Friendbanks, or relational volunteer events, can be the centerpiece of your program. They served as the entry point to the relational program and are where you get volunteers onto the SwipeRed app, teach them about relational, and have them jump into building their networks and reaching out to contacts. Here are some tips and advice from what we learned. 

Be creative.   Focus on action!

We have found it helpful to make events as action-oriented and directive as possible.

Get specific!

• Upload phone contacts to SwipeRed

• Search Linkedin and Facebook for connections

• Look up the Facebook pages of the state political figures, favorite local restaurants, and cultural hubs, and see if you have any friends who like those pages

• “Send out flares” -- a term for taking actions that draw potential supporters to you. This refers primarily to posting on social media about the election and following up with everyone who likes or comments.

Tip: define relational organizing, succinctly make your argument for it and communicate its role in your strategy, then get to the action as soon as possible.

Tip: One thing we have learned is that just because you could present action-takers with a slew of options, don't!  Pick one order of operations, and stick with it.

The more, the merrier

Building relational events specifically designed to bring in more and different parts of the community is a great way to amplify your impact. Here are some of what worked for us, plus some additional ideas.

Get co-hosts. We have found great success with having friendbanks co-hosted by other groups and organizations. This allows you to recruit not only from your own volunteer pool but from the organization’s members as well and create strong ties with other local groups. Think Life groups, parent groups, community groups, student organizations, local chapters of national organizations, etc.!

Surrogate-led or candidate friendbanks brought in large numbers of volunteers for us.

Food for thought: do issue-specific friendbanks -- a friendbank centered around organizing people who care deeply about an issue like pro-life, for example.

GOTV with Relational

GOTV is your opportunity to turn all of the relational work you and your volunteers have done into votes— so don’t be afraid to switch up your programming to focus on turning out the relational contacts your volunteers have already identified.

GOTV Power Hours Using SwipeRed

During GOTV, we added a new type of event dedicated to getting volunteers to reach out to their networks. We ran Zoom-based power hours all day for the last four days of the election and encouraged volunteers to sign up for as many 2-hour shifts as possible. We played music, and volunteers called through their lists (with their Zoom on mute), popping in and out of sound to ask questions. *This is an excellent coordination with the phonebanking effort

Bonus Tips

Naming your events - don’t be afraid to name your relational events effectively for your race -- there’s no rule that says relational events have to be called Friendbanks! “Relational Textbank,” “Barnstorming,” “Night of Action,” “SwipeRed Power Hour” -- the world is your relational oyster.

Pro tip -- be prepared with an ask for out-of-district volunteers who may join a Friendbank, but may not have known contacts in your district. These volunteers are great for sending Peer-to-Peer messages.

So consider this: Friend-to-friend outreach can raise turnout rates by as much as 13.2 points!!