Reasons to engage volunteers in your campaign

If you’re still not convinced about involving volunteers in your campaign, here are a few reasons why you should.

Those who decide to get involved in a campaign do so because they want to, not because they need to. Therefore, it’s because they believe in the ideas championed by their candidate. It’s much more than a territorial outreach arm; it’s the organic contact the candidate has daily with a segment of her electorate and her best gauge for how to proceed. It’s more than a group you can talk to; it’s a group for you to listen to. This exchange is essential to keep the desire to participate alive throughout the process. Furthermore, the daily interaction between the candidate and volunteers strengthens the entire movement, expanding interpersonal networks and bringing new perspectives.

People bring power and value to campaigns through vision, collaboration, data, and agility.

“Outstanding campaigns do more than simply tell a story. They value the unique potential of each individual to achieve something greater than they could have imagined on their own, building collective power in the process.”

You can continue reading about people power in The Anatomy of People-Powered Campaigns, by Mob Lab.

Ideas

More people mean more ideas, ensuring your campaign is constantly improving.

Listen

Volunteers are also your voters. Listen to them to improve your campaign strategy, including what they think about your message, narrative and discourse.

Help People Fall in Love with Politics

Take advantage of the opportunity to bring people closer to politics so they can understand how it works. With some luck, these people will become permanently involved in political life, helping to strengthen democracy.

Network

More people talking about the candidate within their own networks expands the campaign’s network of contacts and voters’ reach.

Now that you understand the importance of involving volunteers in your campaign and have decided to recruit them, it is important to take into account the basic principles of volunteering.

Believe in Volunteers

Being convinced that volunteers are a fundamental part of your campaign’s success and reach means that you will value them and, therefore, dedicate time to the activities necessary for proper recruitment and management.

Commit to Volunteers

Volunteering is a two-way street. Your commitment, responsibility, and professionalism toward volunteers will ensure the relationship is reciprocal.

Create a Structured Program

What will the volunteer do? How will they do it? What support tools will they have?

Being able to answer these questions is essential to getting started and to preventing volunteers from becoming discouraged due to uncertainty about how to contribute or from feeling unhelpful or undervalued.

Share Your Dream

Volunteers support you because they believe in you. It is your job to keep that inspiration alive. Always explain why you want to be elected and what causes you stand for. This will attract more volunteers who share your ideals and help maintain motivation among those who are already involved.

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

Different types of volunteering for different campaign needs

Before you begin recruiting volunteers, take time to reflect on the types of volunteering your campaign needs. Being clear about where you need support will help you search more effectively within your own network or through the different communication efforts you undertake to recruit volunteers. Try to answer the following questions:

• How many volunteers do I need, and for which activities or roles?
• What tasks will they carry out? Are they recurrent or punctual?
• Are there any requirements to become a volunteer?
• How much time will a volunteer need to invest?
• What level of commitment is required?

In addition, it is important to understand that there is not just one type of volunteering. For greater clarity, you can divide volunteers into two main groups:

In practical terms, these individuals will form part of your campaign’s “organisational chart.” They will work with you throughout the entire campaign period, usually taking responsibility for a specific area and making decisions alongside you. They are the people with the highest level of commitment, trust, responsibility, and time to support you.

Many people believe that if they do not have the resources to pay salaries, they cannot assign responsibilities and make people accountable –  and this often results in a candidate carrying the campaign on her shoulders, supported by a group of volunteers limited to operational tasks without greater responsibility. It is essential to understand that there are roles with a high level of responsibility that can be carried out by committed volunteers, that is a regular practice in grassroots campaigns even in the US. For example: electoral administrator, campaign manager, or similar positions.

These are people who want to support the campaign in some way without taking on a “position” or a major responsibility. They are not involved in campaign strategy, and their forms of support are very diverse, depending on their available time and level of commitment. Below are some examples of task-based volunteering:

Now that you know what you need volunteers for and the different types of activities they can support, it is time to create a volunteer plan – from recruitment to closure. Every strong volunteer programme should include these four steps:

1. Recruit

2. Train

3. Manage

4. Celebrate

We invite you to continue with the next guides in this course, which explain each of these four stages in detail.

