How to get elected for student council president
How to WIN your Student Council Election | From a Student Council President
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Hey you! You probably clicked
on this video wondering how to get elected to Student Council,
if you should run for Student Council, and, if you do run, how to win. Well,
you clicked on the right video. I've been exactly where you're sitting right now before
where I was scared and I didn't know if I wanted to run at all. But in this video,
I'll go over everything you need to know about the Student Council election process, from applying to
campaigning and I'll give many tips and tricks along the way. The things that I talk about in
this video are going to be more in-depth and nuanced than anything you've seen anywhere
else on YouTube or on the internet. If you want to know your percent chance of getting elected,
stick to the end of the video where I'll be talking about Chance to Lead, a one-on-one
consulting service that I started to help you get into Student Council elections by giving you the
tools, and the tricks, and the tips and everything that you need to win. I've taken my experience
from winning back-to-back-to-back Student Council elections, as well as working on professional
campaigns to help you tailor whatever you need to win. So without further ado, let's jump right in!
If you're new to my channel, hi! My name is Nelson Lee and I'm a first-year Engineering
student at the University of Toronto in Canada. Last year, I was the Student Council President
at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute, one of the largest high schools in all of Canada. Currently,
I'm the youngest elected representative on the Board of Directors for the University of Toronto
Student Government (UTSU). I've also been elected as a First-Year Representative for the Engineering
Faculty. Over the course of Student Council, I've had amazing opportunities to learn so many things
and accomplish so much, such as implementing our school's first dedicated mental health month,
starting a Multiculturalism Council to celebrate our student's diversity, increasing student
participation and engagement, and so much more! I had the honor to be featured in the Toronto Star,
CBC, and numerous other news outlets. I wouldn't have this opportunity to grow so
much as a person and as a leader without having spent time being elected on Student Council.
I also had the amazing opportunity to work on some real life campaigns that allowed me to pick up
on some tools that will really help you ensure you win in your Student Council election. If you
find this video useful and helpful, make sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to the channel! It will
help out a lot and if you have any questions that I don't answer throughout this video,
go ahead and leave them down in the comment section so I can respond to them as soon as I can!
Before I even ran, I had the same questions that a lot of you guys have right now, which was, should
I even run? Prior to running for Student Council President, I never held any elected position,
whether it was in middle school or in high school. So I created two questions that I would ask myself
prior to running to know if I was doing the right thing and to sort of push away doubts
about running against a really popular opponent and just being one of the first times I've ran for
Student Council. I personally think that these two questions will really help you determine if you
are making the right decision about running. The first question that I asked myself was,
why do I want to run. Well, if your answer is to boost your resume or to increase your popularity,
then I really recommend you to not run. Students when they see you and when you campaign,
they can tell if your intentions are in the right place and if you're just doing it half-heartedly.
My reason to run was to ensure that when students come into school every single day,
they'll just be that much happier and that much more content to be there. Your reason may be
small. It might be to make a small change in the cafeteria, it could be to grow as a leader. It
could be something big even, such as implementing a big sweeping vision for changes at your school.
So ask yourself, why are you running? Secondly, the question that I asked myself was if I told my
past self that my future self would be running how would I feel? If you feel nervous or scared,
that's totally fine. Running for Student Council is quite a scary experience. For me,
it was the first time that I had to go up in front of my entire school and give speeches
so many times to every single grade. And if you are feeling confident and excited at the moment,
that's great as well! By understanding your emotions about running, you could be so much
more certain about whether you're making the right choice or not. If you're nervous but
you feel that you want to try and run, do it! If you're feeling confident but then somehow sort of
had some doubts along the way but then you remind yourself why you wanted to run in the first place,
do it! As long as your intentions are pure and you answer both of these questions to yourself
honestly, then I'm sure you will make the right choice about running for Student Council or not.
Applying to run for Student Council is quite a different process depending
on which school you are at. For most schools the application is quite simple.
