Group Builder Guide

In every election cycle, it’s crucial for volunteers to be able to get engaged with local Swing Left groups to make an impact in competitive elections across the country. Swing Left’s Group Builder provides local groups the ability to be discovered by volunteers, plus communication and volunteer management tools to help you recruit new volunteers and engage your existing members. Follow this guide to get the most out of Swing Left's Group Builder to manage and grow your group!

What can you do with Group Builder?

  • Reach new members by appearing in the search on swingleft.org
  • Showcase your group's impact
  • Keep your group member list up to date
  • Send regular email updates to your group
  • Display all of your events in one place

Even if you already use other tools to manage your group member list and email sends, we still encourage all groups to register on Group Builder. This is the best way for Swing Left to help you gain new members, as you’ll appear in our groups directory when new folks are searching for ways to get involved.

Need a hand? Reach out to [email protected] and our team will be happy to walk you through the process.


Topics:

I. Getting started with Group Builder

II. Keeping your group page updated

III. Managing your group on Group Builder

IV. Transitioning to Group Builder

V. Resources


I. Getting started with Group Builder

First, create an account. To use Group Builder, start by creating an account on Swing Left's website and logging in. The fastest way to see if you’ve logged in successfully is if you see your initials in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

Next, visit swingleft.org/groups and click “register a group.” You’ll be taken to a simple form to enter your group’s information. There are instructions on the form to help you fill it out, but here are some additional tips for how to register your group:

  • Choose the URL wisely: While you can change your group name and details at any time, you won’t be able to change the URL after you register.
  • Zip code: The zip code you choose will dictate how new volunteers find you when they’re searching for groups to join on the Swing Left website. If your group hosts activities in more than one zip code, choose a zip code that is relatively central to where most of your group activities are.
  • “Make your group visible to the public”: We highly recommend checking this box so that your group will come up with volunteers are searching for a group near them! If you are working on a draft of your page, though, you can “uncheck” the box so your group stays private until you are ready. If you prefer to keep your group private long-term, you can still share it directly with group members (and prospective group members) and use the other Group Builder features described below.

II. Keeping your group page updated

Group Builder provides lots of helpful tools and information for both you and your volunteer members. When you're logged in, go to swingleft.org/groups, and you’ll see your group listed under “My Groups.” Click on your group and then you'll be taken to your admin page where you'll see the "Leader tools" menu.

Editing your group page

You can click on “Edit this group” at any point in the future to edit your group name, your mission statement, photos, the “About your Group” information, the Swing District or state you work in (when applicable), your social media accounts, and whether your group is public or not.

With electoral work, your group's priorities might change frequently over the course of the election cycle. Be sure to update your group's information so your page is accurately displaying what district/race you're working on, what tactics you're engaging in, etc.

Members, who are not admins, see the following when logged into the Swing Left website:

  • Group name
  • Group impact (updated automatically)
  • Social media links
  • Mission statement
  • Group photos and captions
  • A link to invite others to join the group
  • Upcoming events your group is hosting
  • “About your Group” information
  • Group leader contact information
  • Swing District or state you work in (when applicable)
  • Any fundraising pages that members of your group create

  • When you are logged in to the Swing Left website, you can also click on “View as member” in the upper right-hand corner to see your page as a member would see it. Non-members will see all of the same items, except the “About your Group” information and the group leader contact information.

    Promoting your events on your group page

    Your group page is a great way to acquaint volunteers with the events your group is hosting. You will see your events listed under “Local Events." For any member of your group who has the role of “admin” or “core member” in your Members list, the events they create on Mobilize will show up on your group page. For an event to show up on your group page, the email address that the event creator uses for setting up events in Mobilize must be the same email address that is listed in Group Builder. In addition, when someone RSVPs to an event listed on your group page, they’ll be automatically added to your Members list if they are not already on it. These newly-added volunteers will receive a welcome email.

    Ready to host an event? Use the Mobilize guide to select the event type and post your event. Remember to use the same email address you use with Group Builder so it'll show up on your group page. If you use a different email address or you don't see your event associated for any reason, reach out to [email protected] so we can manually associate your event to your group page.

