THE UNITED FOR A NEW ECONOMY TAX PERSUASION DEEP CANVASS
We are collaborating closely with United for a New Economy on the development of a deep canvass program to persuade voters to remake Colorado’s regressive tax structure.
Since 1992, Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights has delivered the double-whammy of drastically reducing essential revenue over time while also undermining the public’s faith in the ability of the state government to deliver what Coloradans need. Advocates fighting to get the Colorado out of this trap have been faced with a decades-long string of losses.
We have been on the doors in Colorado learning to have a new kind of conversation, one that gives people a chance to process their honest feelings about their economic situation and wrestle with their conflicts about what role they want government and taxes to play moving forward.
We are experiencing powerful persuasion rates and success and are moving into a bigger pilot with a wider circle of organizers and volunteers.
Project Led By:
Mural: Cadex Herrera, Greta McLain, and Xena Goldman
THE YES 4 MINNEAPOLIS PERSUASION DEEP CANVASS
In 2021 we worked with Take Action Minnesota and People’s Action to develop a deep canvass around Minneapolis’ Question 4, the charter amendment to reimagine the city’s approach to safety and policing.
While the measure did not prevail the deep canvass program achieved powerful results that point to great reason for hope: When we engaged conflicted and unsupportive voters with a deep canvass conversation, 41% reported changing their minds. And in the final weeks of the campaign, when fear-based messaging by the opposition began to eat away at support, the deep canvass conversations showed a promising ability to work people through those fears and counteract their effects.
Read coverage of the project here:
Project Led By:
THE NEIGHBORS UNITED CLIMATE PERSUASION DEEP CANVASS
Since 2019 we have been helping the West Kootenay EcoSociety’s Neighbors United Project develop the first deep canvass to persuade on government action on climate change.
EcoSociety’s organizers and volunteers in southeastern British Columbia have been mobilizing to have conversations with voters who are conflicted about government action on climate change - with a particular focus on working class voters, in heavy industry communities, who have an enormous amount at stake.
The project is yielding first-of-its-kind learning about how environmentalists can engage deeply with, learn from, and persuade people outside our base.
Project Led by:
Additional Key Advisers:
Click to hear more
Click to hear more
THE PEOPLE’S ACTION DEEP CANVASS TO DEFEAT TRUMP
In 2020 we partnered with People’s Action to develop a deep canvass approach with the power to persuade people to vote for Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump over the phone.
When independently tested by David Broockman and Josh Kalla, the project’s phone conversations were found to be decreasing Trump’s vote margin by 3.1% among all the voters contacted - and nearly 4.9% among women and 8.5% among independent women, specifically.
This impact is 102x as powerful as the typical attempt to persuade a voter around a presidential election.
Throughout the fall of 2020 we worked with People’s Action and its local partners to implement this persuasion program at scale in seven key battleground states.
Read coverage of the project here:
Read the full report on the project and the experiment to measure its impact, here.
The People’s Action Rural and Small Town Deep canvass
In 2019 we began work with People’s Action to extend the learning from the Immigration Strategic Messaging Project’s deep canvass to a new question:
Could a deep canvass succeed at countering the divide-and-conquer impact of anti-immigrant fear-mongering in conservative rural and small town communities? And generate new willingness to consider progressive, multi-racial solutions in its place?
The results have been exciting - a rigorous, independent experiment found, once again, this deep canvass model having a powerful and lasting persuasive impact unlike anything else that’s been studied.
Read coverage of the project here:
“Can Millions of Conversations with Total Strangers Beat Trump - and Heal America?” - Rolling Stone
Read the full report on the project, here.
The Immigration Strategic Messaging Project
In 2018 we worked with the ISMP team to develop a deep canvass model to reduce anti-immigrant prejudice and change minds on immigration policies.
The model is succeeding dramatically. When measured in a randomized controlled trial, the teams’ conversations have been found to be creating lasting change in attitudes towards undocumented people and large, lasting persuasion effects on an array of issues, from local police cooperation with ICE to legal aid for undocumented people in immigration court.
Read coverage of the project, here:
“How to Talk Someone Out of Bigotry” - VOX
And find David Broockman of Berkeley and Josh Kalla of Yale’s study of this model’s persuasive impact, here.
PILOTING DEEP ENGAGEMENT VIA TEXT
In 2019 we worked with Open Progress - the movement leaders in creating deeper human connection over text - to pilot applying the lessons of deep canvassing in peer-to-peer.
Joined by #VoteProChoice the project developed an innovative new approach to doing deeper, more effective voter ID over text - an approach that can distinguish strong supporters from soft supporters who carry hidden stigma, are vulnerable to opposition fear-messaging, and need further engagement and inoculation before they can be counted on.
Project Led by:
Additional Key Partners:
THE MONTANA ENGAGEMENT PARTNERSHIP
In 2018 and 2019 we worked with a coalition of Montana’s leading conservation organizations to develop a deep canvass model to engage with Montanans who are conflicted or unsupportive on conservation and clean energy issues, to better understand and listen to them, and to find a more durable path forward with them instead of around them.
Other environmental groups are beginning to apply this deep canvass model in targeted campaigns. To connect with them or find out more, reach out to us!
Montana Engagement Partnership led by:
GREATER YELLOWSTONE COALITION
MONTANA CONSERVATION VOTERS
MONTANA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION
MONTANA WILDLIFE FEDERATION
SHOWING UP FOR RACIAL JUSTICE - MEASURE R DEEP CANVASS
In 2019 and 2020 we worked with Showing Up for Racial Justice to help them mobilize a deep canvass to help win LA County’s Measure R, the ballot initiative whose victory has set the stage for the largest reallocation of funds away from jails in US history.
The project created a deep canvass model that is both altering voters’ deeply held attitudes towards the criminalized, inoculating them against fear messaging, and persuading conflicted voters to support jail reform.
It has also become a case study for large-scale, grassroots deep canvass mobilization. A volunteer team recruited and trained other volunteers to run this extensive canvass operation, mobilizing upwards of 140 people each week for six months straight to engage deeply with their fellow Angelenos on the doors.
Project led by:
Other Key Partners: