Phone Banking with RunningMate

Phone banking is a critical method of outreach for political campaigns and organizations. 

With the phone banking feature in RunningMate, users can plan and execute live caller voter outreach campaigns. Users will be able to access voter contact information, make calls using their own phones, and log the outcome of each attempt directly in RunningMate. 

The phone banking feature provides a guided experience for volunteers and staff to manually call voters and log the outcomes of those conversations. Each phone bank is configured within a Program and includes only voters with phone numbers. 

This structured call flow ensures campaigns can systematically reach out to voters and avoid duplicate or missed contacts. Responses are logged directly into the Program and voter contact status.

Setting up and Accessing Phone Banking

Similar to canvassing, a phone banking campaign is also set up within a Program and runs off of lists. A Program can contain both a canvassing effort and phone banking effort, or just one or the other. 


With phone banking, users will be required to create packets and assign the packets to themselves or other users within their workspace. This is to ensure that voters are not being contacted by multiple users within the same phone bank effort.   


Set Up

To set up a phone banking effort:

  1. Create a static list using either a Universe or one of your Saved Filters.
  2. Go to Programs > Create Program 
  3. Name your program (required) and provide a description and start/end date if desired (optional), then save.
  4. Once you save your program, the Phone Bank Setup tab will appear. Click it to set up phone banking and then click “Create Phone Bank” 
    1. If a phone bank is already set up you will see the list of packets associated with the phone bank and have the ability to assign packets on this screen. 
  5. Select the list you want to use for phone banking
    1. Only lists that contain phone numbers will be listed in the dropdown.
      1. Users do not need to create a list with just phone numbers. The system will check the lists to see if it contains phone numbers.  
    2. Each list will also display how many of the targets within the list contains phone numbers 
  6. Select the number of packets you would like to create. 
    1. Packets will be divided as evenly as possible and does not take into any geographic clustering
    2. Help text will be present on the screen to let user know approximately how many voters will be in each packet based on the input the user provides 

  1. Click “Create Phone Bank” to complete set up and generate phone bank packets
  2. Once phone bank packets are generated you will be directed to a screen that lists all the packets and will be able to assign packets to yourself or other users in your workspace. 
    1. Packets must be assigned to a user to be accessible in the Phone Banking view of the platform 
    2. Packets can be assigned to any user who is an Owner, Admin, Data Manager, or Volunteer 
    3. Users can be assigned more than one packet 

  1. If you are ready to make your phone banking program live and start phone banking, navigate to the Overview tab, click enable Phone Bank, and Publish the program. 

This is required to be able to view packets in phone banking (in addition to assigning packets out - see step above). 

Start Your Phone Bank

To start phone banking and making calls go to Outreach > Phone Banking to access the phone banking workflow and the packets assigned to you. Once you are on the Phone Banking view, follow the steps below to start phone banking:

  1. Select from a Program 
    1. Only programs that are published, have phone banking enabled, and contain packets assigned to you will be displayed here
  2. Select a packet
    1. Only packets assigned to you will be displayed here
  3. Once a packet is selected you will be directed to the first contact in the packet that has not been contacted yet 

Mobile View


Desktop View

  1. Users should call the voter using their own device and log the result of the contact in RunningMate. Clicking on the button that contains the phone number on mobile or desktop will automatically launch the phone functionality on your device.  
    1. Click on the Start Conversation button to log a support score and/or registration intent and click Submit (without clicking Submit the answer will not be saved), OR 
    2. Click on the Voter Unavailable button to indicate that the voter was unavailable, they should not be called, or that you reached the wrong number/person. You must click Submit to save the response. Voter Unavailable options include:
      1. Moved
      2. Deceased
      3. No Answer
      4. Do Not Call 
      5. Left Message
      6. Wrong Number 
    3. Users can also log tags or notes for the voter. Logging either will have no effect on contact status and is not considered a contact attempt 
    4. Once a result has been logged the status of the voter will update accordingly,
      1. Any logged response will update the status to Contacted. 
      2. Voter Unavailable: No Answer or Left Message will mark the contact as “Contacted” with a yellow pill to indicate that the voter could be contacted again. 
      3. All other responses will update the status to “Contacted” with a grey pill to indicate no further action is needed.  
  2. Once a user hits submit they will have a chance to edit their input before moving on to the next voter. 
  3. When ready to move onto the next voter, click the “Next Voter” link located below the Conversation and Voter Unavailable buttons in the Questions panel. 
    1. Note: Any contact with a “Contacted” status with a grey pill will be removed from view from the user. The user will not be able to access this voter again within the context of the program and packet. Voters will only be able to access unattempted voters and voters marked with No Answer or Left Message (“Contacted” with a yellow pill). 

  1. Once the user finishes a packet and all voters are marked with a “Contacted” status with a grey pill, they will not be able to access that packet again. Users will only be able to view voters that were marked as No Answer or Left Message to try to contact them again. These contacts will be marked with a “Contacted” status with a yellow pill. 

Other Notes

  • In the packet listing view any packet that has been started will display the number of voters that are unattempted within that packet (similar to canvassing)

  • Within the call workflow the number of voters left in the packet is displayed to give users an indication of how many more voters they need to contact


Phone Banking and Canvassing Effort Interactions 

Users can set up a Phone Banking and Canvassing efforts within the same program. They can start with a Canvassing effort and then add a Phone Banking effort later on (or vice versa), or enable both at the start of the program. Users do not need to use the same list when setting up their canvassing and phone banking campaigns. Once a program is set up, users can enable/disable Canvassing or Phone Banking in the Overview > Outreach Methods section of the program, which can be done at any point during the program. 

The Program listing table has been updated to display what outreach method is enabled for the program. See the Outreach Method column. 

How Canvassing and Phone Banking Contact Attempts/Statuses Intersect

When a Program has both Canvassing and Phone Banking enabled, the voter contact statuses will sync across both outreach methods. This can help prevent duplicate outreach efforts within the same program.


For example, if Jane was canvassed successfully, we don’t need to call Jane within the context of the same program. The system will recognize that Jane was contacted successfully and will not display Jane as a voter that needs to be called in the phone bank call workflow. If instead Jane was phone banked successfully, Jane can still be accessed in the canvassing and will have a “Contacted” completed status (grey pill) so that canvassers will know they can skip her. 

Roles and Editions 

Roles

  • Owners, Admins, and Data Managers will be able to set up a program with phone banking
  • Owners, Admins, Data Managers, and Volunteers will be able to access the Phone Banking view and phone bank 

Editions

Editions that have full access to phone banking: 

  • Pro
  • Pro+

Lite accounts will be able to access the phone banking feature and select a program. Once they select a program they will be blocked to prevent exposing personally identifiable information. 

Did this answer your question? Thanks for the feedback There was a problem submitting your feedback. Please try again later.

Related Articles