January 14 Meeting Summary

Two additional teammates joined El and I on Thursday night: Katherine McCrae and Feliciana Turner. So, as we suspected, our little group is still growing exponentially!

We talked about our mission statement, which is to: Find People Who Will Get Democrats Elected and Have Fun Doing It!

With that mission, we discussed establishing SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Time-Based) goals. As our discussion began, we realized that a discussion of our vision of our team had to be clearer in order to establish goals.

Our vision evolved as we discussed it. Essentially, we want to find and train a group of committed volunteers who will “deep canvas” in the most heavily Democratic precincts in Laramie County with two purposes (and two scripts): First, to talk to committed Democrats and get them to commit to volunteering, donating, or (at the least) allowing us to have their email address. Second to “reverse canvas” voting age people who are not registered to vote and get them to commit to registering. Because of that discussion, deep canvassing and reverse canvassing should be defined.

Here is an executive summary of deep canvassing provided by By David Fleischer, Brandyn Keating, Kelly Beadle, Justin Klecha, Aimee Martin, Virginia Escobar-Millacci, Josh Nussbaum, David Broockman, and Joshua Kalla:

PROBLEM

Civic engagement is at a historic low and numerous policy fights remain at a stalemate. When organizations rely on tactics that generate only small or short-term impacts, they fail to change the underlying drivers of turnout and support, such as prejudice or disempowerment.

A NEW SOLUTION: DEEP CANVASSING

Rigorous experiments show that a tool for communicating with voters called deep canvassing may generate larger and longer-lasting impacts on voters’ core attitudes than other methods.

WHAT ARE DEEP CANVASSES?

Candid two-way conversations where canvassers ask voters to share voters’ own relevant, emotionally significant experiences and reflect on them aloud.

WHY DOES DEEP CANVASSING WORK?

Voters who share relevant, emotionally significant experiences and reflect on them aloud often realize for themselves that these experiences conflict with the underlying assumptions that animate their opinions and behaviors, leading them to change these assumptions. To elicit such experiences and encourage such reflection, canvassers:

● Non-judgmentally solicit voters’ views. Make voters feel comfortable stating their views.

● Listen actively. Ask follow-up questions about voters’ experiences to solicit details.

● Model vulnerability. Canvassers may tell their stories to facilitate voters sharing theirs.

● Connect on values. Canvassers and voters develop a connection based on experiences that reinforce an important value relevant to the issue.

WHY INVEST IN DEEP CANVASSING?

● Voters are saturated with impersonal tactics. Organizations barrage voters with one-way communication that tells them how to think. A deep canvass may be the first time a voter has a two-way conversation, which psychology research indicates may be more effective.

● It can be cost effective. Results from one program show only 25% lower contact volume than conventional canvassing. However, size and duration of impact can be much greater.

● It can have lasting effects on voters. Today’s efforts can pay dividends into the future.

● It can build infrastructure. The skills and team a program builds can last across multiple election or issue campaigns.

HOW IS DEEP CANVASSING DIFFERENT? A COMPARISON OF APPROACHES

Conventional Canvass

● Canvasser hurriedly reads a script.

● Canvasser delivers a “message.”

● Usually under 30 sec.

● Canvassers tell voters what to think.

High-Quality Canvass

● Voter talks, but canvasser talks more.

● Canvasser delivers a “message.”

● Usually under 2 min.

● Canvassers tell voters what to think.

Deep Canvass

● Voter does more talking than canvasser.

● Voter candidly describes personal experiences.

● Average 10 min.

● Voters draw own conclusions.

Reverse Canvassing is the concept of using Votebuilder to identify registered voters and then knock on the doors that show no registered voters. It seems to me that some part of that strategy is missing, because we have no master list of addresses. I talked to Erin O’Doherty about developing the master list of addresses that we subtract the registered addresses from. She told me that was the million dollar question!

We concluded our meeting by determining that we will think about goals and each of us will bring at least one goal to our meeting on January 28th.