It may involve just getting a few signatures from your friends and submitting a short bio
about yourself. Some schools may make it more extensive such as you have to provide a resume
or you need to do a whole lot more to get on the ballot. If you're unsure about the specifics about
your application process, then the best person to ask is either the teacher or an administrative
member that's supervising the election. You could also ask people who have ran before
and if you have additional questions just leave them down in the comment section below.
Be as detailed as you can so I know how to best answer. Let's say you went through
the application process without a hitch and now you're suddenly campaigning. Oh my gosh!
This is probably the most stressful part about the entire election. I'm going to take a while to
cover through the sections that I'll be going over because I think it's good and it's best for you if
I just share everything that I know to the best of my ability. For me, I would categorize campaigning
in three categories. There's pre-campaigning, campaigning, and then there's post campaign,
and each of these sections are vitally important to getting you across the finish line.
In the pre-campaigning section, you need to create a platform. You might be wondering,
what is a platform? Well, a platform is something that you promise to do once you are elected.
By having a platform when you run, it will really set you apart because it showcases that you
care about the position you're running for. You're willing to come up with a plan and you have
something to back it up, you have something to showcase during the campaign trail. The platform
is something you could talk about during your speech, when you're campaigning, in your posters,
on your social media posts, on everything! It's the thing that ties your entire candidacy
together. It's also something that will prove to your schoolmates that you're in this to win.
Your platform is the underlying basis for your entire campaign. It showcases to voters why you
are running and why they should elect you. There are many ways to come up with a great platform.
You can put together a list of the things that you want to see changed at the school, you can ask
your classmates and your friends what changes they want to see, or you can look to other schools in
your area and look at what their Student Councils are doing and say, that idea is pretty cool,
I want to implement it at my school. At the end of the day, the possibilities are
endless. I remember that my platform had four key pillars: culture, spirit, helping students,
as well as accountability. I even came up with a slogan that accompanied it. It was:
Putting Culture First, Putting Spirit First, and Putting You First. My platform covered everything
about why I wanted to run and what things I would do once I got elected. It showcased to students
this is who I am and it was something that I talked about during the campaign and in my speech
and in so many different sections that I'll cover later. Then, the next thing you need to do during
your pre-campaigning section is to make posters. Posters are one of the best ways to get your name
out there and get people to know about you and what you're running for and the ideas that you're
bringing to the table. On your poster, you should have your name, your face, and the position you're
running for, and to not bore students out with having 50 posters looking the exact same, maybe
have 10 of them showcasing a part of your platform with your important and catchy ideas or slogans.
Maybe this poster will talk about your plans about making the cafeteria cleaner and another poster
you're talking about your experience in managing a club's finances and why you should be Treasurer
because of that. By making posters before the campaign period in the pre-campaigning period,
you can put them up as soon as campaigning starts so that you make the best first
impression and you're the first one out of the gate making a difference. Of course, there are
a lot of other things that you could do during the pre-campaigning period, so stick around to the end
of the video where I talk about Chance to Lead and I'll be going over some of those ideas as well.
So you have your posters and your platform ready and now it's campaigning time! Well,
what's the first thing you should do? Put up the posters that you've made during the pre-campaign
around the school. And if you have digital versions of them, post them on social media,
on your Instagram, Facebook, your Tik Tok, your Snapchat. It's the best way to get your name out
there right out of the gate. If this is your first time running or your 10th time running,
the most important thing is get people to know your name. Once again, getting people to know your
name is the most important tip. Let me tell you, when the school knows your name from social media,
from campaigning, from your posters, then they're a lot more likely to vote for you.
When people vote and there are four names on the ballot and yours is the only one that
they recognize, guess who they're voting for? If there's four names on the ballot
and they know all four people but yours was the most memorable due to your campaigning
and your posters and your speech and everything, guess who they're voting for? Like I said before,
posters play a big part about getting your name out there, social media also plays a big part of
getting your name out there, but the next two things that I talk about play a bigger part
about getting students to know your name and getting them to recognize you
and remember you when they vote. And these two things are: personal interactions and your speech.
A lot of people during campaigning, they put up their posters, they make a few social media posts,
and they do their speech, and that's it. Let me tell you how to win: personal interactions.
There's two ways of doing this, so I recommend using both of these methods when you're
campaigning. The first is through online messaging and the second is through in-person interaction.
Like I said, the first method is through online interactions. When you message people online,
make sure you're having a genuine and organic conversation. Don't just say:
"Hi, vote for ME!" That's insincere and not great. Say something like: "Hey,
I'm Nelson Lee and I'm running for Social Convener and I was wondering what things you want to see
done differently at the school if I'm elected." You see, there's a big difference between those
two messages. The second is much more personal and maybe even throughout the conversation,
that might turn into a discussion about your favorite music or courses that you both hate, and
you might eventually even become friends. Through this process, you want to build connections
because it's a guaranteed way for people to want to vote for you. As well, once you are
elected these people are your constituents and it's great to know them on a name basis so that
when you see them in the halls you greet them and everything is great. Then there's in-person
interactions. During lunch, between classes, before school, after school, during class,
talk to as many people as you can. Most candidates completely skip this step which removes so
many potential connections and voters that you're getting during the campaign. The thing with
talking to people in person is that it's one of the most memorable ways for them to remember you,
and later down the line, vote for you. They see your face, they hear your name, they know about
the platform that you're running on, they know your ideas, and there's a high chance they'll talk
to their friends about your candidacy. They'll say to their friends later in class like, "hey,
you wouldn't believe what just happened for the first time. Someone's campaigning and they talked
to me! And well, his name was Nelson and his ideas are pretty neat, you should check him out!"
Then your name recognition just goes through the roof because the best form of marketing is word
of mouth because you get to have one person talk to three, and those three, even if they only talk
to one additional person or two, or if some of them don't talk to anyone else, you're getting a
lot more reach than you would have normally. When you go around with these in-person interactions,
you could hand out flyers with a more detailed version of your platform. For me,
I had a big poster that I carried around that had my campaign promises in it. It had a hole in the
middle where people could pose with so that they could post it on their social media and tag me and
then all their friends and followers would see it. It was really effective at getting the word out.
Now that you've listened to me blather on about small scale campaigning such as in-person
interactions and online messaging, here's one of the biggest opportunities that you have to change
people's minds and to get their vote during an election: it's the speech. This is very very very
important and most school's candidates have the opportunity to give a speech to the student body
about what they want to do and why you should vote for them. First of all, this opportunity
has the biggest reach out of every single campaigning event. It's the place where you
reach as many people as possible, get your name out there, and make a lasting impression that's
good and memorable. Speeches are scary, they're intense, but they're also an amazing opportunity.
My biggest tip to ace your speech? Like I said before, getting people to know your name. I cannot
tell you enough times that I've seen an amazing speech, perfect presentation, the reasoning was
amazing, they talk about their experiences, their plans, everything was great! But at the end of it,
I maybe heard their name once and the position that they're running for maybe twice. So when
I actually go and vote, I have no idea who this person was and then you just forget to
vote for them. So try to incorporate your name and the position you're running for
as much as you can in your speech. When I talk about Chance to Lead at the end of the video,
I'll go over more specific tips on how to ace your speech. But after analyzing dozens
of Student Council speeches, I found that this following general format works the best. First,
start off with a banger introduction. Say "good morning" with energy or tell a joke,
but make sure it's funny. I know at my school, one kid he started off by saying 'Whassup' like
from The Office and everyone remembered him and he got voted in by having a solid introduction.
It keeps your audience engaged because they've already listened to lots of speeches before this.
Then, make sure to state your name and your position very very clearly. Then, go briefly into
why you're running and the experiences that you have that make you qualified for the position
that you're running for. What are the overarching themes of your campaign? More fun? Better dances?
