Write Down Every Donation, Starting With the First Shilling
Updated 2 October 2026.
The first donation your campaign receives will probably arrive before you have anywhere to write it down. Somebody hands the candidate money after a funeral, or sends it to a personal number, and it becomes campaign money without ever becoming a record.
Fix that now, in 2026, while the amounts are small and the list is short.
What a donation record has to contain
A donation register is not complicated. For every receipt of money or goods it needs the same seven things.
The date. The name of the giver. A contact and an identification detail sufficient to show the person exists. The amount, or for goods the value and how you arrived at it. The form it took, whether bank transfer, mobile money, cash or in kind. Where it landed, meaning which account or which handset. And who in the campaign received it.
That is one row. It takes under a minute at the moment it happens, and it is close to impossible to reconstruct a year later.
In-kind support is a donation
A hall lent for a rally. Printing done at cost by a supporter. Fuel from a station owner. A vehicle and driver for three weeks. Airtime bought in bulk and handed to the ward team.
None of that touches your bank account, and all of it is support given to the campaign. Where the rules require contributions to be recorded and disclosed, they do not stop applying because the contribution arrived as a thing rather than as money.
Value it at what it would have cost you to buy, write down how you calculated that, and put it in the same register. Related: why the budget should carry these lines too.
Ask the giver what it would have cost, and note their answer beside your own. Where the two differ, use the one you can defend and record why. An estimate with a stated basis is a position. An estimate with no basis is a number somebody else gets to challenge.
The envelope of cash at the rally
This is the hard case, and pretending it will not happen is not a plan.
Decide in advance who is allowed to accept cash on the campaign's behalf. One or two named people, not whoever is standing nearest. Give them a receipt book with numbered leaves. The giver gets the top copy, the campaign keeps the counterfoil, and the money is banked rather than spent from the pocket it landed in.
If a giver will not be named, the law has already decided for you. Section 13 of the Election Campaign Financing Act says a candidate shall not receive and keep anonymous contributions, in cash or in kind, and anything that arrives anyway has to be reported and handed to the IEBC within 14 days of receipt. Failing to do that is an offence.
Who you cannot take money from
The framework restricts sources as well as amounts. Contributions from foreign sources, the use of public resources for campaigning, and anonymous money of any amount are all constrained.
The specific limits and definitions are set by IEBC regulation and gazetted before each election, and they differ by seat. That is the honest answer, and it is why this article prints no figure. Read the current notice for your own seat, then write the limits at the top of your register so that the person accepting money knows them. Related: what the gazetted framework covers.
Acknowledge every giver, because it is also a control
Send every giver a written acknowledgement with the amount and the date.
That is good manners and it is also a check. If your acknowledgement states a figure the giver disputes, you have found a problem in the week it happened rather than during an examination. Two records that agree are worth far more than one record nobody has ever tested.
Start the register this week
Open one file, with the columns above, and enter every contribution the campaign has already received. Where you cannot remember a detail, write what you do know and mark the gap rather than inventing the rest. A register with honest gaps is a document. A tidy register built from memory is a story.
Then name the two people who may accept money, buy the receipt books, and tell everybody else to send givers to them. Related: how the receipts and vouchers fit together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a donated venue or free printing count as a campaign contribution?
Yes. Support given in kind is still support given to the campaign, and where contributions must be recorded and disclosed the obligation does not disappear because nothing passed through a bank account. Value the item at what it would have cost the campaign to buy, write down how you reached that value, and enter it in the same register as cash. Campaigns that skip this routinely understate what they have actually received.
Can a Kenyan campaign accept anonymous cash donations?
No. Section 13 of the Election Campaign Financing Act says a candidate shall not receive and keep anonymous contributions, whether in cash or in kind. Anything that arrives without a name has to be reported and handed to the IEBC within 14 days of receipt, and failing to do that is an offence under the same section.
Who should be allowed to accept money on behalf of a campaign?
One or two named people, and nobody else. Give them a numbered receipt book so the giver keeps the top copy and the campaign keeps the counterfoil, and require the money to be banked rather than spent from the pocket it arrived in. Restricting the role is what makes the register complete, because a contribution accepted by whoever was standing nearest is usually never recorded at all.