When it comes to mobilizing supporters, we know that relational outreach is one of the best ways to spark action. But relational outreach doesn’t have to be limited to the contacts in your volunteers’ phone books. Your volunteers are the best messengers for your campaign or organization, and every outreach effort that volunteers make is an opportunity to build a sustained, genuine relationship that drives your movement. That's why we developed List Canvassing on Impactive.
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List Canvassing provides a streamlined way for your volunteers to build and nurture relationships with your highest-priority contacts over time. With this new feature, volunteers can send personalized, relational messages to contacts (just like Friends & Family Messaging) with all the speed of Peer-to-Peer Texting. Use List Canvassing to ID voters, register union members, maintain consistent personal outreach to supporters in the days leading up to #GivingTuesday, and more.
You can use List Canvassing in two ways: Assigned List and Shared List. With these options, your volunteers can reach out to contacts in the way that aligns best with your unique program goals.
Here’s all that List Canvassing has to offer:
Invite Volunteers to Connect with Target Contacts
Shared Canvassing lists allow organizers to share a full list of target contacts with their volunteer network. Volunteers are responsible for selecting the contacts they’d like to nurture a relationship with, typically ones that they know or share an affinity with. Once a volunteer selects someone, that contact will no longer be listed for other volunteers to prevent duplicate selections.
There are two ways to leverage Shared List Canvassing: with and without outreach.
Shared List Canvassing with outreach ensures that you conduct outreach via the best volunteers for the job: those who share a connection with the contacts. After selecting their contacts, volunteers can connect with those on their list via text, email, call, or social media DM. Like any of our outreach options, campaigns can create custom messaging scripts so volunteers can quickly send out dozens of messages with consistent language. After each outreach attempt, volunteers can fill out reports on their contacts to inform the campaign about their conversations with contacts.
Your campaign provides the contact information, so volunteers won’t have to worry about obtaining specific phone numbers or emails.
Shared List Canvassing actions without outreach allow volunteers to systematically share information on contacts they might know, including coworkers, neighbors, and faith-based connections. It’s like crowdsourcing for information: volunteers can fill out reports to provide insight on their contacts, such as their support for specific issues, candidates, and legislative initiatives.
Use Shared List Canvassing to:
- Invite union members to reach out to other workplace branches and enlist new members
- Gather insight from your volunteers in a particular voting district about the issues that matter most to folks in their community
- Pin a Shared List Canvassing action without outreach to your campaign to remind volunteers to fill reports on any contacts they know
Foster New Relationships Between Volunteers and Target Contacts
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With traditional canvassing, you might designate staff or volunteers to canvass a specific neighborhood. Similarly, Assigned List Canvassing allows you to assign volunteers to specific lists of contacts within a target universe. This feature works best when you connect volunteers to target contacts based on shared affinities like neighborhood or workplace.
Assigned List Canvassing with outreach allows your volunteers to foster personal connections on behalf of your team, even with contacts they don't know yet. Once volunteers have their contact assignments, they can jumpstart conversations with relational messages via text, email, or social media DM. Like Shared List Canvassing, volunteers can fill out reports to keep the campaign updated on their outreach activities.
Assigned List Canvassing without outreach allows you to assign contacts to volunteers, but volunteers only fill out reports on contacts.
Use Assigned List Canvassing to:
- Assign precinct captains who can consistently reach out to their list of voters leading up to Election Day
- Collect information from your volunteers on contacts in specific work locations to gauge interest in unionizing
- Match volunteers with target contacts in their neighborhood to start conversations about key changes that would benefit the neighborhood, and build relationships over time
Track Performance for All of Your List Canvassing Actions
Campaigns can track numerous metrics on Shared and Assigned List Canvassing action performance to assess the success of their outreach efforts. View results on:
- How many volunteers have seen, started, and completed List Canvassing actions
- List size, the number of people canvassed, and the number of remaining people to canvass for each action
- Total user engagement (including the number of contacts) assigned to each volunteer and messages sent
Don’t forget: seamless CRM integrations allow you to sync all of this valuable data back to platforms like NGP VAN, PDI, and Salsa Labs.
Ready to Get Started?
Existing Impactive clients can get started immediately by learning how to create an Assigned List Canvassing or Shared List Canvassing action in our Help Center. If you’re new to Impactive, learn how our all-in-one digital organizing platform can support your supporter outreach by scheduling a demo here.
