In this article:
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You can also find this guide (along with other great resources) on Campaign Academy
“Relational organizing” is a campaign term for something we all do naturally all the time. It means talking to the people in our lives about what we care about, what we’re excited about, and what we’re spending our time thinking about and working on. “Relational organizing” means doing this actively, with the goal of getting people we already know to take a specific action (for example, voting for your candidate!).
Research shows that a conversation between people who know each other is 2.5x more effective than a conversation between strangers. Contact rates (the rate at which attempting to talk to someone on the phone or at the door actually results in talking to them) are also significantly higher between people who know each other – you’re much more likely to pick up the phone or respond to a text message when it’s someone you know!
Whether you want to run dedicated events specifically for relational organizing, or simply add a layer of relational organizing to the other work you’re doing, relational is a powerful way to recruit volunteers, persuade undecided voters, and to mobilize people to actually show up and vote (or vote early/by mail).
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Everyone involved in the campaign or organization should be talking to their friends and family about the campaign and the election.
Campaigns spend lots of time and resources calling through voter lists and knocking on doors in order to reach people who will potentially be your voters. This work is incredibly important, and it’s easy in the course of this work to overlook the voters we already have immediate access to — our friends and family, and the friends, family, classmates, teammates, and colleagues of the people who are participating in our campaign. We should be mobilizing every one of these people – to vote, to volunteer, and to talk to the people in their lives and get them on board too. (Even if they don’t live in our district, they probably still know people who do.)
You have probably heard that a candidate should be asking everyone they know to donate. They should also ask everyone they know to talk to all of their friends– and their friends’ friends– about the campaign. That’s relational organizing.
Relational can help with every part of your campaign plan, whether you’re recruiting volunteers, persuading undecided people, raising money, or mobilizing supporters to vote.