Canvassers mobilize more voters with Palm Cards and Smart QR Codes.
There's nothing better than door-to-door canvassing to mobilize voters. How can volunteers be trained to canvass better? How can canvassing target the issues that matter to the local community? How can canvassing build contact lists? Palm Cards with Smart QR Codes.
Palm Cards cost pennies to print and make canvassing more impactful. Palm Cards are a convenient reminder for canvassers to leave behind and often have a QR Code that direct people to a website for more information. 'Smart' QR Codes are a new innovation that enhance Palm Cards for a few cents per record of information collected from a voter. Smart QR Codes start a text message interchange between the voter which automatically collects the voter's phone number and other survey answers besides providing information to voters.
Center For Common Ground (CFCG) is a nonprofit that educates and mobilizes Black and Brown voters in voter suppression states to take action and protect their right to vote. CFCG canvassers are local people from the community who are trusted messengers explaining local issues. This blog explains how Center For Common Ground designs and uses palm cards for canvassing.
Palm cards
Volunteers need training to canvass; they need to deliver a consistent message. Palm cards give them an easy way to understand and explain the issues to the people they meet. Center For Common Ground uses Palm Cards in its canvassing campaigns.
- Center For Common Ground first surveys community members and collects information on relevant community issues
- Prints palm cards to explain the issues with simple graphics and descriptions
- Trains volunteers from the community to canvass
- Provides canvassers with palm cards to use as visual props
- Canvassers leave the palm cards behind and encourage people to use the QR Code
Customize your appeal to the community
Customize the Palm Cards to the community being canvassed. Here are three examples of different Palm Cards that Center For Common Ground uses in Virginia.
Collect more information with Palm Cards
Savvy organizers use 'smart' QR Codes on their Palm Cards to collect information from voters and build opt-in contact lists. Scanning the QR Code on the Palm Card makes a chatbot send a text message to the voter with more details, details on how they might be contacted and saves their contact information. Volunteers use this contact list to follow up with voters who scan the QR Code. Scan the QR Code below to see how it works. Learn more about Smart QR Codes here.
Democracy Centers
Center for Common Ground runs Democracy Centers in underserved communities where more than 55% of eligible voters no longer choose to vote. These centers provide infrastructure, training and digital tools to empower communities. Citizens need a place to gather, learn about national, state and local policy/politics so they can make educated decisions about their leaders and how to make change on every level. Volunteers pick up palm cards at a Democracy Center before they go canvassing or host a local community event.
Democracy Centers are a local resource that supports ongoing, year-round, civic engagement to achieve meaningful progress on issues of importance in underserved communities of color where the ill effects of historic systemic racism are deeply entrenched and oppressive. These communities are often rural and identifiable by certain common characteristics, such as high levels of race-based concentrated poverty, lower social mobility, higher rates of environmental pollution and restrictive voter suppression laws. The phrase, “My vote doesn’t matter” reflects frustration with the lack of improvement in community pain points regardless of who is elected.
Take Away: Canvass better with Palm Cards and Smart QR Codes.
Deepak
DemLabs
DISCLAIMER: ALTHOUGH THE DATA FOUND IN THIS BLOG AND INFOGRAPHIC HAS BEEN PRODUCED AND PROCESSED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE RELIABLE, NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED CAN BE MADE REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, LEGALITY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY SUCH INFORMATION. THIS DISCLAIMER APPLIES TO ANY USES OF THE INFORMATION WHETHER ISOLATED OR AGGREGATE USES THEREOF.