    Other resources & features

    If one of your group members creates a fundraising page, they'll have the option to associate their fundraiser with your group during the setup process; then it'll appear on your group's page and the impact will be trackable back to you. If you’d like to learn more about fundraisers, check out our fundraiser guide!

    III. Managing your group

    If you are an admin for your group, you’ll see the "leader tools" when you are logged into the Swing Left site and go to your group page, including options to manage members, email members, and more.

    Your group's members list ("Manage Members")

    Your Members list includes everyone who has found your group on swingleft.org and joined, as well as anyone that has been uploaded to the list. To change a member’s role or delete a member:
    1. Click on the pencil icon ✎ to the far right of that member’s record.
    2. Choose the role you’d like to update to.
    3. Click the check mark ✓.
    4. You can delete a member by clicking the trash icon. Be careful—can’t be undone!
    Members' privileges vary across role:

    Publicly listed group leaders: Another feature on the "Manage Members" page is the option to publicly list the group leaders and their contact information. This is not tied to who is an actual admin of your page. It's a separate way to showcase your groups' leaders so that members can see who you are on the group page, and provide a way for them to get in touch directly.

    Email your members

    The Group Builder email tools are intended to make it very easy for group leaders to compose and send simple email communications to their members.
    To use “Email members,” follow these simple steps.
    • Click the “Email members” button on the "Leader tools" menu or below the Members list.
    • Write the email as you would in gmail, yahoo, etc. You can use the formatting tools to format your email and personalize the email with the name of your volunteer in the body or subject line of the email.
    • You have several “send” options. You can send a preview email which will go to you and your admins. You can send an email to everyone on your group list, or to only the RSVPs of a specific event associated with your group. You’ll get a green confirmation message beneath the buttons when your preview message or group message has been sent. Be careful not to close this "Email members" page after you send a preview email, or you will lose the email text.
    • Optional: Click on "Header image" to upload a logo or graphic that will appear on the top of all your emails.

    Tips for emailing members

    • All emails you send from Group Builder include an “unsubscribe” link. If a member unsubscribes from one of your emails, they will no longer receive your communications. If someone wants to resubscribe to your communications, just ask them to join your group again. If someone asks you directly to be removed from your list, you must delete them from your Members.
    • Your email must be at least 100 characters.
    • You can choose to email your full email list, or narrow your recipients to those who have RSVP'd to a specific Mobilize event (to send a followup email, promote a similar event, etc). Please note that this will go to all RSVPs whether they attended or not, so if you want to get more specific about who the email is going to, we recommend using Mobilize's email feature. You can learn about emailing event attendees in our Mobilize guide.

    Customize your new member welcome email

    Welcome emails are automatically sent to anyone who joins your group on the Swing Left website at: swingleft.org/groups. You can customize your welcome email at any time using the same type of formatting functionality described above for emailing your volunteers.
    • Click the “Customize welcome email” button on the "Email members" page.
    • Customize your welcome email using the formatting toolbar. There is a default welcome email provided which you can edit to best reflect your group. Remember, this is often your first impression with a volunteer, so be sure to add exciting details about your group and what they can expect.
    • Note: Unlike with your other communications, if a new member responds to a welcome email, their email will go to our help desk ([email protected]). So within the body of your welcome email, you may want to include an email address at which volunteers can reach you directly.

    Downloading a list of your members

    The “Download CSV” button, located below the Members list, simply downloads a CSV file of your full group list, including contact information, to your computer. Similar to Upload CSV, you might use Download CSV to sync your data with another system (e.g. if you decide to use another CRM or email tool, such as MailChimp). CSV files open in Excel or Numbers.


    Bulk uploading a list of members

    The "Upload CSV" ("comma separated value" file) feature is a great tool for capturing offline signups. For example, if your group does a recruitment event and 25 people sign up to join your group, you can upload a full spreadsheet all at once instead of one-by-one. Be aware that when you upload someone to Group Builder, they will receive an email from Swing Left asking them to set up a password for the Swing Left website.

    Important: Do NOT upload contact information for people who have not been involved with your group or associated events (ex. lists of people you find on the internet, other groups member lists who have not consented to be part of Swing Left, etc.). Uploading lists of people from the Internet, who have not given you explicit permission to receive email from you, can have a severe impact on the deliverability of all the email that Swing Left sends and will increase the likelihood that emails that you send from Group Builder will go to spam.

