When did you make the transition from volunteer to organiser?

This post was written by Matthew Patrick and Jasmin Beckett 

It was not long ago that campaigning was a delightful, sporadic and stress-free affair. You’d turn up if your schedule allowed it, ‘Contact Creator’ meant nothing at all, and campaigning stopped when the last door was knocked.

Now, campaigning is a well-oiled machine with plans, targets and follow-up work. Your own knocking on doors is a secondary focus to outcards, sheets and how many campaigners are out on that round.

As anyone that has made this transition – from volunteer to organiser – knows, the biggest focus is always on people. You can have a brilliant campaign message to deliver but, without the people to help deliver it, it’s worthless.

You need people to join you on the campaign trail and you need to keep them coming back. A key part of this is about forging personal relationships. People will only return time and time again if there is the personal approach, camaraderie and sense of common purpose.

That might be the individual thank you, post-campaigning chips or campaign-trail banter. In short, they’ll come back because of you.

Social media is an important means in engaging members. It’s more than pushing out messages and calls to action; an active twitter feed can bring about a sense of togetherness and make people feel a part of something popular. We work through our twitter feed: @wirralynglabour and the hashtag for the campaign #31daysfor2015. A carefully planned campaigning project deserves clear communication. We promote many of our campaigning sessions through group messages, hashtags and individual Facebook event pages. Quality and regular communication is key to a successful campaign. It makes members feel part of something bigger when campaigning.

We know what to do once we’ve got people there (and, for a longer breakdown on this we can recommend this article by Nick Crofts). But how do we get them there in the first place? With less and less time until the election (300 days at the time of writing), a quick win is needed to boost numbers and we’ve got just the ticket.

Let us tell you about what Wirral Young Labour is planning. Over the 31 days in August, we are putting on two campaigning sessions every day across our two target seats, Wirral West and Wirral South.

We are expecting a strong turnout throughout the month. This is not a ‘build it and they will come’ moment. It is the result of considering the needs of our membership and offering them something a bit different.

How will we get people turning out? By offering free travel passes. If a campaigner commits to attending a majority of days, we will fund their travel for the entire month.

Our members (many of whom are students who will have finished for the summer) have told us that travel is a key problem during the summer months. It is not cheap and standard passes for school/college do not cover the summer months. So, we will.

To fund the project, we are working with trade unions, affiliates and supporters. Sponsorship of the t-shirts that will be worn by our campaigners (whilst having thousands of doorstep conversations) is available and will help pay for passes, as well as donations from supportive Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs).

However, it isn’t just the free travel passes bringing people on board. This is a project people can sink their teeth into. There is an end date in sight, so people are not scared of making that initial commitment.

More than thirty people have signed up to our campaigning month. But, without engagement and further work, that number will diminish in subsequent months. This project allows for that work to take place. It allows for those personal relationships to be built and for people to feel part of the team and stay part of the team.

If you’re thinking of how to boost campaigning ahead of the short campaign, I’d urge you to start by thinking of your members’ needs.

The investment might seem steep (£80 for a month’s travel), but it could be the best £80 your campaign has ever spent if it secures an additional campaigner to your core group.

Matthew Patrick and Jasmin Beckett are both members of Wirral Young Labour