Send A Weekly Newsletter to Phonebankers, Sister District Portland 2020

At A Glance

• We recommend sending a weekly newsletter to those involved in your weekly phonebank program
• Perhaps your phonebanks happen on Saturdays; you might send the email on Wednesdays
• We recommend sending through Action Network by targeting those with the Phone Bank tag as described in the Action Network Guide or you can export a list from Mobilize and send from a personal account as described in the Mobilize Guide
• The newsletter was crucial for Sister District Portland in 2020 – – it helped their community feel more connected, helped retain phonebankers, turned phonebankers into recruiters, and helped increase dial efficiency and call effectiveness

Goals of the Phonebank Program Newsletter

• Celebrate success & progress
  • Team, i.e. “we made 1,891 calls on Saturday, which brings us to 30,062 dials for the year, amazing!”
  • Individual, i.e. “shout out to Neal, who joined us for the first time, made 83 calls and persuaded a voter!”
• Appreciate individuals
  • e.g. “shout out to Leif, who led the way with 132 dials, now that’s dial efficiency!”
• Help people stay connected to, and looking out for, successes & goals of the tactic
  • e.g. “We made 1,031 dials and found voters who had moved, who won’t be voting with us, which helps the campaign be more efficient and helps them target the right voters!”
• Remind of the next phonebank, provide the Mobilize link & ask folks to recruit their friends
• Keep your phonebankers connected to program and also the larger effort — you can share information about, say an upcoming Phonebank Battle, or event with one of your candidates

The newsletter will help make your folks feel recognized, appreciated, and valued. It will help create friendship and greater connectivity among phonebankers through concretizing the results and finding and lifting up joy in the course of sharing in important work together. Your folks will be more likely to keep coming back, more likely to invite friends to attend, and more likely to make more — and more effective — calls for your candidates.

Sister District Portland 2020 Example

Process

• Phonebank leader and Zoom account manager Jordan finishes up a phonebank & adds dials for each volunteer to his spreadsheet
• Jordan downloads a transcript of the Zoom chat from the phonebank, which captures great stories and things to celebrate from individual phonebankers
• Jordan emails Phonebank Newsletter writer Chris with the chat transcript
• Chris goes into the team’s phonebank spreadsheet to view dial outcomes, and opens the chat transcript to look for material
• Chris drafts and sends the newsletter!

Newsletter Examples

Here are two examples from the Sister District Portland phonebank program, pulled from their communications during the extra-curricular efforts to help elect Rev. Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the 2021 GA Senate runoff elections.

Example 1: Long-form with stats and stories

Holiday greetings to all of you formidable phonebankers!

Tis the season to talk to friendly Georgia voters and make sure they’re equipped to cast a safe early vote for Rev. Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Our phonebanking crew has been chatting up our friends in Georgia to make sure they have a voting plan, and urging them to triple their vote. We’ve had consistently good lists and lots of friendly connections. A special shout out to the callers at the top of our leaderboard for successfully recruiting GA voters as volunteers: Phyllis (2), Neal (2), Christine F. and Jordan.

With early voting in full swing (and only 2 weeks of that are left), this is an especially critical time to phonebank. Can you pick up an extra shift? Bring a friend or two with you? Think about this as a down payment to help give Biden-Harris a real chance to move legislation these next 2 years. Here’s the magic link – sign up for shifts on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. https://www.mobilize.us/sisterdistrict/event/363217/

Our stalwart crew of dialers have been blazing through those voter lists. The latest tallies:

• In 6 weeks we’ve dialed 21,566 Georgia voters. That’s enough to win an election or two!
• A team of 36 people fielded 52 calling shifts – and they made 4,204 dials.
• Holding strong on dialing efficiency, with an average of 81 dials per caller.

Here are some highlights from last week’s chats – along with a few reminders about the unpredictable things that happen when you dial strangers as your hobby:

• Betsy: I just talked to someone who lost to Ossoff in the primary! He was delightful. 100% all in for Jon and Rev. Warnock.
• Julia: After reaching almost nobody for the last 40 mins, ended with a call to a lady who is voting, had me look up her polling place, found a spot more convenient for her than the one she knew of, and is making sure her whole office votes! Totally made my day!
• Summer: A great call with a woman who lives in Buckhead, very conservative, and she is seeing lots of Biden, Ossoff and Warnock signs. She is voting tomorrow and telling all her friends and family.
• Christine : Reached an 85 y.o. who is a strong democrat. Her whole family has voted D and she is telling everyone she knows to vote D.
• Jordan: You guys, I just recruited a volunteer! My first one in a long time. 🙂
• Bonnie: The cool thing: I’m reaching people, and they plan to vote for our guys.

Thanks for all that you are doing to support our candidates and ensure that voters’ voices are heard.

Now let’s get back to it, and dial like the wind. See you on the Zoom!
Chris

Example 2: Short-form, more overall progress and appreciation, bypassing stats and stories

Hi phonebanking phenoms,

We wanted to race our final phonebanking tallies to you so you could bask in the satisfaction of all your hard work when you watch the election returns tomorrow. Our stats are in the newsletter below – and they are something to celebrate!

Thank you all for your hard work, your resilience and camaraderie, and your delightful humor. Pretty awesome to see a group rally to make 35,000 calls in 8 weeks – especially when that happened close on the heels of a long election season.

Here’s hoping that we will be celebrating Senators Warnock and Ossoff tomorrow night, and taking a major step forward to putting 2021 on a better track.

Your friend and fellow dialer,
Recaptain Chris

PS. Rumor has it that Anthony and the Hubdialers will be playing the election night party!