It's a great place to talk about these sort of overarching themes of your platform here. Run
through the specifics of your platform and once again, close out your speech with your name and
the position that you're running for. My closing line was "Vote Nelson Lee for President so I could
'LEE-D' you all to the Garneau that you deserve." See what I did there? I played with my last name,
Lee, and the word lead to make sure that it was a lasting impression at the end of the speech.
But I also put in my full name and the position I'm running for so when people go and vote,
they remember me from the speech and from all the other campaigning events that I've done.
Finally, there's post campaigning. This is the part of ensuring that people actually go and vote!
At most schools, they don't force you to vote in Student Council elections. It's not mandatory
so a lot of students forget about it or just don't bother to. If your voters love you,
and they love your speech, and they love talking to you online and in person, and they think your
posters and your platform are great, but they don't vote, that's a bummer because, well, their
vote won't count. I know that at a lot of schools, you can't campaign past the campaigning period but
you can have a neutral post or, in a neutral way, tell people to go vote. So you could say something
like "make sure to vote before Friday!" As long as you don't say "make sure to vote for ME before
Friday," then you should be in good territory. But, as always, check with the people running
the elections at your school. Once again, take the campaigning tools that you've used earlier:
social media, posters, in-person, online messaging to tell people to get out there and to vote.
Once everything is said and done with all these tips, I'm sure that you will have a
really really high chance of getting elected to Student Council and the position of your choice.
But do you know a sure-fire way to get elected? Invest in your own future and get the best
Student Council election strategies and advice out there with Chance to Lead. Chance to Lead
is a one-on-one consulting service that I started to help students like you get into Student Council
election positions, whether that's at the high school level, a school board level, a university
level and ranges from small positions such as a class representative, all the way to President!
With Chance to Lead, you'll have over a 95% chance of getting elected to the position of your
dream. You see how this video is already so long? Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg of the
knowledge that I have gathered throughout these past years running in Student Council elections
and helping with real life campaigns. I've won managed and helped so many winning Student
Council elections and I've been in the Election Headquarters helping with some major decisions
in some big and consequential elections. With Chance to Lead, I'll meet with you one-on-one and
go over your needs and provide you with the tips, the tools, the tricks, and the services to help
you get elected. Once I understand your election needs, then you can use some of our pre-made
campaign platforms, or you can mix and match different ideas, and if you want, you can submit
your own preferences and I'll help you make a custom-made platform that's suited for your school
and your vision for the future of your school. I'll use the extensive experience that I gained in
real life interactions and in real life campaigns to help you maximize engagement on social media
posts, and reach as many people as possible in person, and convert as many voters as possible to
vote for you on election day. Chance to Lead could help you write your speech, give you a pre-made
speech that's proven to work and help you practice throughout the way so you can make a lasting and
memorable impression on voters. But the most important tool that Chance to Lead has is a
Get out the Vote mechanism which is fashioned off of what national parties use in the United States
and in Canada. With this tool, you get to know how many people you've interacted with online and in
person, you get to know how many potential voters you have, how many votes you have in the bank,
and how many votes you need to win on election day. If you want to sign up with Chance to Lead,
now is the time! We are doing free email quotes for the first 100 inquiry submissions.
You submit the information listed down in the description below and I'll respond to you as
soon as I can for free about the services that we have to offer to you with Chance to Lead, the
percent chance of you winning, and how much it'll cost to guarantee you the position of your dreams.
I hope you found each section helpful and useful, but if you have any additional questions
comment them down below and I'll reply to them as soon as I can.
If you like the video, make sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE down below,
it'll really help out the channel! And if you want the best way to get elected to Student Council,
send an email to Chance to Lead and I'll get back to you and showcase to you all the tools,
and tricks, and tips that we have to get you to the position that you want. And with that, I
wish you the best of luck in your Student Council election, I know you'll do an amazing job!
Cheers!
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