Omar Bennett
Field organizing is an essential part of any political campaign, and it involves the on-the-ground work of directly contacting and engaging voters to educate and mobilize them toward the campaign's goals. Field departments are typically organized by geography, with regional and local offices, and they are responsible for local distribution of campaign materials, organizing phone banks, and staging locations for canvassing and other events. Field organizers train, recruit, and manage volunteers, and they often focus on specific geographical areas, building relationships with local influentials. The success of field organizing relies on both human connections and precise data to guide targeted voter outreach. This introduction will explore the role of field work in political campaigns, including the strategies, tactics, and personnel involved in achieving campaign objectives.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Importance | Field organizing is a critical part of campaign strategy and can make a difference in the success of a political campaign. |
| Definition | Field organizing is the process of directly contacting voters to educate and mobilize them toward the campaign's goals. |
| Goals | Field organizers aim to persuade, identify, and mobilize targeted voters through one-on-one conversations with dedicated volunteers. |
| Targeting Voters | Targeting methods depend on factors such as budget, geographical constraints, and demographics. For example, rural areas may be better suited for phone calls, while towns with many young people may prefer texting. |
| Tools | Tools include virtual phone banks, texting, canvassing applications, and local distribution of campaign materials. |
| Data | Data is essential for successful field organizing, guiding campaigns to invest resources in targeted voter outreach. |
| Staff | Field staffers act as liasons between the campaign and local influentials, such as community leaders and activists. |
| Hierarchy | The field director leads the campaign at the grassroots level, overseeing field organizers and reporting to the campaign manager. |
| Salary | The national average salary for a field director is $55,741 per year, while a field organizer earns approximately $34,648 per year. |
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What You'll Learn
Field organizing and voter engagement
Field organizers play a pivotal role in this process, earning an average yearly salary of $34,648 in the United States. They are responsible for training, recruiting, and managing volunteers in grassroots efforts to persuade, identify, and mobilize targeted voters. Field organizers often focus on specific geographical areas and report directly to the field director, who supervises them during the campaign.
The field director, earning an average of $55,741 per year, leads and organizes the campaign at the grassroots level. They create a field plan that outlines the tasks necessary for achieving goals related to persuasion and voter identification. The field director also oversees the efforts of several regional field directors, who manage multiple local offices.
To effectively engage voters, field organizers and directors must consider various factors, including budget, geographical constraints, and demographic considerations. For example, rural areas may be challenging to canvass, making phone calls a more efficient option. Conversely, towns with a high population of young people may be more receptive to texting initiatives.
Additionally, modern technology has enhanced field organizing capabilities. Virtual Phone Banks, for instance, enable campaigns to create targeted phone banks that can be shared with staff and volunteers. Text messaging campaigns can also be employed to increase attendance at events, encourage early voting, and remind voters on Election Day. These initiatives feed valuable data back into the voter database, guiding future actions.
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Field tools and technology
Field organizers are the primary liaison between the campaign and local influentials, such as community leaders and activists. They are also responsible for the local distribution of campaign merchandise, such as lawn signs and stickers. Field departments are responsible for organizing phone banks and canvassing events.
Various tools and platforms can aid field teams in their tasks. For instance, NGP VAN offers a comprehensive toolkit for Democratic and progressive candidates, helping them set up websites, organize and track fundraising, manage volunteers, and analyze voter data for microtargeting campaigns. MiniVAN, NGP VAN's mobile canvassing application, has replaced the cumbersome paper packets previously used by volunteers, making it easier to identify potential voters.
Other tools like Impactive and CallHub allow campaign organizers to centralize information for volunteers and improve communication with canvassers and voters. The Civis Platform integrates voter data from multiple sources, helping campaigns understand voter priorities at a granular level. Target Smart maintains voter data with demographic, financial, and lifestyle information, along with offering professional services like polling and strategic consulting. ECanvasser maximizes returns from field operations by equipping agents with tools to collect and analyze polling data.
