Note:

  • Watch the videos and read the instructions carefully. You’ll likely be quizzed to make sure you understand procedures and tactics.

  • Own your state. You are responsible for generating at least 10 Political Team applicants in each state you are assigned.

 

The Big Picture

Your job is to grow The Borgen Project’s national Political Team. We want to have high-impact volunteers in all 435 U.S. Congressional Districts. Our top Political Team members do an amazing job of getting Congressional leaders to cosponsor life-saving legislation… Naturally, we want to bring on as many of those individuals as we can. You are operating at ground-zero for building The Borgen Project’s Political Team. You will “own” a state and be in charge of finding top candidates for joining our ranks. Tactically, you want as many people as possible viewing the openings. But the big picture is, you are leading the charge to make “Nebraska” or whatever state you are in charge of, a state where leaders are under constant pressure to support legislation that helps the poor.

 

Watch This Training Video


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Must Read/Watch Before Starting

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Getting Started

  1. Target State: Ask your manager for your assigned state. These are usually locations where we need to grow or where there is a key Congressional leader that we’re trying to target.
  2. Go to your States Tracker: Every state has it’s own recruiting tracker document. Find your state on the left side of borgenteam.org. If you can’t open the document, send a permission for access request.
  3. Research: Find places to post and email the openings to.
  4. Email: All recruiting and outreach emails are sent via a designated account. Do NOT send emails from your own Borgen Project account. Ask your Manager for a political recruitment email account.

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Where to Find Sites to Post Volunteer Openings

Your objective is to get the posting in front of as many people as possible. Go deep and get creative when trying to think of places to send/post the volunteer opening.

1. Colleges:

  • University wide: These postings are handled separately by the University Wide Manager. You don’t need to post to any college career boards.
  • Department specific job boards: Viewed within specific departments (Political Science Department, Business School, etc.).
  • Internship advisers: These are people whose job at the college or department is to help students find internship and career opportunities. You’ll need to call the various departments to find who handles internships/jobs/volunteer placement ops for each department.
  • Student groups: Look up student groups (UW Kiva, Frats/Sororities, Public Relations Society, etc.) at the university and send the listing to the contacts.

2. Civic groups: Email citizen groups (Rotary, Veterans of Foreign Wars, etc.).

3. United Way regional sites: Many allow organizations to post their listings. Oftentimes these listings are viewed on the intranet of various companies (Microsoft does this).

4. Web search: Google “volunteer (name of city, state, county)” and see what sites come up. Most likely anyone in that city searching for volunteer ops will head to one of the top five sites appearing. Post to any sites we’re not on.

5.  Newspaper and radio community calendars and “get involved boards”: Many allow you to post ops or send a PSA (public service announcement).

6. National sites: There are frequently new sites popping up. Make sure we’re on all of them.

 

Get creative! Above are the methods that we’ve used and that have worked, but we’re game for anything that brings us talented volunteers.Make sure your listing looks professional and be sure to follow the descriptions listed on the website. The listing itself is a good op to introduce the organization to hundreds or thousands of people. Posts that look professional will attract more applicants.

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Tracking Outreach

Each state has it’s own document. You can find your state’s document on the leftside column of borgenteam.org. Each state document should have the following tabs for keeping tracking of where you’ve sent postings. If the document doesn’t, you can add them.

  • Civic Groups: Rotaries, Chamber of Commerce, Veterans of Foreign Wars, churches, etc.
  • College Groups, Depts. & Professors: This tab is for us to start targeting specific departments in colleges (Political Science Depts, etc.), student groups (Campus Kiva, etc.), and the advisors/professors who inform students of various career/internship ops. This tab is essentially everything college related, except for the main university job board.
  • Sororities & Frats: Oftentimes they will forward your email to their entire group.
  • Local Volunteer Posting Sites: There are many sites that help people in a given city, county or state find volunteer ops. Check government sites (state and local), United Way sites, etc. To find such sites, Google terms like “volunteer (city/county/state).”
  • Community Calendar: Many sites allow you to post local community events. Most newspapers and radio stations have this built into their site. Radio stations also often air free psa’s (public service announcements) for nonprofits.
  • Churches: The key is to get the volunteer openings in front of as many people as possible. A friendly church leader can be a great source to forward the information on to their members. In many parts of the country, churches have a lot of sway over political leaders.
  • Recruiting Ideas: This tab has some helpful recruiting tips.

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Professors/College Contact Categories

Read this to learn more about finding contacts on college campuses.

– Political: Political Science, Policy, International Affairs, Social Work and related majors/departments
– Writer: English, Journalism and any writing focused major/department.
– PR: Public Relations, communications, marketing and any similar major/department.
– Misc.: Primarily target the above mentioned majors/departments, but any others you think should be added can be categorized at “Misc.”
– Do Not Email: If someone response to an email negatively or not wanting to be contacted, add them to the “do not email” category.

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Political Mobilizing: The Big Picture

Objective of Recruiting Regional Directors: Give the world’s poor a political ally in every U.S. Congressional District.

  • Problem: In D.C. meetings, Congressional leaders and staff frequently tell us that they hear from lots of people who are anti-foreign aid, but rarely hear from voters who are in favor the U.S. assisting the world’s poor. Similarly, leaders will often support a bill like the Water for the World Act if as few as 7 people call in support of it.
  • Solution: Make sure every member of Congress is receiving at least 7-calls per week from people in his/her district who are calling in support of poverty-reduction programs. To achieve this we’ve created the national Regional Director program. Each Regional Director is responsible for mobilizing 7 calls per week, along with engaging in a variety of other tactics that put pressure on the leader (lobbying, bird-dogging, etc.).
  • Your role in the solution: Of the hundreds of Regional Directors who we have advocating for the world’s poor each year, 99% began as someone who saw a volunteer posting. You are mobilizing and recruiting our next great political operatives and content team members.

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Red = Political Team
Green = Content Team