Fellowship

About the
Fellowship

Conservatives Together (CTog) was founded to support and represent Conservative candidates. Part of our work is to help train the next generation of parliamentary candidates.

Great parliamentary candidates are leaders, team builders, organisers, motivators, data analysts, fundraisers, spokesmen and campaigners. They are also the future leaders of our nation, the group from which (we hope) cabinet members and Prime Ministers are chosen.

So it matters that they have the right skills to build a team, communicate a political agenda, connect with their communities and, ultimately, win an election.The Conservatives Together Fellowship will provide a grounding in those skills. It won’t cover everything that’s needed, but it will help candidates (and those who want to become candidates) to:

Think about local election strategy
Run local issue campaigns
Develop a public profile
Engage media (both traditional and social media)
Build and manage a team.

Beyond just the training benefits, CTog Fellows will:

Get hands-on experience running local campaigns
Be part of a small group of fellow candidates, helping them through a tough journey
Use the Fellowship as evidence of skills and commitment when they apply for selection
Benefit from the wider resources and support of Conservatives Together in their political careers.

What's
Involved?

1. Apply and join a cohort

We recruit Fellows in small cohorts. This means places are very limited, as each cohort fills up. So the application process helps us to assign people to each cohort, or put them on the waiting list.

2. In-person one-day workshop

We’ll host a day-long introduction, covering things like how to get selected, how to build community relations and how to think about election strategy. Our trainers are people who work (or have worked) in the areas discussed - senior politicians, journalists and campaigners. But this is also about getting to know other candidates and aspiring candidates, so it’s designed to be a social event too.

3. Five online workshops

Online workshops of about 90 minutes each will cover skills-focused topics relevant to candidates.

4. Campaign Experiment

As a cohort, you’ll work on campaign ‘experiments’, running campaigns and studying their effectiveness. These experiments will help your own cohort and the rest of the party to understand what works and what doesn’t in the field. It’s part of building a research library that will put us on the cutting edge of campaigns techniques.

5. In-person closing workshop

After six months, you’ll come back together as a cohort. This workshop will include conclusions from your campaign experiments and more training with expert and experience trainers.

After you’ve completed this programme, you’ll be a ‘CTog Fellow’. You’ll be asked to continue conducting campaign experiments in your area, and support other candidates who are at an earlier stage.

CTog Fellows (those who’ve completed the programme) will receive particular support from Conservatives Together as they continue in their political careers.