Train to Win!
The North Carolina Dems offer lots of great training.
Every day, as the election nears, more volunteers and paid organizers are joining the battle to defeat Trump and other MAGA candidates. To use their energy most effectively, high quality training is essential.
No one is doing it better than the North Carolina Democratic Party, under the direction of its Training Director, Kristy Boer. The great thing is, anyone can tap into their trainings listed here.
Some groups train their members how to canvass and phonebank. The NC Dems provide a whole suite of free training on a wide variety of subjects. For example, they have a whole series on Votebuilder, the program organizers use to cut turfs and to choose what doors to knock on. Here are trainings currently offered:
- How to Canvass and Use Minivan
- How to Use Mobilize
- Votebuilder for Phonebanking
- Creating canvasses in Votebuilder
- Using Votebuilder to manage volunteer teams
- Build and grow your volunteer team
- Fundraising fundamentals
- How to host your own canvass
Register for trainings here.
The person leading the trainings is Kristy Boer. The NC Dem trainings I attended on canvassing, Votebuilder and NC election law were very well-organized, concise, easy to follow and full of useful information. So far this year, Boer has provided training to 2,652 “shifts.” (Some people, like me, have attended more than one training, which is why Boer uses the term “shifts” rather than people.)
“Democracy Doesn’t Run on Autopilot.”
Kristy Boer grew up in Ohio. She ended up becoming a trainer because “I’m an organizer at heart. I love organizing and I enjoy training people how to organize.” Her corporate experience had included communications and training, and training fits her personality, too. “I was always just this bossy little girl. I was always playing school and telling my brother and the neighborhood kids what to do.”
“When I look back on it, I’m so disappointed that no one ever asked me to get engaged. When I was in Ohio, no one ever asked me to volunteer for an event, I never attended a political rally.” She moved to the Bay Area and worked for Visa in the corporate world.
Like many others, Boer’s political odyssey began with Trump’s 2016 election. “After 2016, I just thought I can’t sit on the sidelines. I kind of realized that democracy doesn’t run on autopilot and that I needed to take an active role.” A couple of years later, Boer signed up for an Arena organizer’s training course. After volunteering for Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, she got a staff job with her campaign. After Biden won the nomination, Boer worked remotely for his 2020 North Carolina campaign. In 2022, she worked on a series of trainings for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) on how to have persuasive conservations.
The NC’s Dems Canvassing Training Can Be Used in Other States.
The NC Dems’ canvassing method is not full-on deep canvassing, where the purpose is to establish a relationship of trust before starting on persuasion. However, it is a step in that direction. “I coach people that the quality of that conversation is important.” says Boer. She instructs canvassers to tell a personal story explaining what motivated them to knock on the voter’s door. Then they follow that with something like “I’m sure that there’s an issue that you’re really passionate about as well. So what issue is top of the mind for you when you think about the November election?” From there, the canvassers move the conversation to how Democrats are better on the issues most important to the voter. Then they ask for their support for Dems up and down the ballot.
This methodology, or something similar, is also being used by Democratic state parties in California and Nevada and likely most other places, so the NC training should be helpful in many locations. Kristy offers canvassing trainings Thursday nights at 6 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. PT. Many of the other trainings will also be useful anywhere in the U.S.
Looking Ahead to 2025.
Like Anderson Clayton, the Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and Drew Kromer, the Chair of the Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) Democratic Party, Kristy is trying to build a strong NC Democratic Party that can turn the state blue in the next six years. In 2025, she wants to send canvassers out with a different and unusual script: “Thank you for being a voter. Here's a printout of all of the candidates that were elected and their office phone numbers. Give them a call if you have an issue.” That would be a way of building the kind of long term relationships with voters that can create lasting power.
Boer also wants to continue with more candidate training next year, to get new people ready for running in 2026.
Take Advantage!
It’s easy to sign up for the NC Dems training courses here. So if you want to expand your knowledge about how to win elections, or help others to do so, take advantage of the opportunities offered by Kristy Boer and the NC Dems.