YesWeCanvass -- Grassroots Calendars for PA, CA, MI, VA and more

Canvassing, housing, full support? What more do you need to get busy?

By Laurie Welch, NOPE

In 2018, leaders of metro DC grassroots groups first organized “YesWeCanvass” (YWC) allowing volunteers to choose canvassing events in Pennsylvania’s elections. YWC helped coordinate over 200 volunteer shifts in the Harrisburg area during the GOTV weekend. In 2019, YWC then provided the same type of support in Virginia. Now, just in time for 2024, YesWeCanvass is back! 

(And it’s just one of several calendars listing activist events — see below.)

With even more groups mobilizing even more volunteers to work for Democratic victories in Pennsylvania, YesWeCanvass is back online. The same metro DC grassroots leaders who mounted the 2018 and 2019 campaigns will manage the website this year.

Online, YWC displays a range of Pennsylvania voter engagement opportunities, both on-the-ground and remote. Beyond just canvasses, volunteers can find opportunities to do voter registration, phone banking, fundraising, and more. The site also provides information on housing availability in Philadelphia and Harrisburg for those out-of-town canvassers devoting more than a day or two to saving democracy. Each calendar entry links to a Mobilize site that provides additional details and sign-up information.

Check it out. The website for the calendar can be accessed here: www.yeswecanvass.net. Organizers who want to post PA election events in the YWC calendar should access yeswecanvass.net to get credentialed for posting, then feel free to post events. And please make sure that you make an announcement about how to access the YesWeCanvass calendar wherever Democratic volunteers are found!

What’s that? You aren’t planning to volunteer in PA? No problem. The rapidly spreading network of grassroots also offers other events calendars.

Virginia Grassroots Coalition offers a swing-state intensive calendar listing volunteer events in: VA, AZ, PA, NC, MI, GA, WI, and for good measure, the entire US.

SoCal Blue’s Calendar is chock full of “textbanks, phonebanks, canvasses, fundraisers, voter registration drives, and more. From the High Desert to Orange County and San Diego, we cover all the competitive Congressional races in SoCal, and many across the nation.”

Statewide Indivisible Michigan (SWIM) is your guide to events throughout Michigan, many of them on Zoom.

And the Bay Area Coalition’s website lists volunteer activities throughout both the Bay Area and California’s Central Valley.

So if you can’t find any place to put your activism, you just aren’t trying.

The Grassroots Connector covers activism from ALL angles. READ MORE