LIST ENHANCEMENT CIRCUIT RIDING   A quick overview based on work in the Pacific Northwest

This is a brief description of how circuit riders spend their time on a "typical" list enhancement circuit ride that WEAVE (Washington Environmental Alliance for Voter Education) has conducted. Despite local and individual technological, training, and strategic differences, WEAVE's list enhancement circuit riding has been done in essentially the same way in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Georgia, Arizona, and Missouri, and it's been successful nearly everywhere.

The visits are typically an hour and a half, occasionally lasting two hours. On rare occasions they exceed two hours.

Pre-visit phone call (15 min)

• Explain purpose of visit
• Explain that this is a training, not an installation, and that a wide range of staff may be interested, including development, organizers, etc.
• Explain that we'll be modifying their database and that if there is anyone in particular who should know about this (e.g., a volunteer who manages their computer system), tell them
• Ask questions about database-program, version
• If the data has already been sent to them and you don't have a copy:
• Do they have the disk?
• Are they totally positive? Is it in their hand right now as you're speaking?

• Meet designated contact, who will then gather staff and suggest you sit at the computer. Suggest instead that you begin at a conference table of some sort.
• Introduce self, affiliation. Ask organizational staff to introduce themselves, and what they work on.
• Ask what kind of work organization does (lobbying? ballot initiatives? grassroots organizing?) and what they hoped to get from list enhancement.
• Describe agenda and who should attend:
• Background, and discussion of charts and graphs (wide range of staff may be interested, including ED, development, political, grassroots, etc.)
• Import data (usually just "the computer person" if there is one)
• Learn about data (political, grassroots, and development staff)
• Use data (same)

• Ask how much they know about the list enhancement project. If necessary, give:
• Brief history of list enhancement
• Explain process by which data is submitted & generated. Don't assume that anyone in the room was involved in submitting data; staff turnover is high in some of these organizations. (and even if one person knows, there are probably three others who don't)
• Discuss charts & graphs, one at a time. Explain what each graph means. Give them a chance to interpret, but help them understand it. Give subjective thoughts relative to other organizations (e.g., "you guys have a lot of strength in the 65+, but are not as strong as some other local groups in the under-50 demographic.")

• Move to computer. Have organizational person sit in front of computer.
• You sit behind them and to the side. Do not touch the computer in any way. Give detailed step by step instructions ("click the blue Admin button in the upper right corner of the screen").

• Suggest they take out a pencil and take notes on what you're about to discuss with them
• Walk through every field in the list enhancement text file, even those they won't use.
• Discuss each field, what it means, and how they might use it. Emphasize areas specific to their interests (lobbying, fundraising, etc.)

• Walk them through a few basic practice queries, e.g.:
• We need to know how many people live in state house district Y. Find everyone in district Y.
• We're phone-banking people to ask them to call the representative from district Y about a bill. Find all 4/4 voters with home phone numbers in district Y.
• We're trying to recruit daytime volunteers in city X. Find everyone in city X who is a 4/4 voter and over age 65 or under age 21.
• Find 4/4 voters interested in Pesticide issues. (combines list enhancement data with their own data)
• Find 4/4 voters who have given $50 or more. (combines list enhancement data with their own data)
• Now give some examples, and let them do it without you saying anything (unless they ask a question). More examples:
• We need to make get-out-the-vote calls on an initiative. Find everyone who is a 1/4 or 2/4 voter and has a home phone number.
• We need volunteers to canvass in their neighborhoods. Find 4/4 voters with a registration date of more than 15 years ago, and sort by precinct.
• Enough of the canned examples. What are you working on, and how might we use this data to target more effectively?
• Final reminder: never sort alphabetically again. Prioritize the 4/4 voters first, then 3, then 2, then 1. Focus efforts on those most likely to respond, whether it's for fundraising, activist recruitment, or anything else.
• Leave business card and offer to answer any questions via e-mail.

• Do not agree to help with unrelated computer or even database issues if it's not part of the plan for the visit
• Repeat, repeat, repeat
• Expect them to call back and say they forgot everything you taught them, how do they do X?

Many thanks to Ron Fein for developing this outline based on his years of experience as WEAVE's Circuit Rider.

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