Guides
There are ten guides here. Each one covers its subject in full rather than only introducing it, and each is followed by shorter articles that look at specific problems in more detail. The last four are written for Illinois local races: petitions, precinct committeepersons, school board campaigns and ballot questions. Start with the guide that best describes the program you are running.
All of these guides are free to read, and none of them requires an account. We build canvassing software, and we believe the most useful thing we can offer is an honest description of how the work is done.
Guide 01
This guide covers the basics that apply to every kind of canvassing: how a universe (the full list of people you plan to reach) becomes a walk list (the addresses each canvasser visits), what happens in the first thirty seconds at a door, how to train new canvassers, and how to keep them safe and willing to return. Read this first if canvassing is new to you or to your organization.
Guide 02
This guide follows a campaign field program from the first voter file export to the last hour of election day. It covers choosing which groups of voters to contact, recruiting and keeping volunteers, the shift from persuading voters to turning them out (GOTV, or getting out the vote), and the calculations that show whether your program can reach its goal in the days remaining.
Guide 03
This guide treats door-to-door sales as a managed process rather than a test of personality. It covers what makes a territory good, what a script is for, how strong sales representatives handle the first objection, how deals close at the door, and what changes between solar, roofing, and pest control.
Guide 04
This guide covers the management work behind the doors: how turf (the area assigned to each canvasser) is drawn and balanced, why route order matters more than most managers expect, what a field director does hour by hour, how to choose your software tools, and how to tell a program that is working from one that is only busy.
Guide 05
This guide covers what a program must get right before anyone knocks on a door: solicitation permits, do-not-knock registries, lawful hours, gated communities and posted signs, canvasser identification, and what information you may keep about the people you talked to. It is written for the manager setting up a program. It deliberately leaves out a state-by-state table, because such tables are often wrong for some states and soon fall out of date.
Guide 06
In every canvassing operation, keeping canvassers matters as much as hiring them. This guide covers where good canvassers come from, how to interview for a job that involves frequent rejection, what behavior each pay structure encourages, coaching that changes how people work, and why programs lose people in week three after already paying to train them.
Guide 07
This guide covers candidate and committeeperson petitions in Illinois: who needs one, how many signatures each office requires, the rules for the paper petition on ink, forms and notarized circulators (the people who collect the signatures), how objections get signatures struck, and how to collect signatures door to door with enough extra to withstand a challenge.
Guide 08
This handbook covers the Illinois committeeperson role as the statute defines it, how Cook County differs from the rest of the state, the weighted vote, running for the seat, recruiting election judges, and keeping a precinct organized from one election cycle to the next.
Guide 09
This guide follows a school board race in Illinois from the first petition sheet to April 6. It covers who can run, the signatures and the filing week, objections, who votes in these elections, candidate forums, staying in touch with supporters, and the lessons first-time candidates often learn too late.
Guide 10
This guide covers referendums and public questions in Illinois: advisory versus binding questions, how a question gets on the ballot, the petition and its signers, back-door referendums, the three-question limit, running the campaign itself, and what the law says about recall.
If you are looking for a specific topic rather than a full guide, the full article archive lists every article in date order.
Reference
Plain definitions of the terms these guides use, from block walking, lit drops and contact rate to turf, walk lists, GOTV and the results recorded at each door. Each entry links to the guide or article that covers it in full.
Try Beacon
Beacon is the software these guides describe. It provides territories on a map, walk lists in route order, recording of visits without cell signal, and live coverage updates. The trial lasts fourteen days, includes the Starter plan's features, and does not require a card.