It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we tackle subjects about how to improve and build better campaigns.
A few weeks ago we talked about the importance of training your canvass. No matter how much effort you put into training a canvass, if doing the work isn’t rewarding for the people who are walking on your behalf or for the candidate, they are unlikely to commit to the effort.
Part of keeping a good canvass operation going is making it something that people will attend and find rewarding. Yes, there are some people where the reward is simple: they are hard-line Democratic activists and their reward is doing the work. Others are committed to a campaign.
But these are small segments of potential canvass, and they might be working for other campaigns. So, how do you retain a good canvass? You work to make it feel respected, and, yes at least a little bit fun.
Build in respect
Paid canvass or volunteers, people will come to be part of your effort because they care about the issue or the candidate. They won’t stay, however, if they feel disrespected or they don’t like the people involved. How do you build in respect for your canvass, while promoting the work you need? Setting up levels of recognition and making the effort fun can be a key part of your work. Some of the strategies I believe to be effective:
- Build in rewards and goals for canvassers. From highest daily step count to most voters reached. Come up with metrics that can be recognized frequently.
- Praise in public. In all business, the praise in public, reserve criticism or negative assessments in private still holds true. But praise not only individuals in public, make an effort to praise the entire effort. The word “WE” should be at the tip of your tongue. WE did this. WE did that. Rarely claim credit for the work of your team in public, as many will view this as a slight of their efforts.
- Work and results are not the same. A canvasser can have the highest step count, the most doors visited, and also see fewer actual voters than others, depending on the people at home. Those are things that are out of their control. Praise the effort.
- Bad door experience. You will have at least one canvasser who gets chewed out, runs into a combative voter or has a not-so-good experience. Listen to them. In a thoughtful twist in 2018, a campaign for U.S. Congress had a mini-reward of a small sticker for: “toughest door.” It was a cute way to praise canvassers who went to tough doors and continued on with their work.
Rest matters
You want your canvass to be successful. You want to hit as many doors as possible and make sure you have as much voter contact as possible. Sounds great, right? But that doesn’t mean you can expect people to work until they drop.
When you build your schedules for how volunteers or even paid canvassers will work, make sure that you respect their limits. Do not push someone beyond their physical limitations, or put them in a situation where they feel overwhelmed. Part of making your canvass successful is getting as much work out of your canvass as they can EFFECTIVELY deliver, but recognizing that pushing people past their limits can lead to canvass that intentionally makes mistakes.
Canvass that feels overworked is more likely to code doors they haven’t actually visited, mark doors as “no one home” whether they have been there or not, and come back. Canvass workers tasked too hard can feel as though they have expectations they cannot meet, and if they don’t meet them, they are a disappointment. So, like it or not, some people will simply meet the expectation by just checking boxes, doing quick lit drops, not waiting at doors, or other shortcuts.
Giving people options that are achievable and that they feel a part of rather than tasks they do not feel like they can accomplish or work without rest.
Bingo cards, Easter egg hunts, and other add-ons
Part of keeping canvass fun can be about building in add-ons to your campaign that keep your walking crew on their feet. Walking districts can get boring and a bit lonely, especially if they run into sets of houses where no one is home.
Canvass bingo cards, retelling of events at doors, or type of Easter egg hunt during their efforts can keep canvass alert, paying attention and more awake at the door.
Some may go a bit too far for me—I’ve seen canvassing that integrated Pokemon Go! and wondered if it went too far in distracting canvassers from doing their job at the door, I do recognize that keeping people mentally involved in the canvass and giving them something beyond the routine of the doors can keep your canvass involved and feeling excited about their task.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: It’s Netroots Nation!