Creating a Door-to-Door Canvassing Project

Gary Brown
Gary Brown
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💡 Key Terms and Definitions

  • Door to Door Canvassing - The act of walking through a neighborhood to engage voters at their homes on behalf of a political organization or campaign.
  • Canvassers - Individuals associated with a campaign such as a volunteer or paid staff member who participate in Door to Door Canvassing.
  • Door to Door Canvassing Project - A canvassing project is the bundling of essential elements required for canvassing. At a minimum, Door to Door canvassing project entails a project name, saved voter universe, survey, and assignment workflow. They can however, get much more complicated with advanced options.
  • Turf Assignments - Once a Door to Door canvassing project has been generated, the next step is to assign a small portion of the project data to canvassers within a specific geographic turf. This process is generally referred to as creating Turf Assignments.

Overview

Door to door canvassing begins with creating a door to door canvassing project from the Manage Canvassing Projects and Assignments page.

                  

Upon opening the Manage Canvassing Projects and Assignments page, you will see a data grid containing important details related to your active door to door canvassing projects. Until you create a project of your own, no data will appear in the grid.

To create a typical door to door canvassing project, click on the Create New Project button in the upper right corner above the grid.

A small form will appear that essentially asks you four questions: 

  • How do you want to name your project? (Enter a Name)
  • Which voters do you want to contact? (Select a Saved Universe) 
  • What does your organization want to say to and ask of the voters?  (Select a Survey)
  • How does your organization distribute turf assignments? (Select an Assignment Method)

As you complete the selections on the page and click the Save button, your door to door canvassing project will begin processing and will immediately appear as a link on the button of the project grid. 



After a minute or two, you can click on the link to refresh the grid and display the project details.

Congratulations! You have successfully created a standard door to door canvassing project.  The next steps involve distributing portions of the project data to your canvassers in the form of Turf Assignments.


Advanced Options

The options available on the initial form for creating canvassing projects meet the needs of approximately 80% of campaigns and organizations using the PDI platform. However, more complex canvassing efforts often require the additional features and customizations found in the expanded Advanced Options section of the form to address more sophisticated requirements.

The Advanced Canvassing Project article in this Help Center will guide you through the process of building advanced canvassing projects.


Supplemental Resources for this Article

For guidance on creating a saved voter universes
For guidance on creating survey
For guidance on canvassing assignment methods
For guidance on Advance Canvassing Project Options