Get Those Grassroots Campaign Volunteers to Work!
Once you get campaign volunteers into the office, it’s imperative that you push them to make as much voter contact as possible. Below are a few tips on how to get your campaign volunteers to work as hard as they can for as long as they can:
Setting Shift Hours: When you schedule a campaign volunteer for a shift, set expectations by making sure they know what their shift hours are. This will ensure that campaign volunteers don’t try to leave after only a half hour of work.
Chatty Volunteers: Inevitably campaign volunteers will engage in conversation while they should be doing voter contact. While some chatting is good, you can’t have it consume a volunteer’s entire shift, or worse, distract other, hardworking volunteers. If you notice that volunteer chatting is becoming excessive, simply act as though you haven’t noticed and politely check in with them about how the voter contact is going, what their responses have been so far, etc. They will feel embarrassed that they have not been doing voter contact and hop to it.
Competition: While it may seem tacky, creating friendly competition between your campaign volunteers really does increase their amount of voter contact. Different organizers set up their competitions differently, but really all you need is a dry erase board that you can put up to display in your office. It also helps to remind volunteers of their progress on the board and have a neat prize for the winner.
List Size: Make walk packets and phone lists bigger than you actually expect each volunteer to complete. While it’s possible a volunteer will finish an entire packet, it’s rare that they will come back for a second one.
Location: Different people work best in different ways, so move around the settings of your phone banks and canvass staging locations. While it may be a bit more work for you, setting up staging locations at restaurants and phone banks in a volunteer’s home can produce surprisingly fruitful results.
If you have any additional tips on how to get the most out of your campaign volunteers, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.