Field Plan: How Many Doors You Need and How to Schedule Them
A field plan is the written plan for a door-to-door program. It states the goal, the number of door knocks needed to reach it, and the shifts and weeks needed to knock those doors. You build it by working backward from the goal: divide the goal by the share of conversations that end in a yes, divide that by the share of doors where you reach someone, and divide the result by the doors one person covers in a shift. That gives you the number of shifts, and the weeks you have left turn shifts into a weekly schedule.
Every number in the examples below is a planning assumption, labeled as such. Your own numbers will differ by neighborhood, season and team, so replace the assumptions with real results after your first two weekends. The field plan is one step in our guide to planning and running a canvassing campaign, which covers the goal, turf, script, team and follow-up around it.
The six numbers in a field plan
- The goal. The count that defines success, such as supporters identified, appointments booked or members signed up.
- The yes rate. The share of conversations that produce the result you want.
- The contact rate. The share of door knocks that produce a conversation with the person you meant to reach.
- Doors per shift. Doors attempted per hour, multiplied by the hours in a shift.
- Weeks available. The weeks between your first shift and your end date.
- The show-up rate. The share of scheduled shifts that are actually worked, after cancellations and no-shows.
From those six numbers, five short calculations follow:
- Conversations needed = goal ÷ yes rate
- Door knocks needed = conversations needed ÷ contact rate
- Shifts needed = door knocks needed ÷ doors per shift
- Shifts per week = shifts needed ÷ weeks available
- Shifts to schedule each week = shifts per week ÷ show-up rate
One more check tells you whether the plan is realistic. Divide door knocks needed by the number of households in your universe (the full list of households you plan to visit). The answer is the number of passes, or visits to each door, the plan requires. Two passes is a workable plan. If the answer is four or five, either the universe is too small for the goal or the goal is too high for the time available.
A campaign version, worked through
Example (planning assumptions): a candidate in a local race expects about 3,000 ballots to be cast, based on past comparable elections. The voter universe holds 4,000 households, and there are 10 weeks until the election.
| Line | How to work it out | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Expected turnout | Past comparable elections | 3,000 ballots |
| Win number | Half of turnout, plus one, plus a cushion of about 5 percent | 1,580 votes |
| Supporters to identify at the door | A planning decision (about half the win number) | 800 |
| Conversations needed | 800 ÷ 0.40 yes rate | 2,000 |
| Door knocks needed | 2,000 ÷ 0.25 contact rate | 8,000 |
| Passes through the universe | 8,000 ÷ 4,000 households | 2 |
| Shifts needed | 8,000 ÷ 45 doors per shift (15 an hour for 3 hours) | 178 |
| Shifts per week | 178 ÷ 10 weeks | 18 |
| Shifts to schedule each week | 18 ÷ 0.80 show-up rate | 23 |
A few notes on the lines that need judgment:
- The win number is the number of votes needed to win. Half of 3,000 plus one is 1,501, and the cushion brings the plan to about 1,580.
- Supporters to identify at the door comes from a planning decision. The door program does not have to find every vote. Voters who already know the candidate, and other outreach such as mail and events, account for the rest. Choose a share you can staff.
- The yes rate here means 4 in 10 conversations end with a voter saying they support the candidate. Treat it as a placeholder until you have your own answers from the doors.
The plan also needs a GOTV pass (getting out the vote), which means reminding identified supporters to vote in the final days. Knocking once more on the 800 supporters' doors adds about 800 door knocks, or 18 more shifts at 45 doors each. Schedule those for the last week rather than spreading them across the campaign.
A sales or nonprofit version, worked through
The method is the same for a business. Only the goal and the rates change.