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

Template for mapping people who can volunteer in the campaign

The idea behind this short list is, essentially, to bring together in one place all the people who can support you during your campaign. This includes friends, former colleagues, neighbours, close and extended family members, as well as people you may not know personally who responded to your call on social media because they believe in your campaign and in you. It is very important that all these people are recorded in a single document.

Ultimately, this makes it much easier to coordinate actions such as, for example, asking for mass sharing of one of your social media posts, or organising a demonstration on a major avenue in the city. Take a look at our example, copy it into your Google Drive, and get to work, candidate!

Check it out:

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

This tool will help you plan and execute a successful meeting

As you know, to keep your volunteers motivated and able to properly present your campaign, your proposals, and other tools, it’s important to have meetings!

With that in mind, we’ve developed this tool to help you plan meetings effectively and ensure they achieve their goals.

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

How should volunteers be trained, and in what areas?

A well-trained team has great power to convert votes. How should volunteers be trained, and in what areas?

Messages that are shared incompletely, or occasional incorrect practices that occur due to a lack of knowledge or training among volunteers, can be harmful to your campaign. By contrast, the strength of a well-trained and qualified volunteer team has a great power to convert votes.

The most important point to keep in mind is that leaflets, posts, and “likes” do not automatically turn into votes. All of these actions are merely reminders — a memory of your name and your number. What actually converts into votes is conversation: interaction and exchange with people.

This is why your volunteer team is so important, because they are the ones who will interact with large numbers of people. Whether in person, through phone calls, WhatsApp, or online chats, transmitting the message with confidence and security is essential. That is why the sparkle in their eyes, their motivation, and their willingness at the moment of asking for the vote make all the difference.

And in order to ask for votes, your volunteers need to:

• Be familiar with the ideas and key messages of your campaign;
• Know how to counter criticism, deconstruct malicious arguments, and challenge false news;
• Understand the general political landscape of the campaign;
• Have some knowledge of the competition and its weaknesses.

To achieve all of this, there is one fundamental action for your volunteer team: training sessions. Below, we share a step-by-step guide to organising an effective training session.

First of all, some key points to keep in mind:

Any collective meeting, beyond its practical or professional objective, is also a space for fellowship, exchange, and personal growth. Feeling a sense of collectivity and mutual respect is essential. Therefore, regardless of how you may feel personally, you must ensure that this meeting has good energy. At that moment, you are the leader, and it is your responsibility to make sure these sessions are motivating and mobilising.

If you are the candidate, your volunteer team is involved in this project essentially because of you. Therefore, your presence is more than essential. A candidate who does not pay attention to the volunteer team may give the impression that they do not value people’s efforts.

If there is a general coordinator or a volunteer coordinator on the team, it is important that they take responsibility for facilitating the event, including as a way of empowering them as leaders within the team. However, the candidate should be present and give a presentation about the campaign.

Introduction

At the start, the candidate or the volunteer coordinator should give a brief welcome. It is also important that everyone present has the opportunity to introduce themselves. Optional: run an ice-breaker activity.

Connection

This is the moment to build a sense of team and discuss motivations and political principles. It is worth organising a group activity in which participants can share who they are, why they are there, and what motivates them to volunteer for this campaign. This is also a good moment to carry out the public narrative exercise explained in this guide.

Awareness

Now that participants know each other and have shared their motivations, it is time to present the campaign and the candidate in a more concrete way. The candidate should speak about herself, her proposals, why she decided to run, and what her dreams are.

Mobilisation

This is the moment to present the team, explain the day-to-day workings of the campaign, outline the challenges it faces, and identify where support is needed. It is also the time to review political guidelines, arguments for persuading people to vote for the candidate, and, in short, all the information volunteers need in order to talk about the campaign. Take advantage of this moment to cover more practical issues as well, such as electoral regulations or accountability requirements, so volunteers know what they can and cannot do.

