A Single Bracelet Does Not Jingle.

- African proverb

Community organizing helps to bring out many voices to add collective power and strength to an issue. Community organizing is a key part of an overall strategy to make changes in a community that are widely felt, and that reflect the wishes of the people who are directly affected by community problems.

This requires the organizer to not only listen and be responsive to the community, but also to help community residents develop the skills necessary to address their own issues in an ongoing way.

At the heart of community organizing are inclusion, ownership, relationship building and leadership development.

Doorknocking

Doorknocking is just what the name implies:  going door-to-door to talk to members of the community. This is especially effective when you are working in a well-defined geographic area that is a manageable size. Doorknocking is a way to meet people who might not come to community meetings or events, learn more about average community members’ concerns, and introduce yourself and the project to the community. For neighborhood organizing, doorknocking is essential.

Why is doorknocking effective?

Doorknocking is effective because it is personal, one-on-one contact with a community member. People living in the area are likely to be personally impacted by the issue or initiative you are discussing. They may be less likely to be people you may encounter in your initial one-on-ones. While they may care about their neighborhood, they may not be involved in committees or organizations. By going door to door, you have an opportunity to reach “average people” and create a connection.

Ten Steps for effective doorknocking

• Identify the goal of your doorknocking by asking:

• Why are you going door to door?
• What do you have to offer, or what do you hope to learn?
• Are you seeking involvement?
• Do you want to personally invite people to a meeting?
• Do you want to get a general idea of their concerns or address a specific well-defined issue?
• Do you want to increase their awareness of your group?
• Is there an incident you’d like to provide information about?

• Identify the geographic area to be doorknocked for what you want to accomplish. The geographic area will be determined by the issue, the area your organization serves, and the time and number of people you have involved.

• Determine who will go doorknocking. Identify the people who live in the specific area to join you in doorknocking whenever possible. Train and prepare your volunteers. Don’t send people out to doorknock without practice, or proper instruction on safety procedures. Make a “cheat sheet” of items to discuss, or questions to ask. Have each of the volunteers practice with a partner, and give feedback.

• Ensure proper safety for your volunteers. NEVER SEND DOORKNOCKERS OUT ALONE . Always send doorknockers out in teams, and two people should always go to a door. Make sure doorknocking is scheduled and that doorknockers check in at the beginning and end of their session. Set a specific date, time and location to meet.

• Notify the community that you will be doorknocking, and the dates and times. People can be apprehensive about someone coming to their door, so whenever possible, distribute a flier in advance that lets people know you will be doorknocking in the area on certain dates and times. Provide a telephone number to call if they do not want to be contacted. Be sure to record people who do not want to be contacted and inform your doorknockers!

• Provide a clipboard for each team who will be doorknocking. Have a form for them to record the name, address, phone number and some comments from each household. Include large areas to make it easy to write in. Consider having boxes to check or categories to circle if you are trying to find out what residents’ interests/concerns are, such as safety, economic development, and teen drinking.

• Develop a handout or postcard to leave at the homes you visit. Make sure it includes your phone number, email and website. To help establish some credibility for the group it is good to give them the handout as soon as you can when they open the door.

• Doorknockers should wear some kind of IDs. If your group has t-shirts, wear them. If your group will be doorknocking frequently, you might want to make a more permanent type of identification tag.

• Before you begin doorknocking organize everyone together and assign addresses. Make sure everyone has all the materials they need: clipboard, forms, pens etc.

• After doorknocking make sure everyone returns and checks in on time. Collect the forms, and spend a few minutes de-briefing about the experience.
Sample Doorknocking Questions

Sample questions you can use as a model for doorknocking

Always listen to responses, and tie them into your next questions.

1. Hi! I’m Jane Board Member, and this is Joe Manager. We’re out in the neighborhood today to invite people to attend a meeting this Saturday about the school ballpark. Did you get the flier we dropped off earlier in the week to let you know we would be coming by? (Give resident a meeting flier.)
2. I live in the neighborhood and volunteer on the Board of Directors, and Joe is one of our management staff members. We work to make the neighborhood safer and are especially concerned about the welfare of young people in the neighborhood. We’re talking to people today to try to learn more about the neighborhood’s baseball field.
3. Have you lived in the neighborhood very long?
4. Do you ever notice any problems at the ball field on the weekends?
5. Some of the other neighbors we have talked to are also concerned about the number of young people hanging out very late at night. Have you noticed anything that concerns you at the ballpark?
6. Several people have pointed out that the equipment in the park is broken and run-down. What do you think about that? Is there anything you think we could do as a community to address the condition of the equipment?
7. Has this problem been occurring for a long time?
8. Do you ever talk to your neighbors about it, or call the police?
9. Do you have any ideas of how we could make the ballpark safer?
10. We are planning to have a meeting this Saturday to talk about what we can do to address this problem. Our neighborhood police officer is going to come, too. We want to try to come up with a solution, because we’re afraid kids may get hurt over there. Would you be interested in coming to the meeting?
11. We’ll post some follow up information about the meeting, to let you know what happens at the meeting. Could I have your email address? Have you ever visited our website? Could I keep you informed by adding you to our newsletter?
12. Do you have any questions for us?

Closing Remarks

“Thank you so much for your time this evening! We really enjoyed talking to you. Our phone number, email and website are on that sheet we gave you, so please contact us if you have any comments, questions, or concerns. Have a good night!”

It is also important to seed your community website with high-quality, relevant content. Consider inviting a good core group of people in to help. This seed content will spark discussions, give visitors a sense of what your community is all about, and send the message that its a happening place to be. If your opinion is based on concrete and pertinent arguments, it is valuable to everyone.

You probably read a lot of articles from bloggers in your niche. You may agree with some of them and disagree with others. It is a good strategy to react on articles you disagree with. Of course, this shall be done very carefully because the goal here is not to provoke, but to bring relevant arguments that may help your readers to understand a specific situation.

Download CAI’s Best Practices Report – Strategic Planning

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”  — Aristotle

Become a leader in your community by sharing your talents and reaching out.