volunteers

Most voters are skeptical by nature. For proof, one need only look at the general approval ratings of politicians. The key to activating voters today is to reach them in a way that engenders trust, support, and the sense that they are being spoken to individually. The best way for campaigns to build this sort of rapport is to have volunteers introduce the candidate to their friends and families.

friends-1026523_1280 Reams of recent data from the 2016 races demonstrate the value of relational organizing. That is, we now know affirmatively that a text from a friend moves a voter more than a text from a stranger, in some cases increasing turnout by almost 5%. This feels intuitively right. Continue reading “Friend 2 Friend” →

The world has changed drastically in the last ten years, and if your vision of how to best use campaign volunteers hasn’t changed, you won’t be winning many elections.

Campaigns rightly think of engaging voters as a game of numbers. The most successful strategies and tactics contact the most voters, turn those voters into volunteers, and leverage those volunteers into even more voter-contacts. The goal is to reach as many constituents as possible. Data has proven that the best way to maximize outreach is to connect with voters where they are; today, that means we need to reach them on their cell phones and on social media.

Campaigns that want to expand their voting base and turnout need to think about their digital volunteering infrastructure. Campaigns that don’t have this sort of infrastructure need to build one (we can help with that), and those that do have this sort of infrastructure should work to improve and scale it (we can help with that, too).

Continue reading “Digital Volunteers: What They’re Good For” →