Not One Seat is a grassroots, volunteer-led initiative. With June 2nd looming, this org is designed to spin up quickly and efficiently, and to be able to quickly add capacity where it is most needed as volunteers plug in.
As such, the org is structured around five distinct and self-directed teams, each focused on a particular aspect of the campaign. Here's a quick tour around the five teams, and what kind of work they'll be doing.
Amplification:
The amplification team identifies and incorporates social media users into our information distribution network to organically share our messages, and keeps those social media users informed and mobilized. Sample tasks include:
Locating people to add to the info network and entering them into our outreach database
Doing outreach to network prospects and tracking those in our database
Posting to Not One Seat social media pages
Moderating our Facebook group
Moderating our DM groups to amplifiers on Instagram and Twitter
By building a constantly expanding network of grassroots amplifiers - not just "big" accounts and influencers, but regular people - we can ensure that our message has a wide reach into local networks and communities, AND engage with the electoral narratives that arise during the campaign on a mass scale and in a coordinated way.
Creative:
The creative team develops and creates the content that is distributed through our information network and riding teams. Sample tasks include:
Brainstorming ideas and submitting them to our "Idea Base"
Reviewing, assessing, and allocating ideas from the "Idea Base" to team members for production, based on their skills they indicated when they signed up
Creating content - videos, articles, podcasts, graphics, memes and more
Creating resource templates for local riding teams - flyers, posters, business cards, slide decks, etc
Organizing
The organizing team is the glue that holds the operation together, by interfacing between the different teams and ensuring that everyone is on the same page. Sample tasks include:
Sharing information between the different teams
Onboarding new volunteers
Moderating our Discord server
Helping create infrastructural resources (such as toolkits and guides for each team)
Attending weekly check-ins to ensure we’re on track with the strategic plan and achieving our goals
Research
The research team is where our data experts go. Sample tasks include:
Managing and analyzing data gathered from riding teams (e.g. candidate interviews, riding assessments)
Researching local party chapter strength and fundraising
Monitoring the news for the latest Doug Ford scandal (there's always a fresh one) and current electoral trends
Finding and aggregating polling data
Analyzing how our messaging is landing based on social media metrics and feedback from other teams and advising on modifications
Riding team leads
Riding teams oversee in-riding activities in each of the 25 ridings, and themselves manage local neighbourhood teams where volunteer density is sufficient. Their role is to build the ground operation and implement direct voter contact tactics, and to interview candidates in their riding to assess them against our metrics.
Individual riding teams have a lot of leeway to choose their own tactics for outreach, but a few examples are below
Canvassing
Street art
Using our templates to create flyers and posters
Block parties
Attending candidate debates and town halls to ask questions and share information
Signing up voters to our unity pledge
Riding teams also provide feedback about political developments on the ground that might be missed by those outside the riding, and share their local knowledge to help build better outreach across the org.
What next?
We're well on our way to spooling up our organizing capacity. On Monday, we'll begin building out the other four teams. And all five teams are on pace to be fully operational for our official launch event on Saturday, April 23rd at 3pm Eastern. Join us there, and let's get to work!