Every election cycle, I hear some variation of this proverb: Republicans have the money, Democrats have the volunteers. What Democratic candidates and organizations haven’t always had is a way to effectively utilize the volunteers we have.
What if all of that could change? What if organizations had a better way to mobilize campaign efforts and make sure that volunteers and support were better implemented to help us win. What if we could revolutionize the way we volunteer and work with others, in a revolution akin to the way fundraising was revolutionized with Act Blue? Well, today, I’m letting you know that Daily Kos is a partner in one of the efforts to do just that, working with others to help promote, assist, and work with Mobilize America. As state parties and campaigns join, the combined effort of Mobilize America is built to make sure that we make the best possible effort to turn out our voters everywhere in the country.
The benefits to a tool like this one are obvious, but for those who wonder, this is what it looks like to campaigns and party organizations:
Automated Confirmations: Mobilize America features optional automated confirmation emails and and SMS to signups before their shifts, i.e. if someone signs up for a shift, they will automatically receive email and text message reminders. In campaigns that have used this, we’ve seen increases in shift completion rates. Your organizers could obviously still send one-off confirmation emails and text messages to volunteers, there’s nothing wrong with double confirming a shift.
Search Function: Volunteers can search by ZIP to find whatever is closest to them.
Intuitive Event Creation: You can set it up so that volunteer leaders or others can create their own events on Mobilize America without having to do it through their own VAN user account. This could be particularly useful on the political side where you might want to have your political team or allied organizations track signups for press or other non-organizing events through the tool, even if they aren’t trained on VAN and don’t have a user account.
Political Collaboration: It’s really useful for helping national allied organizations recruit shifts from their national email lists. Organizations that have their own Mobilize America accounts (like DNC, OFA, MoveOn, Swing Left, Daily Kos, etc.) can "promote" coordinated campaign events through their own Mobilize America feeds. Imagine the power of leveraging national contact lists to help our campaigns.
If you want to see what it looks like as a volunteer, you can go here to see a sample feed from the DNC.
This upcoming weekend, as an example, I and a few others will be traveling to Minnesota — something we’ve profiled here, to help go knock some doors for Angie Craig for Congress. At the same time, others will be coming to Kansas 02/03 to knock and phonebank there.
Connect! Unite! Act! is in large part about connecting our community to better opportunities to make an impact in our political climate, and I’m excited about this opportunity. Over the next few weeks, prepare to see me everywhere... have an event in your state on Mobilize America you think I should join? Send me a link, let’s see what can happen!
Have thoughts? Leave them in the comments! I’ll try to respond and see what we can do to help your campaigns, anywhere!
So, what’s your plan this week?
EVENTS:
Twin Cities Kos: Monthly Meet-up
Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018 at 11:00 AM
Silverwood Cafe, 2500 County Rd E, St. Anthony, MN 55421
Kosmail idlemoments to RSVP
San Francisco Kos: Organising GOTV Push in Red C-10
Sunday September 23, 2018 at 2:00 PM
Location: kimoconnor’s garden, Mission District, San Francisco
Kosmail dsb or kimoconnor to RSVP
What are you working on in your local area
to move our progressive agenda along?