Field Plan and Experimentation

Field planning is an essential part in conducting surveys of a demographic in order to properly tailor resources and outreach strategies for it. Proper experimentation can often lead to increase effectiveness of outreach by acquiring invaluable information such as preferences from a given demographic. By focusing certain resources to certain communities, organizers can maximize effective outreach while remaining cost-efficient.

Developing a Field Plan

Your voter mobilization campaign should be based on what is called a field plan. Your field plan should be a written timeline of activities you plan to conduct in order to register, educate and turn out the maximum number of people in your target population. Any field plan should contain a number of elements and programs that will be engaged to accomplish the objectives of the campaign strategy. Your field plan should answer the key questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how much of each activity or operation.

Field Plan Pointers:

It should be a flexible document.
Involve people in the planning process.
Create deadlines with your volunteers so that they become more invested and involved with the process.
Dispense responsibilities amongst your volunteers. For example, put a person in charge of executing individual programs, fundraising, etc.
Convey the importance of each event/step to the overall voter outreach campaign goals.
Create a document that explains your organization’s overall goals.
Create a timeline for the campaign to coordinate the sequence of events, plan the expenditures, and fundraise for the budget.
See Appendix J for a sample Excel worksheet to track numerical goals and contact information of your volunteers and the newly registered voters.

Voter Databases:

Voter Activation Network (VAN) is an online database containing voter files for voter registration and GOTV campaigns. VAN contains a variety of tools including:

Voter Contact
Canvassing
Field Management
Data Integration
Data Consolidation
Membership Management
Volunteer Management
Donor Management
Casework Management

Organizations can search and filter voter lists by district or race to more efficiently narrow down target demographics. VAN is a great tool for field planning and experimentation and can enable organizers to concentrate resources more effectively on a target demographic.

See ISSI VAN Training in Resources below.

Important factors to Consider:

Message Development:

The message is the core argument around which you frame your campaign. Your field message should be based on the larger campaign message and common goals to reach, agitate, and motivate your target constituency. An example of this is APIAVote’s message-- that the Asian and Pacific Islander American community can affect policy decisions by engaging in the political process. We encourage civic participation, and promote a better understanding of public policy and the electoral process among the AAPI community.

Redefine this message to a local context. Apply it to your community.
Back up your message using statistics & examples or recent stories from your community.
Incorporate testimonials or AAPI endorsements from members of the surrounding community

Visibility:

To promote the campaign and deliver your message to your community - Be creative!

Here are some ideas:

Outreach to the media (community newspapers, television, radio).
Produce materials featuring your organization/coalition’s name, logo, or slogan.
Distribute items and make your presence known at large ethnic conferences, festivals, community shows, and areas with a high AAPI population.
Flyering and chalking around your community.

Electoral Targeting:

Target specific constituencies and groups in your voter outreach efforts. APIAVote encourages you to gain support outside your community by reaching out to local AAPI community organizations and larger ethnic media.

There are three phases of field outreach, described below. Each phase must be included in your field plan in order to maximize your efforts.

Voter Registration and Identification – Registering new voters and then identifying voters to get out to vote. You could identify people based on a certain issue, population, or area.
Education – Teaching voters about the issues and candidates for the upcoming election.
Get Out the Vote (GOTV) – Turning people out to vote before and on Election Day.

Direct Voter Contact:

People are more likely to register to vote if you go to them directly. Your voter contact plan should be the main component of your field plan and each phase

of the campaign may contain different voter contact tactics including:

Going door-to-door in local neighborhoods – check for legality.
Tabling – not behind the table, go out and talk to people! Have your organization’s materials as well as voting resources at the table.
Talking to people at community events – perfect for visibility and education.
Calling, messaging, and e-mailing people.

Education:

Voter education is simultaneous with registration and mobilization. Voter education includes creating and distributing local materials with information on how to vote and its importance.

Example: tactics include literature drops, town halls, forums, tabling, speaking at different community events, and media outreach.

Planning Your Campaign

Develop numerical goals that match the phases of the campaign and the volunteers you need. Create a tracking system to track the numerical goals in a timeline format.

For example: