Host guide
How to host a friend bank
At friend banks we use relational organizing, which is the practice of talking to people you already know or have a connection with to mobilize and build sustainable collective power. Think about it: organizing is about relationships. Reaching out to someone you already know—someone who trusts you—is much more effective than having a conversation with a stranger. This isn’t new, but we know that it works. In fact, research shows that it’s at least twice as effective as more traditional engagement methods. You are probably already practicing relational organizing strategies without realizing it; for example, if you’re having conversations with your friends and family about why they should vote or get involved in upcoming elections.
Hosting a friend bank, sometimes called a relational organizing party, is a great way to get volunteers trained and comfortable with reaching out to people they already know. Volunteers can brainstorm messaging together, and share ideas for identifying members of their respective networks who are likely to volunteer to help elect Democrats.
This guide is designed for Swing Left Group Leaders looking to recruit volunteers to join their group or attend an event. If you are not a Group Leader (yet!), please schedule a meeting with a Swing Left organizer to get started with Swing Left.
Getting started
- Determine your goals. Your attendees will be reaching out to their own networks—but what is the ask? Will your volunteers be asking new folks to join your group, attend an event, or take a specific action? Have your ask(s) ready, and you’ll help your attendees put everything into their own words during your training at the event. Remember, relational organizing works because of your volunteers’ relationship with the people they’re reaching out to, so they’ll want to tweak your messaging to resonate with their contacts. Here are some examples to think about:
- Joining your group: Hey Molly, are you interested in organizing to elect Democrats with other people in DC? I’m a member of Swing Left Columbia Heights, and I’ve really enjoyed taking action as part of a community of other volunteers and making a difference in competitive elections. Can you sign up to join our group?
- Attending your next event: Hi Matt! I’m attending a letter writing event this Saturday at 3pm at our local coffee shop with Swing Left Chicago. We’ll be writing letters to voters to help increase voter turnout and win the upcoming Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. Can you join me?
- Note: This guide is focused on helping leaders recruit new volunteers to join their group, attend events, and/or pledge to volunteer in the future; if you want to use relational organizing to get folks in your network to register to vote, commit to vote vote, and/or vote triple, you can customize the information below. Reach out to [email protected] if you need any support.
- Choose a venue. Will your party be in-person or virtual? This will impact your agenda and supplies, so make this decision early in the planning process. If you are hosting in-person, please consult Swing Left’s in-person event guidance.
- Post your event on Mobilize so you can promote your event, track RSVPs, and easily communicate with attendees. This Mobilize guide will walk you through the process.
- Recruit volunteers to join you! For this event, your audience will likely be primarily volunteers who are already members of your group or who have taken action with your group in the past.
Preparing to host
- Customize the sample agenda and sample slides for your event. If you have a co-host, you can work together on this and practice your short presentation!
- Develop a plan for how you’ll collect new volunteers’ information. Your attendees will be reaching out to their contacts and asking them to join your group, sign up for an event—or whatever you’ve determined. But how will your attendees provide you with their contacts’ information? Organizing is all about relationships; we don’t want to put in the effort to reach out to prospective volunteers and then not have the information we need to follow up and engage with them. Swing Left is no longer using the Reach app, but depending on the format of your event, you have several options.
- Google Form: Consider a simple google form to collect their information. Guests can do this on their computer or their phone. Open this template form and click the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner to “Make a copy.” Check out this short video on how to edit the form, view the results, and even seamlessly upload to the Group Builder tool.
- Keep it simple! You can also feel free to go analog! Once their contact commits, ask attendees to tell you (or privately chat to you on Zoom) their name, email address, zip code, and phone number so you can add them to your list of members on Group Builder and/or add them to your upcoming Mobilize event. If you do it this way, have your Group Builder and Mobilize admin pages open to do it right then!
- Prepare for an influx of new volunteers! If you don't already have a Group Builder page, register your group at swingleft.org/groups (reach out to [email protected] for help!). Ensure your Welcome Email template is up-to-date in Group Builder, and if you’re inviting folks to an event, make sure you have the Mobilize link up and running.
- Send a reminder email to your volunteers to confirm their attendance. Let them know what they need to bring (a charged phone with their contacts ready!
Leading your event
Here’s an overview of what you'll cover at your friend bank. These sample slides along with this sample agenda template will walk you through welcoming volunteers, speaking about what relational organizing is, brainstorming who to contact and what to say, and conducting outreach. Make a copy of the templates to customize them for your event.
Agenda at a glance:
- Welcome (5-10 minutes)
- About relational organizing (5 minutes)
- Brainstorm contacts (10 minutes)
- Drafting our message (15 minutes)
- Outreach (15-20 minutes)
- Debrief and closing (5-10 minutes)
After your event
- Update attendance in Mobilize. Mark anyone who attended (“completed”) and who didn’t (“canceled” or “no-show”) so you can track your volunteers’ engagement, and more easily follow up after the event.
- Send a thank you and follow-up email to all attendees after the event. Let your volunteers know:
- Keep an eye on new volunteers’ engagement. If your event attendee Jennifer told you that her friend Jonathan was going to sign up for your Mobilize event, but Jonathan hasn’t yet, ask Jennifer to follow up to give Jonathan that extra nudge.
- Show everyone what your group’s impact looks like! Share a group photo, video, or anecdote from your event on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook (or all three!). Tag @SwingLeft and use the hashtag #SwingLeft to help us retweet/repost! Important note: Please make sure to obscure or cover names, emails, and phone numbers in your photos.
Portions of this guide and the associated slides are drawn from Organizing for Action’s “Guide to Relational Organizing,” which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