Example (planning assumptions): a home services company wants 40 signed jobs in a 12-week season. It has 3,000 homes in its target neighborhoods, and paid reps work 4-hour shifts at about 20 doors an hour.
| Line | How to work it out | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Signed jobs in the season | 40 |
| Appointments needed | 40 ÷ 0.25 close rate | 160 |
| Conversations needed | 160 ÷ 0.10 appointment rate | 1,600 |
| Door knocks needed | 1,600 ÷ 0.30 contact rate | 5,334 |
| Passes through the target area | 5,334 ÷ 3,000 homes | about 1.8 |
| Shifts needed | 5,334 ÷ 80 doors per shift | 67 |
| Shifts per week | 67 ÷ 12 weeks | 6 |
| Shifts to schedule each week | 6, plus 1 spare shift for weather | 7 |
A sales plan has one extra step, because not every appointment becomes a sale. The close rate (the share of appointments that become signed jobs) comes first, and the appointment rate (the share of conversations that book an appointment) comes second. For paid reps, this example adds one spare shift for weather instead of dividing by a show-up rate.
A nonprofit membership drive works the same way. Example (planning assumptions): a goal of 250 new members, with 1 in 5 conversations ending in a sign-up, needs 1,250 conversations. At a 25 percent contact rate, that is 5,000 door knocks. At 45 doors per volunteer shift, it is 112 shifts. Over 8 weeks, that is 14 shifts a week, and at an 80 percent show-up rate you would schedule 18.
Turn the numbers into a schedule
The last line of each table is the number of shifts to fill each week. To turn it into a calendar:
- Fix the shift times. Use the same days and hours every week, so that people can plan around them. Example: 23 campaign shifts a week could be 10 on Saturday, 9 on Sunday and 4 on a Wednesday evening. Shorter evening shifts cover fewer doors, so adjust the count for them.
- Plan the passes in order. Make the first pass early. Make the second pass on different days and at different times, so that it reaches more of the not-home doors. For a campaign, keep the final week for the GOTV pass.
- Start strong. Schedule a little above the weekly number in the first weeks. Some recruits stop coming and the weather changes, so an early lead leaves room to catch up later.
- Size the turf to the shift. Each turf should hold about one shift of doors, which is 45 doors in the campaign example. Our guide to turf cutting covers how to draw turf that size.
- Work out the roster. Shifts per week divided by shifts per person per week gives the size of the team you need. Example: if a typical volunteer works one shift every two weeks, 23 shifts a week needs a roster of about 46 people. Our post on how many volunteers a campaign needs covers recruiting and keeping them.
Check the plan every two weeks
Your first field plan is a set of estimates. After two weekends, replace each assumption with what actually happened: real doors per shift, the real contact rate, the real yes rate and the real show-up rate. Then run the numbers again.
Example (planning assumptions): in the campaign example, suppose the real contact rate is 20 percent instead of 25. The same 2,000 conversations now take 10,000 door knocks instead of 8,000. That is 223 shifts instead of 178, or about 23 shifts a week instead of 18 before the show-up adjustment.
If the plan is behind, you have four choices. You can add a shift slot, recruit more people, move shifts to times when more people are home, or narrow the universe to the households most likely to matter to your goal. If the plan is ahead, start the second pass early or add a pass to the households that were undecided.
Track the field plan in Beacon
In Beacon, you can record the field plan's goals and check them against real results.
- Enter the goals. When you create the campaign, enter the door knocks and conversations from your plan as the Door Goal and the Contact Goal. In the campaign example, that is 8,000 and 2,000.
- Draw turf to match the shift. Draw territories on the map that each hold about one shift of doors, and assign each one to a canvasser. When someone cancels, reassign their territory.
- Record every door. At each door, canvassers record one of eight door results, such as contacted, not home or come back later, with a 1 to 5 rating and notes. Their walk lists are ordered by distance when they download them.
- Count the yes answers. Agree on one way to record the answer your goal depends on, such as support or interest in a quote: a rating of 4 or 5, for example, or a set word in the notes. Export the door results as a CSV file to count them.
- Compare plan and progress. The campaign's Stats tab shows the contact rate so far, each territory shows its completion percentage, and the leaderboard shows who is knocking. Use those figures for the two-week check.
Beacon is priced by contacts, with unlimited canvassers on every plan, so a larger roster does not raise the price. More on Beacon for campaign field programs is on our political campaigns page.
Put your field plan to work
Enter your goals, draw turf sized to one shift, and see your real contact rate after the first weekend. Start a 14-day trial. It includes the Starter plan's features and needs no card.