    If you are migrating to Group Builder from another tool and moving a list of existing volunteers into the Members list for the first time, check out the Transitioning to Group Builder section at the end of this guide for more tips applicable to your situation.

    Here’s how to upload a CSV of members to your Members list:

    • Click on the Upload CSV button from below your Members list.
    • Format a CSV of the members you’d like to upload by labeling the columns in the first row and filling in volunteer contact information below. You must include at least email and zip code for each volunteer. You can optionally include First and Last Name, and Phone.
    • Click on “Choose File” to upload the CSV from your computer.
    • Match the columns in your CSV with the fields in Group Builder using the picklists. The fields might be in a different order in your spreadsheet than they are in the picklists.
    • Click submit.
    • You’ll receive an email from [email protected] with the subject “Group Upload Finished” confirming the results of your upload after it is complete (this can take up to 30 minutes).
    • A newly uploaded member’s role will be “unconfirmed” in the Members list until that new volunteer logs into the Swing Left website. But not to worry — the emails you send through Group Builder will still reach these volunteers, even if they are still unconfirmed.

    Tips for uploading contacts

    • You can easily create a CSV from any spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheets, etc.). Search the Help section in these software tools for “download as a CSV” or “Save as a CSV” if you need help. Here is a sample spreadsheet you can copy and use to create a CSV if needed.
    • Microsoft Excel sometimes "helpfully" trims the leading zeroes off of zip codes when it saves your CSV because it thinks they're supposed to be numbers. For example, it might turn "06101" into "6101". You can solve this problem by formatting the zip code column as text. Keep an eye out for this because it can cause your upload to fail.
    • The email confirming your bulk upload may indicate a code after each contact you upload, such as “SUCCESS” and “ERROR.” If you receive an error code, check to see if the contact who receives an “ERROR” code is already in your group list and/or if there was something wrong with the information you provided in the CSV (i.e. the contact did not have a zip or email address).

    Event sign-in feature

    Group Builder also includes a feature where you can manage the sign-in process at an event. While we encourage you to keep track of attendance in Mobilize, this feature may be useful if you want to set up laptops or tablets for self sign-in.

    • Advanced tip: As noted above, the "email members" feature allows you to email your full list, or you can email those who have RSVP'd to specific events. But there is no other way to segment your email list into categories (e.g. people who love to canvass, people who live a certain neighborhood, etc). If you want to create a special segment, you can use this event sign-in feature as a "hack": Simply take a spreadsheet of the list you want to designate as its own segment, and upload it. You can select "new event" to name it whatever you'd like. Then when you head back to the "email members" page, you'll see that named list as an option of a segment to email. Want help with this? Drop us an email at [email protected].

    IV. Transitioning to Group Builder

    We know that teams use a variety of tools to manage their volunteers and communications. When deciding to transition to Group Builder, please review all the functionality above and determine what fits your needs. If it does not, we’d love to know why to help us improve. You can email [email protected]. Some teams may decide to adopt all of the tools and some teams will adopt only some of the tools. At a minimum, all teams should set up your group page so volunteers can find you: customize your welcome email and keep your Mission and About sections up to date. If you are interested in transitioning all of your communications and volunteer management from other tools to Group Builder, you’ll need to first move your existing list of volunteers over to the Group Builder Members list. Here are some tips for moving your list of volunteers over to Group Builder:
    • Download and/or format your list of volunteers from your existing tool/system/application in a spreadsheet. Clean the list in this spreadsheet. If you have volunteer contact information with out-of-date emails, no email addresses, misspelled names, etc., it’s best to fix these issues in a spreadsheet first.
    • If you think your volunteers might get confused by receiving an email from Swing Left that lets them know that they’ve been added to your group, send your volunteers an email from your existing tool/system/application before uploading your list to Group Builder. In this email, you can explain that you are migrating to a new system and need to add their contact information to Swing Left’s Group Builder in order to send email updates and manage your group list moving forward.
    • Bulk upload the members using the Upload CSV feature described above.

    Resources

    Swing Left Groups page

    Upload CSV template spreadsheet (make a copy)

    Grassroots Leaders Toolkit with all Swing Left resources

    Mobilize guide for event creation


    Questions? Email us at [email protected].