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Field staff and hierarchy
The field director creates a field plan outlining tasks to achieve goals for persuasion and voter identification. They supervise the field organizers and report to the campaign manager. The field director also oversees the statewide field efforts of several regional field directors, who manage several local offices. Field staffers act as liaisons between the campaign and local influentials, such as community leaders and activists, and handle the local distribution of campaign materials like lawn signs and stickers.
Field operations, a subset of the operations department, handle the logistics of larger field programs, ensuring direct contact with voters. The operations department also typically manages human resources, IT, cybersecurity, and financial operations. The scheduling and advance department, sometimes part of the field department, ensures the candidate and their surrogates are scheduled to maximize their influence on voters.
Political campaigns often have various departments, including communications, fundraising, legal, technology, and scheduling. The communications department, which includes speechwriters and media consultants, oversees press relations, advertising, and the campaign's overall message and image. The communications director manages the entire campaign's messaging, media relations, and communications staff. The social media director, who may be part of the communications team, creates strategies to reach the target demographic and present the candidate positively.
Field roles are often the most numerous and available in political campaigns, and they provide an excellent opportunity to engage in policy-related work and voter engagement. Field organizers gain valuable experience in grassroots campaigning and voter outreach, which can be crucial in influencing election outcomes.
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Field operations and logistics
Field organizers are responsible for training, recruiting, and managing volunteers in grassroots efforts to persuade, identify, and mobilize targeted voters. They focus on specific geographical areas and report to the field director, who leads and organizes the campaign at the grassroots level. The field director creates a field plan outlining the tasks required to achieve the campaign's goals for persuasion and voter identification.
The field department is generally organized by geography, with a statewide field director overseeing regional field directors who manage local offices. Field organizers, the lowest level of field staff, engage in full-time direct voter contact and assist the deputy director. They may also be involved in canvassing, get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts, and providing community information to campaign headquarters.
Field operations also include running local "storefront" campaign offices, organizing phone banks, and managing staging locations for canvasses and other campaign events. Phone banks can be created using Virtual Phone Banks (VPB), allowing campaigns to share links with volunteers to make calls and send texts to voters. This enables efficient and targeted communication with voters, facilitating data collection for future outreach.
Field roles are often the most numerous and available in political campaigns, and they provide an opportunity to engage directly with voters and make a meaningful impact.
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Field directors and organizers
Field directors lead and organize the campaign at the grassroots level. They create a field plan that outlines the tasks needed to achieve the campaign's goals for persuasion and voter identification. Field directors supervise field organizers, who are typically paid workers that do direct voter contact full-time and assist the deputy director. Field organizers train, recruit, and manage volunteers in grassroots efforts to persuade, identify, and mobilize targeted voters. They also provide information to campaign headquarters about the communities they work in.
Field organizers are often responsible for specific geographical areas and must be familiar with the local coverage area. They are in charge of directly contacting voters to educate and mobilize them toward the campaign's goals. This can include canvassing, where they engage with the public to explain the candidate's goals and ideas. Field organizers may also be involved in policy work and training as part of messaging and voter engagement.
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Frequently asked questions
Field organizing is a critical part of a campaign strategy that involves directly contacting voters to educate and mobilize them toward the campaign's goals. It involves a human approach to campaigning, encouraging voters to become politically active through one-on-one conversations with dedicated volunteers.
The three primary functions of the political desks are: briefing the candidate on the political terrain, securing the endorsement of other political leaders, and maintaining a close liaison with the campaign's field workers.
Field staffers act as the primary liaison between the campaign and local influentials, such as interest group leaders and community activists. They are also responsible for the local distribution of campaign materials like lawn signs and bumper stickers.
Common roles in a political campaign team include field organizers, field managers, speechwriters, media consultants, policy advisors, social media directors, and communications directors.
Field organizing is an integral part of a political campaign, providing direction on how to contact voters and achieve the desired results. It involves understanding the targeted voters and using appropriate communication channels like phone banking, texting, and canvassing to connect with them effectively. Field departments handle the "on-the-ground" organizing, including voter contact and local event management.
