I have been working on election campaigns for the last 20 years, and the core principle of campaigning is that you need seven positive touches with every voter before they will consider you on Election Day. Election campaigns build their field marketing and event planning around these seven positive touches.
Election campaigns use their candidates to rally support, generate positive contacts, and build activity in their district. The Democratic Town Committee doesn't have a good rallying point that can generate positive energy. An additional problem is that Democrats really do not interact well with bumper stickers and buzzwords. A town committee member cannot go to a Democratic voter's door and yell "Hunter Biden's laptop" and expect that voter to fall in line. Democratic organizing does not work like that.
Democratic committees need a reason to organize and do voter outreach. The GCA process uses engagement events and meetups to create a reason for Democratic town committees to talk to voters. The reason is to invite voters to events. In the GCA process, committee members and volunteers are asked to contact 50 Democrats in their neighborhoods to invite them to an event.
The committee would love for the neighbor to come to the event. But… That is not the point of the outreach. The point is that this is a positive touch between the committee and the neighbor. If you have been paying attention to me, you know why I say committees host six civic engagement events a year. That is because the supporting outreach results in at least six positive interactions with the neighbor.
The invitation includes an RSVP link that leads back to the progressive town square on the committee’s website. If the neighbor happens to be politically aware or curious when they visit the square, they will see a post that encourages them to get involved. The post includes four things that you can do to help elect Democrats this month: invite to the committee’s November meetup; information about Democratic elected officials and candidates for office; The Square expands the ways neighbors can get involved beyond the civic engagement event.
The GCA process does not tell volunteers how to do outreach. The GCA process has templates that the Democratic Committee can use to provide invitations in many media formats. The volunteers determine how they want to do the outreach. Scripts are provided for anyone who wants to call their neighbor. Mailable invitations are provided for people who like to write postcards. Volunteers who want to get exercise by walking their neighborhood can use the provided walk list and doorknocker invites and leave the invitation on the door. Volunteers that are good with technology can use an electronic PDF invite to send via email, text, or post it on social media. Whatever makes the volunteer feel comfortable is the method they can use to do the outreach.
So the only remaining question is: how does a democratic committee get that last positive touch? Visit bowes3.com/gcaproces to find out.