It’s hard to believe that FDPA is just over a year old. During the early growth, many different people devised enrollment forms and created fields (columns) in our database to record volunteer interests. Unfortunately, this was not a coordinated or planned activity at the statewide level and it’s now hard to retrieve and use the data. As we clean up the database we will correct that issue.
This article provides a quick workaround (a volunteer tag) and an explanation of what happens when a new person registers.
Tag: “RS180215 Prospective Volunteer” — Use it to identify prospective volunteers in your list of subscribers
Every subscriber whose data record shows information that might possibly suggest that they are now or were once interested in volunteering when they filled out one of our forms is tagged “RS180215 Prospective Volunteer” as of 2/15/18. Slightly less than 5,000 people out of the 22,000 who are on our statewide email list were tagged. This tag does not necessarily mean that they wish to volunteer. They may have simply posted a comment when they registered. If there was any ambiguity, I included them.
If you run a report selecting subscribers with this tag you will get a list of people it may be worth contacting. Some will already be active volunteers, and some had no intention of volunteering when they checked something in a form we once used.
In recent time we have improved the registration system. We now ask for a “Yes” or “No” for volunteer interest 5 days after they register. In the FDPA custom field “Vol” a “Y” is recorded if the new subscriber says yes. You can be fairly sure that all volunteers with a “Y” in the Vol column of your report are currently interested in volunteer work with us. Contact these subscribers first, then consider contacting the others.
How We Ask People to Volunteer
When a person gives FDPA their email address they are automatically subscribed. Automated processes take over and subscribe them to both the statewide, and county lists. Unless they opt-out by unsubscribing, they will get communications from both lists. The automated welcome sequence asks them if they are interested in volunteering.
Welcome Process
The welcome flow is designed to ensure everyone who joins FDPA is immediately provided with a response that introduces them to the organization and gives them a simple, discrete action to take next. It then funnels them to the right local group. Once in their local group they will get a welcome from that group.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://fdpa.service-1.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/FDPA-New-Registration-Flow.pdf” title=”FDPA New Registration Flow”]
Five days after a new activist is subscribed, they will receive an email requesting that they complete their profile information online in order to identify their legislative districts more accurately. The page that the ask links to asks for street address and phone number and also asks for a Yes/No on volunteer interest. If they don’t respond to the first request, after two weeks they get a reminder.
Here’s what the subscriber sees…
- Welcome Email
- Ask: Complete Profile Email
- Landing Page: Complete Profile Questions/Form
- Follow-up Ask: [same as 2]
The other Volunteer Fields (mostly disused these days)
These are some, but not all of the fields once used for volunteer interest:
Admin
Availability
Comment
Communications
County
Creative Eng.
Data
Fundraising
Graphic Design
Hours
How
In-person advocacy
Local group
Media
Networking
Org events
Other
Outreach
Policy
Pub event
Schools
Social media
Speaking
Vol Coord
Website
days mth
days wk
hr mth
hr wk
individual
other_value
regional
registerAsVolunteer
speaker