Field organizers are grassroots consultants who unify people around a common goal and work to make it a reality. They are to find, train, and schedule volunteers, and depending on the size of the campaign, they oversee workers within a region or state.
Field organizers act as the face of a political campaign. They interact with a diverse range of people, build a strong volunteer base and take part in various events and meetings representing your campaign.
Main responsibilities:
- Recruit, train and retain volunteers
- Manage volunteers for canvassing, phone banking, peer-to-peer texting, and data entry
- Run aggressive GOTV programs via phone and door-to-door
- Build a rapport with the volunteers on behalf of the political campaign
- Planning and executing events by studying demographics to best represent an area/region
- Oversee press releases and publications to make people aware of the campaign
- Prepare campaign materials like notices, flyers, brochures
- Monitor campaigns to see if the goals are being achieved
- Organize fundraising events and local outreach programs
What to look for in a field organizer?
While hiring a field organizer you need to look for someone who has good communication skills, enjoys working with people and has an extensive knowledge of politics. They must be exceptional communicators with the ability to convince people. In addition, field organizers should be friendly with a can-do attitude, must have the ability to multi-task, meet deadlines and have excellent leadership skills.
They must also have good technical skills (with voter customer relationship management software) and the ability to problem solve. They must possess a working knowledge of politics and must be comfortable with public speaking. You want someone who knows how to excite and engage people.
Challenges faced:
- To communicate effectively with voters
- Recruit quality volunteers
- Voter identification
- Use the available information to guide future campaigns
You cannot think of organizing a grassroots movement without dependable field organizers, they are the ones behind voter identification and persuasion. Field organizers do more than just manage on-the-ground volunteer activities, they anticipate opposing arguments and defend their candidate.
There is always work to be done while running a campaign and your field organizers are the ones who come early and stay late. So, it’s important to hire the right person who can scale up your grassroots efforts.