Closing and Commitments

Make sure everyone leaves motivated, with three key feelings:

• A desire to win the election;
• A sense of belonging to a community;
• The certainty that they are essential to the success of the campaign.

Specifically, it is worth asking each participant to share how they are leaving the meeting and what concrete commitment they will make to contribute to the campaign. For example: I will organise a meeting with my neighbours; I will dedicate two hours a day to making phone calls, and so on.

Tip: Ask them to share on their social media that they are now part of your volunteer team and why.

Ready? We’ve prepared this template with a detailed plan for organizing a volunteer meeting:

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

A guide to attract and recruit the right people

Volunteering is key to any successful political campaign. In this guide, focused on the profile of the ideal volunteer and recruitment tactics, you will find the essential elements to attract and recruit the right people to ensure the success of your campaign.

In the context of a political campaign, volunteers are those who support the candidacy through different tasks and activities, such as spreading campaign messages, organising events, calling voters, fundraising, distributing leaflets, and putting up signs.

Volunteers are the engine of every campaign and, therefore, we must dedicate time and effort to identifying and recruiting them. Some key characteristics to look for in volunteers include:

Tactics for recruiting volunteers vary greatly depending on the campaign. If your candidate is a well-known figure, or if your platform is built around a widely recognised collective issue, it is more likely that more people will be actively willing to volunteer. But usually, the candidate must seek volunteers through recruitment methods, including:

Social media posts

Social media is an effective tool for reaching a broad and diverse audience. Messages can be posted on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok  and other platforms to inform the community about the campaign and encourage people to join as volunteers.

Leaflet distribution

Distributing leaflets is a traditional form of outreach that remains effective. Leaflets can be handed out at local events, in the street, or door to door to inform people about the campaign and how they can get involved as volunteers.

Phone calls

Phone calls can be an effective way to reach voters and encourage them to volunteer. Campaign members can identify people who have shown interest or willingness at a campaign event, ask for their phone number, and later invite them to take part as volunteers in another simple activity.

Campaign launch events or informational meetings

Campaign launch events or informational meetings provide an opportunity to attract potential volunteers and explain in detail how they can participate in the campaign. These events may be held in person or online, depending on the context and circumstances.

There are individuals who, due to their skills or their position within the campaign, are more likely to recruit volunteers. Most often, the candidate is the person with the greatest ability to do so. Given the importance of volunteering in any campaign, it is strongly recommended that the candidate dedicate time to recruitment, especially during the early stages of the campaign.

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

Best practices for managing and motivating volunteers

Once you have successfully recruited and trained your volunteers, it is time to provide the follow-up and support needed to keep them motivated. Remember that, ideally, the volunteer coordinator will be responsible for managing this process. Below are some best practices.

Support Volunteers in Their First Activities

Accompanying activities is essential so that you know what is being done, can address any questions volunteers may have, and help keep them motivated.

For example, try to ensure that the first time someone takes part in a street activity, they are accompanied by a more experienced volunteer, at least for the first hour. Or, if someone is organising a meeting with their neighbours, encourage them to do so with another person so they form a pair and can sustain each other’s motivation.

Get Organised with a Spreadsheet

It is important to know whether a volunteer has completed the activities they committed to or not. It is also useful to track who has attended training sessions, leaflet distribution activities, or any other events. This will help you identify your most active volunteers and those who may need more individual follow-up.

We have prepared a template that you can adapt and use:

SEE HERE

Create a WhatsApp Group

In the group, you can send weekly activities or challenges and ask people to share updates as they complete them. When there are events or street activities, make sure to send photos to the group to motivate those who did not attend to join next time.

Send Periodic One-to-One Messages

From time to time, send individual messages to each volunteer. If someone is active in activities or group discussions, make sure to thank them and let them know that you notice and value their effort. If a volunteer has been inactive, check that everything is fine, that they are receiving messages, and that they clearly understand how they can contribute.

