Activate for community field campaigns
Organize your community field campaign
Plan neighborhood visits around one clear question. Bring a contact list your organization may use, invite volunteers and see what each visit recorded.
Create a free account, then create a campaign from your dashboard and choose Civic and community programs. Name your program, set its dates and write your own field question.
Set up a community program
Civic and community programs are for field work that has nothing to do with an election. Each step below uses screens that exist in Activate today.
Create your free account
Sign up with your email. No credit card is required, and every verified account receives 25 free Credits once.
Choose civic and community programs
Create a campaign from your dashboard and choose Civic and community programs, then enter your organization's name. Civic programs skip the candidate, office and election questions.
Set the program dates
Choose when the program starts and its last day of field work. You can change both later in Campaign Settings.
Upload contacts you may visit
Upload the contacts your organization is allowed to visit for this program, such as households that asked for a follow-up. CSV, Excel, delimited text and ZIP files of supported tables work. Review the preview and the cost in Credits before you confirm.
Write your field question
The last step of creating your program asks for your field question: the one question your program needs answered at each door. You can edit it later in Campaign Settings, under Details.
Invite your volunteers
Share the QR code or link. Volunteers join in the browser, open the visits assigned to them and record an answer for each door.
From a permitted list to results you can use
Start with contacts you may visit
Confirm your organization has permission to use the list for this program. Activate encrypts the records at rest and shows each volunteer one assigned record at a time. Software does not grant permission to contact anyone.
Prepare your first import →Ask one clear question
Write the question volunteers ask at each door. Agree on what Yes and No mean before the first shift, so every answer means the same thing across the team.
See the response controls →Assign visits to volunteers
Invite volunteers with a QR code or link. Group nearby addresses by street and building, then split the visits across your team so nobody knocks the same door twice.
See team invitations →Review progress and export results
The manager dashboard updates as volunteers record Yes, No, Not Home or Skip, with notes for context. Export the program's data as CSV for your own records and the next round of visits.
Explore the manager dashboard →
Example screens in English. Fictional community program.
One example: a neighborhood services visit
Asking households about a community service
A community organization plans two weekends of door visits to households on its own contact list. The coordinator writes one question: would the household like information about the organization's home-repair program? Volunteers record Yes, No, Not Home or Skip, with a note when a resident asks for something specific. A Yes is that household's answer to the question, so the follow-up list comes straight from the export.
Free core field work. Costs before you confirm.
Route creation, door canvassing and phone banking are free. The first 5,000 records of each import are stored free; file preparation and other metered uses can cost Credits. Buy Credits once as needed and see costs before you confirm. No subscriptions or per-seat fees.
Read the pricing boundaries →Plan your list import
Your organization brings a list it has permission to use. Adjust the list size to estimate one import.
Choose 0–100,000 records. For a larger list, talk through your requirements with us.
Rounded import estimate · USD
$10Suggested Credit load: 10 Credits
For 5,000 records in one import.
The first 5,000 records of each import are stored free. Preparing the file can still use Credits. Creating routes, visiting doors and making phone calls are free.
This is an estimate, not a quote. The app shows the exact cost before you confirm. Purchases of Credits round up to the next available pack; unused Credits stay in your account. Each verified account gets 25 free Credits once, which can cover eligible import costs before you need to buy more.
Start your programCreate your program from your dashboard, then review the quote for your file before confirming. No purchase required to start.
Texting for your program opens after a short review by us. Until then nothing can send and nothing is charged. Once it opens, your program texts only people who gave your organization permission, and texts use purchased Credits.
Before your first visits
When does the program finish?
Choose the last day of your field program. The program archives once that date is more than seven days past. Archived programs can be restored for 30 days before permanent deletion; export anything you need to keep.
Is this a field program?
Activate fits work where volunteers visit or call a list of contacts and record one answer for each. Event registration, multi-question surveys, membership records and photo checks are outside what it does today; if your program needs them, tell us through the contact page.
What will your team record?
Each visit records Yes, No, Not Home or Skip, plus notes. A Yes is an answer to your question. It does not verify attendance, participation or anything the person does later.
Plan your first round of visits
Set up your organization program, upload your permitted list and invite the people doing the visits.