crappy Youtube videos)
Start a list of anything else you might want on the site.
You should have a Flickr OR an Instagram account for uploading good campaign event photos (it’s not a bad idea to give the media easy access to good photos of the candidate). You don’t need both, just one or the other. Flickr has been the default choice of most candidates, but personally, I think Instagram is the way to go. It’s what all the kids are using.
Set up the bank account to take donations
Pick a payment processor. Most people pick Paypal. It is simple and familiar to most end users.

When setting up your Sub-Nation, you will want to pick “candidate” as the type of site. This will ensure you have the proper starting pages. You can create them via the CRM, but picking this option at set-up will save you many steps!

The default “candidate” site has the pages in the following list. You will want to come up with your own language for each page. You can write it ahead of time and simply copy-paste it via the CRM. Each of the following pages listed with their characteristics.

Donation page message - You will just need to write a brief couple of lines to appear above the donate form.
About Candidate page. This is your full curriculum vitae - your qualifications, experience, etc. Sometimes this page is called a “Bio”.
Issues page. This is where you describe the issues that you will focus on in your campaign. Sometimes this page is called My Stance, or My Position, or What I Stand For, etc. Usually, this page starts out as a single page with all the issues, but eventually becomes one page for each issue.
Volunteer - just a brief couple of lines to appear above the volunteer form
Vote Pledge - just a brief couple of lines to appear above the voter pledge form
Contact Us - just a brief couple of lines to appear above the contact form. Or just the mailing address. Or nothing - that’s fine too.
About the District / region / community / etc. This page is optional.
News & Events, Blog, and Calendar: These three pages are not really “pages” per se - they are collections of pages of a specific page type. For example: an individual event page is a specific type of page which has a body for text like any other page, but also has a specific date, location, ticket price, map link, RSVP ability, and other things that go along with an event. A Calendar page is simply a collection of individual event pages. A Blog is a collection of blog post pages. Press Releases is a collection of press release pages. Etc.
Your Nation should come with Blog and Calendar by default. I recommend renaming your Blog to News & Events. Each time the candidate is featured (positively) in the news, you will create one blog post under News & Events which quotes from the article and links back to the original. Press releases can also go here. Announcements of upcoming events and appearances can also be repeated here (but each event should have its own event page, of course).
One thing about the calendar - You should create at least one event post prior to launching your site. This is because having an empty calendar is not a good sign for a campaign. It just looks bad.

If your site does not have any of the above, you can create it very easily. From your Admin dashboard, go to

Websites > [your website] > New page

…and then pick the page type of the page you want to create.

Now, for this site, you will be using the Conservatives.v1 theme created by Tim Wayne. This theme works just like the others in terms of functionality. However, there are one or two extra features which can be accessed the following way.

Logo / Portrait

You can put your logo or portrait in this spot. From your Admin dashboard, go to

Websites > [your website] > Site settings > Logo

...and upload the file there. Don't forget to hit Save site at the bottom.

The file should be 300 pixels wide by 275 pixels tall. You can download and use this Photoshop file as a guide. If you are saving a portrait, then save it as a JPG. If you are saving a logo, then I recommend a PNG file with a transparent background, not white.

Headline and Sub headline

You should put your name here. You can also add a subheadline, or leave it blank. To do so, from your Admin dashboard, go to

Websites > [your website] > Site settings > Basic

Put your name in the Headline box. If you want to add a subheadline, add it to the subheadline box. Don't forget to hit Save site at the bottom.

Home Page

You should create a page called Home with the “slug” name of “home”. Set this page to be your home page

Websites > [your website] > Home > Settings

and check the box on the right side which says “Make this page the home page”. Don't forget to hit Save at the bottom.

Featured Content Slider on the home page

This is the image carousel. Most campaigns have three to five images which are cycled through. Each image can link to a specific subpage, so that when a user clicks on the image, they go to that page. Failing that, the images in the slides can be linked to the home page, so that when the user clicks on one of them, they don’t leave the home page. It’s your choice. The only rule with the Featured Content Slider is that your images have to be EXACTLY 715 pixels wide by 307 pixels tall. You can download and use this Photoshop file here as a framework for setting up your image.

Contact panel in the sidebar

To create the contact panel:

You will need to create two subpages under your home page. One should be called “candidate_address” and the other “phone_number”. Here’s how you do this.

From your Admin dashboard, go to Websites > [your website] > Home > Subpages > New subpage
Put candidate_address in both boxes.
Type of page is Basic.
Scroll to the bottom and make sure Include in top nav is NOT checked.
Create page.
Put your address in the box. You can put your email address as well. Do not add any special formatting.

Then, do it again for phone number:

From your Admin dashboard, go to Websites > [your website] > Home > Subpages > New subpage
Put phone_number in both boxes.
Type of page is Basic.
Scroll to the bottom and make sure Include in top nav is NOT checked.
Create page.
Put your address in the box. You can put your email address as well. Do not add any special formatting.

This will populate the Contact box in your sidebar with your own contact information.

To change the contact panel once you have already created it:

From your Admin dashboard, go to Websites > [your website] > Home > Subpages > (either candidate_address or phone_number - which ever you want to change)

Go to the content window, make your changes and save. You're done.

Logo art or headshot

You can use your logo art or your headshot in your banner / header area. It will appear at the top of the page, to the left of your site name. To set it, go to

Websites > [your website] > Site settings > Logo

And follow the menu. You may have to experiment with different sizes until you find what works best for you.

And while you are here, it would behoove you to go through the other items under Site settings to make sure everything is set correctly.

Page content - it's not always under "Content"

For most page types (like Basic pages), the content window is under the Content tab. For special page types, the content window is under the special settings.

For example:

on a Feedback page, the content window is under Feedback settings, and the window is called Intro (not "content").

on a Donate page, the content window is under Donate settings, and the window is called Intro (not "content").

on a Event page, the content window is under Event settings, and the window is called Intro (not "content").

Top navigation & supporter navigation

Pages that should be easily accessible to all visitors of your site, like your blog and calendar of events, should be included in the top nav, the horizontal navigation that appears at the top of all pages in your website.

Pages that are only useful if a person is logged in are included in the supporter nav, a vertical bar on the left or right side of your website. When a person isn’t logged into your website, the supporter nav disappears and can be replaced by buttons that encourage them to engage with your site.

Go to the top nav tab to see the order of pages displaying in the top navigation of your site. You can click on an item and drag and drop it to a new location to change the order of items in your top nav.

The supporter nav area allows you to define the text of up to three buttons to display when a visitor to your website is not signed in. The reorder links section allows you to order the items in the supporter nav with the same drag and drop functionality as the top nav.

Featured content sliders on your home page provide an additional way to navigate your site.

Feature an excerpt of a page on your homepage

Many times you want to feature the latest blog post and the most recent upcoming event under the main content on your homepage. Or perhaps you want to display a petition or contact form. This is easy to do in NationBuilder. You can easily add a homepage widget by adding the tag homepage to any page. (blog post, event, whatever you like)

To remove an excerpt from the homepage, simply remove the tag homepage from the page.