Create Opportunities to Meet

Every so often, it is helpful to organise informal gatherings with volunteers (online or in person). This helps build community, allows people to get to know each other personally, and provides space to share campaign updates or current challenges.

Tip: before entering the final stretch of the campaign, call a preparation and motivation meeting to give it your all in the last days.

Do Not Ask for Too Much

It is important to keep in mind that some volunteers only want to help occasionally. For these volunteers, do not insist on asking them to do more than they initially committed to (in the form or during the training session), as this may discourage them.

Enable Greater Involvement

On the other hand, there will be volunteers who you notice are highly engaged – taking part in many activities, regularly contributing in the group, sharing ideas, and being proactive. This is an ideal profile to take on a bit more responsibility and receive greater recognition. For example, you could invite someone who always attends street activities to become responsible for one of the leaflet distribution points. Instead of only attending, they can be the person who brings the materials and confirms the attendance of other volunteers.

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

Tips for keeping volunteers engaged throughout the campaign

It doesn’t matter whether your campaign is large, medium, or small; all of them can be enriched by the support of volunteers. And, who knows? Perhaps the time will come when far more people than you expected join your electoral adventure, and you end up with a campaign much larger than you imagined.

However, although the advice we have given applies broadly to all types of campaigns, it will still need to be adapted to the reality of each one. Depending on the resources and time available to you, you may be able to carry out more or fewer actions to maintain contact with your volunteers. And if you don’t have many resources, do not rest on your laurels: there are still many things you can do to maintain a direct and consistent relationship with them.

Below, we show the actions you should take to guide your volunteers, depending on the format of your campaign: basic, ideal, or outstanding.

It’s important to send an email every 15 days to all the volunteers registered through the form. Include all the activities they can take part in and the next steps:

On social media

Send an email explaining the importance of outreach on social media, with specific activities they can carry out. Create challenges for them to complete, almost like a game. Put together a materials kit for posting and sharing, and place it in a cloud folder so everyone has access.

On the streets

Explain to the volunteer that, ideally, they should use as much of their free time as they can to hand out flyers, and that they can invite friends to join them, forming small distribution groups. Make sure there’s always a pickup point where people can get materials. Create a simple video, recorded on your phone, explaining how to distribute flyers.

In conversation circles

Create a specific WhatsApp or Telegram group for those who want to organize and host conversation circles. Send the group link by email so interested volunteers can join. Write a standard message with the group rules, and send a message every three days asking who already has a date, location, and group of friends lined up to host a gathering.

In addition to the Basic campaign tips:

On social media

In addition to the Basic campaign tips, create weekly challenges for volunteers to complete.

For example: “our goal is for a video to reach 1,000 likes next week”. This builds unity among volunteers and gives everyone a clear objective. Share updates on progress regularly and always celebrate wins.

On the streets

In addition to the Basic campaign tips, check the form to see which neighborhoods volunteers are in and choose a pick-up point in each area. To make things easier, you can create WhatsApp groups by neighborhood or region to organize leaflet distribution. Record a short training video and ask for help from a volunteer who produces and edits videos.

In conversation circles

In addition to the Basic campaign tips, call your volunteers and build a closer connection. Phone calls help strengthen relationships. Set a goal of three meetings per week and motivate volunteers to work toward that target together.

In addition to the Basic and Ideal campaign tips:

• Already have a place in mind that seems perfect for a meeting? Great! Get in touch and check availability. Call your friends, send emails, WhatsApp messages, it’s totally okay to knock on doors. Try reaching out to schools, offices, and businesses and get partnerships.
• If your team is ready, ask them to talk to people who might be willing to host a meeting in their space, like in a building or a shop.
• Try to be present at meetings organized by collectives and organizations connected to your agenda. Go to debates in schools and universities, condo meetings, your aunt’s friend’s office, your best friend’s birthday – any place is a good place to talk about your campaign.
• Broadcast lists are a great tool! Ask your team to create a WhatsApp broadcast list to share campaign updates and announce meetings. You can send short voice notes inviting people to each meeting through this list.
• Set goals per meeting! For example, aim to have at least 20 or 30 people per week at meetings. Make it clear this is a shared team goal to engage volunteers.
• Understand the different audiences who might vote for you and, based on that, develop strategies using the Electoral Canvas, a tool available on the Im.Pulsa Platform.

