Although I've never read Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, I'm willing to bet it didn't include a chapter on how to do political fundraising.

Maybe if it did, Marx's ideological descendents here in Canada — the federal New Democratic Party — wouldn't be in the fiscal mess it is today.

And make no mistake the NDP is in a fiscal mess.

Indeed, according to media reports the NDP is currently about $7 million in debt.

That's a lot of dough.

In fact, things are so bad that, as a cost-saving measure, the NDP was forced to postpone its national convention until 2021.

Mind you, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has pledged to pay off the party's debt by the end of the year, but given his uninspiring fundraising record to date that seems like an empty promise.

Yet, the good news for Singh and for the NDP, is it's not impossible for them to escape insolvency; they just need to have a better understanding of some key principles of fundraising.

So in the name of non-partisan co-operation, I'd like to offer the New Democrats some tips as to how they can persuade their donors to open up their wallets and hand over some cash.

To begin with, one key principle of political fundraising is that people relate to other people more than they do to an abstract ideology.

So writing a fundraising letter that says, "Dear Donor: We need more socialism, please send money" is a lot weaker than a letter that goes something like this: "Dear Donor: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is your enemy.  He's a dangerous man who is wrecking the country for you and for your children!  Only the NDP can stop him!  Please send money."

In other words, in the name of raising cash, the NDP has to personalize their fundraising by focusing on the idea that Prime Minister Trudeau is a bad guy; they have to demonize him.

Donors will get more worked up about stopping a perceived villain than they will about promoting an ideological agenda and once you get donors worked up and agitated, they're more likely to make a contribution.

This is why the Liberals still demonize Harper even though he's been out of power for nearly five years.

And I think one reason for the NDP's fundraising woes to date, is precisely because they have failed to properly demonize Trudeau, possibly because party leaders don't want the media to brand them as "negative" or possibly because they fear that by attacking a "progressive" prime minister, they'll be accused by the media of helping the right.

But the NDP shouldn't care what the media thinks; after all, right now the party need dollars a lot more than it needs plaudits from the Toronto Star or the CBC.

Besides, I'd argue the NDP could make good case that, his progressive reputation notwithstanding, Trudeau's economic policies his building the Trans mountain oil pipeline, his bail outs of big corporations, his involvement in the SNC-Lavalin scandal reveal him as a "state capitalist," a guy who cares more about Bay Street than Main Street.

Plus, let's not forget, Trudeau's privileged upbringing makes him the perfect guy for a left-wing party to cast as a "class enemy."

And this brings me to my next fundraising principle to successfully raise money, you don't appeal to the brain, you appeal to the heart,  a fundraiser's goal is to stoke up a donor's emotions, making them angry or fearful, or hopeful.

And the most emotion-laden fundraising pitch is one that invokes an "Us vs Them" tribalism.

That's to say you put forward this simple message: "We need money to protect you from the hated them."

For the NDP that means saying, "We need money protect you from "the rich" and from greedy corporate bigwigs and, of course, from the "elites."

Please note, Bernie Sanders has made a whole lot of money peddling this sort of message.

Yet to date the NDP, perhaps worried about being labelled as "populists," have refused to play this card.

But isn't it better to be populist than bankrupt?

Anyway, I know my suggestions for the NDP might sound a little cynical, but if New Democrats want to be a relevant force in Canadian politics, they have to learn how to play the fundraising game.

As American political consultant Morton Blackwell once put it, "You can't save the world if you can't pay the rent."

Photo Credit: CBC News