To help people new to political campaigns, this Voter Contact Dictionary will provide definitions to common terms that folks will run into. This Dictionary will include the term, definition, and places where the user may run into the term (such as specific documents or reports).
| Term | Definition | Where This Term Will Appear |
| Organizing | In campaigns, organizing can mean various things. However, in this case, organizing refers to the efforts the campaign is taking to engage and mobilize voters to support their candidates. In some cases, this will be the responsibility of the "Organizing" (or "Field") team to set goals, build capacity, and execute their plan through voter contact and volunteer recruitment. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Goals | When campaigns create their plans, one thing that will be set are benchmarks to hit throughout the campaign. When it comes to voter contact, these are commonly referred to as goals and will include things like weekly attempts or contact goals, weekly recruitment goals, and total amount of universes passes. Such goals are commonly put into a Progress To Goal (PTG) report to track these specific goals. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Programs | When planning out voter contact, campaigns can separate their universes/targets into different programs to determine the kind of message the voters receive. Typical programs include persuasion, mobilization, and voter registration drives. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Persuasion | This form of voter contact includes running programs to voters persuade them to vote for their candidate. Persuasion programs are often ran to voters who are either undecided; voters with middling support scores paired with middle-to-high issue support scores; or voters with positive persuadability scores. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook | VAN |
| Mobilization | This form of voter contact includes running programs to voters who are a part of the candidate/parties base. Mobilization programs are often synonymous with GOTV programs that are turning out low-to-middling turnout scores and high support scores. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| GOTV | GET. OUT. THE. VOTE. Typically the final four days of the campaign cycle, including Election Day. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Shifts | To help campaigns contact voters, the Organizing Department recruits volunteers to help achieve their program goals. When scheduling volunteers to help the campaign, the times in which they are volunteering for the campaign are volunteer shifts. Using program goals, campaigns can calculate how many shifts will be needed to achieve said goals. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Universe | The voters that the campaign is targeting to contact is their universe. There can be various universes broken out for the campaign; these universe types can be found in the programs definition. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Attempts | When a campaign tries to contact a voter, this is a voter contact attempt. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Contact Rate | When a campaign actually talks to the right voter, this is a contact. To determine contact rate, campaigns divide their total contacts by their total attemts. Contacts/Attempts = Contact Rate | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Passes | When creating a plan, the campaign can determine how many times they want to contact the universe, which are referred to as passes. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Tactics | As the campaign builds their plan, they can determine the best ways to contact their universes. These include door knocking, phone calls, and texts. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Conversion Rate | In regards to volunteer recruitment, the Conversion Rate is the rate at which you can expect a prospective volunteer to commit to a volunteer shift. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |
| Flake Rate | After a volunteer has been recruited, a key metric to deter is rate at which a volunteer does not show up, also known as flake rate. | Field Math & Weekly Goals Workbook |