On social media

Here you can follow the same tips as in the Basic and Ideal campaigns. Since a “Marvel” campaign assumes you’ll have guaranteed funds to boost your social media, setting goals to force organic engagement isn’t as important. It’s best for social media goals to be handled by your digital communications team.

On the streets

In addition to the Basic and Ideal campaign tips, organize leaflet distribution with groups of volunteers at least once toward the end of each week. In your volunteer form, include the option of grassroots volunteer: someone who’s willing to offer their home as a leaflet pick-up point, host meetings, and place a poster of the candidate in their window. With a full communications team, you can plan all the assets to be produced, including a training video on leaflet distribution.

In conversation circles

In addition to the Basic and Ideal campaign tips, set a goal of five meetings per week, each with at least 30 different people. These can be debates, home meetings, or events. Think about creating exclusive communication materials for this purpose, for example, a guide on how to host a meeting. Talk to volunteers in the area of each meeting so they can invite their networks and take part. Depending on your country’s legislation, you can also hire people to do this, but it definitely won’t have the same effect. Here, organic engagement matters more, bet on people who truly believe in you.

It makes a huge difference when you go out with your team to hand out leaflets! People need to see you in action, you know? Connect with those doing this work too, whether they’re volunteers or paid staff (if allowed). Let them build a relationship with you so it doesn’t feel like careless, mechanical work. It’s great when they believe in what they’re doing, because they need to know what to say if someone asks a question while receiving your campaign materials.

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply

Make your volunteers feel valued and effective

As we’ve already seen, volunteers are a very important part of your campaign, and you can’t take them for granted. Try to consistently show how their work is making a real difference in the campaign.

Thank them publicly

After an event or a day of street outreach, make a post on your social media channels and publicly thank your volunteers. If you can tag them, even better. I promise they’ll feel special and proud to be recognised.

Share the wins

Whenever the campaign achieves an important victory (reaching the signature goal, hosting a very successful event, hitting a fundraising target), make sure to thank the volunteers and remind everyone that their daily work was essential to making it happen. You can do this in the WhatsApp group in a more personal way, for example by sending a voice note or a short, simple video recorded on your phone (sometimes text just doesn’t fully convey the feeling).

Include them in your communications

Try to give your volunteers space in your communications by posting photos where they’re present, thanking them in posts, and talking about the work the volunteer team does every day. This not only helps them feel valued, it also makes it visible that your campaign is built by a team of volunteers – which can attract even more people to get involved. 

Here are a couple of examples:

1. A video from the campaign of Pedro Kumamoto, an independent candidate in Mexico.

2. A post by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for volunteers.

See HERE

Give recognition

You can start making things fun by setting challenges linked to campaign goals and offering simple recognitions to the winners. How about giving a certificate to the volunteer who collected the most signatures in one day? Or recording a personalised video for the volunteer who organised the most well-attended neighbourhood meeting of the week? 

Wrap it up properly

The campaign is over! Time to send individual messages and group messages thanking everyone and celebrating what the campaign achieved – even if you weren’t elected. Once you’ve had a bit of rest from the campaign madness, organise an in-person or online gathering to say thank you and bring things to a close. Remember: you’ve started a community that will very likely outlast your campaign.

Why not listen to your volunteer team’s feedback?

This is the moment to collect their feedback and understand how the experience was for them; what worked well and what could have been better. This will always help you improve and keep working with them on future projects.

Disclaimer: Our global content is produced from the knowledge network of many different people and geographies. Always research the rules applicable to your specific territory and ensure that your activities comply