Grassroots Handbook

Welcome to Project No Cap’s Grassroots Handbook. This booklet aims to explain to you, a grassroots volunteer, how to start or grow Project No Cap in your community. The booklet contains an actionable plan for you to follow, with goals, examples, and resources.

This booklet assumes some knowledge of Project No Cap’s mission, strategy and structure. If you’ve made it here without that knowledge, you should start with the Volunteer Packet. See the bottom of this document for a link to that.

The grassroots path starts with the first volunteer in a community. As that volunteer progresses down the grassroots path, the popularity of the project in that community will naturally grow. At certain milestones, it makes sense to move to the next step of the path, further cementing Project No Cap’s place in the community. Eventually, awareness of the project will grow enough that we will need to recruit new volunteers in neighboring communities and grow there.

Step 1 is the first volunteer in a community. The second step is getting out and Canvassing in public areas in your community. The third step is Tabling at big events in and around your community. The fourth step is creating a Chapter, a place for your community to regularly meet.

Each of these steps is described in more detail in the coming sections. Generally, it is advised to follow the steps of the Grassroots Path in order, as the effort and necessary level of community interest grows with each step. That said, you know your community best, and we prefer you use your best judgement.

As you take your journey down the Grassroots Path, you will likely have some questions or need assistance from Project No Cap. The regional Canvassing Directors are there to help you find opportunities to engage with your community, make sure everything is on the up and up, and answer questions that you may have about the process. If you haven’t yet joined our Discord server, we highly recommend that you do. It’s a community full of other people working on Project No Cap. It’s a great place for you to share your experiences with canvassing and learn from the experiences of others in return!

Introduction

Canvassing is a great way to volunteer with Project No Cap at a grassroots level. At its core, canvassing is about raising awareness about an issue directly with other people - typically with door knocking or phone calls, but we won’t be doing any of that. Our strategy for canvassing is going to public places and actively (or passively) engaging with voters.

Some of canvassing’s strengths are that it requires little setup, minimal materials, and most of the time no prior authorization. Unlike tabling or starting a chapter, everything you need should be able to fit in your hands and a backpack. In the next section, we will go over how to prepare to canvass in public.

Do your homework

There are two places to get started to learn about uncapping the House. The first is a video titled The problem with 435 representatives in the House of Representatives by Mr. Beat. After that, we recommend reading our FAQ that will go over a lot of the major talking points and common criticisms of uncapping the House. We encourage you to do your own research too and to put your own spin on the historical narrative that speaks to you or your community.
@@H3@@Location, location, location@@ENDH3@@
Project No Cap is focused on canvassing in public spaces. This ensures that there is a minimal amount of planning required to get started.

Some examples of public spaces include areas like side walks and public parks. While some events like Farmer’s Markets are open to the public, they can be on private property and may ask you to leave. You do not need to get too creative as there are probably already hot spots for protesting, proselytizing, and canvassing around your city.

If there is a private venue where you would like to canvass at, you should reach out to the property owner before you canvass.

Most importantly, if anyone asks you to leave, please take their advice and go somewhere else.
@@H3@@Materials and Supplies@@ENDH3@@
Since canvassing is done on foot, everything you need should be able to be carried or put in a backpack. We recommend you carry a few things with you in order to share resources and collect email addresses.

First, we recommend an integrated storage clipboard where you can keep spare materials and pens. This will also be nice to help keep email addresses you collect dry and secure if it begins to rain.

Second, you should always carry a few working pens. Pens can be used to save important contact info, share your information with someone, but most importantly, used to collect email addresses for people who are interested in getting involved with Project No Cap.

Third, is your paper materials. If you are collecting email addresses for people who want to volunteer or join us in emailing our reps, then you will want to use the Email List Template. You can find a link to this printable document at the bottom of this handbook.

We also recommend that you print out double sided Tri-fold Pamphlets for people who would like to take away something physical that explains our mission and how they can get involved. These are also linked below.

Finally, you may choose to print business cards from Staples or Office Depot that you can leave on public boards or for people who don’t want a larger pamphlet. Staples and Office Depot offer same day printing for one sided business cards, and one day turnout for double sided (50 cards for ~$10).
@@H3@@Dress@@ENDH3@@
Dress for the weather then dress for success. We recommend that you wear whatever bottoms are suitable for the weather. For your top and weather permitting, we recommend that you wear one of the Project No Cap shirts (e.g.

Why 435?

or

Uncap the House

) from our store. While it is not necessary, you will find that there will be people curious about what

Why 435?

or

Uncap the House

means.
@@H3@@Canvassing Styles - Active and Passive@@ENDH3@@
The distinction we want to make here is if you are going to canvass by actively asking people questions in public, or if you are going to more passively allow curious people to approach you first. Both styles of canvassing are okay, but are up for you to decide when is appropriate. Maybe there are some venues where soliciting is not appropriate or you would feel more comfortable allowing people to approach you first.

If you are passively canvassing, it is important to have a sign, shirt, and/or hat that helps you look approachable and feeds curiosity.

Either way, we recommend the Engaged Citizen bundle from the store that will provide you with several shirts, stickers, and pins to get things started, but any single shirt will do.
@@H3@@Practice your Pitch@@ENDH3@@
Below are three sample pitches that you may choose to use, but we encourage you to find a pitch that works for you.

Example 1: Two civic questions

In this scenario, I like to engage people with a question…

Could you answer two civic questions? One is easy and one is hard. First question, how many seats do we have in the House of Representatives?

If they struggle, I point to my t-shirt that says

Why 435?

.

That’s the easy question. Now can you tell me why? Why not 100 like the senate or 500?

Example 2: Survey on Representation

One option while out canvassing is to engage people by asking them to

participate in a quick survey about representation.

It’s an easy way to get your foot in the door and start a conversation without explicitly starting a conversation. A full description of this approach, including resources to help you can be found in the Links section below. Look for

Representation Survey

.

Example 3: Collecting signatures

A third strategy you could use is straight to the point.

We are collecting signatures and email addresses for people who support uncapping the House of Representatives.

Introduction

After having several successful canvassing events and enlisting the help of one or two other volunteers, now would be a great time to start a table. Tabling differs from canvassing in that a table is going to provide a fixed location for several hours where you are going to primarily rely on people approaching the table.

There are some advantages to tabling instead over just canvassing. For example, tabling allows you to setup signage and posters that are more attention grabbing. The national team might also be able to provide you with merchandise to hand out like free t-shirts, buttons, and stickers. A final advantage to tabling is that we can create premade mailers for people to easily mail their representatives.

Some of the challenges to tabling when compared to canvassing is that tabling requires more planning, day of setup, and at least one volunteer to be there with you to supervise the table if you need to leave to use the restroom or eat. Provided that you should have some experience canvassing, the logics should be simple with some planning.

Pre Planning Phase

Before you start to plan a tabling event, reach out to the tabling coordinators. The tabling coordinators might have an event in mind that could qualify for a merchandise package for you to hand out to people who are interested in Project No Cap.

How/who to contact?
Do we want to ask people submit a plan before they table? Do they submit this plan to the tabling coordinators or their region/chapter?

Canvassing Coordinators
TBA
@@H3@@Do your Homework@@ENDH3@@
There are two places to get started to learn about uncapping the House. The first is a video titled The problem with 435 representatives in the House of Representatives by Mr. Beat. After that, we recommend reading our FAQ that will go over a lot of the major talking points and common criticisms of uncapping the House. We encourage you to do your own research too and to put your own spin on the historical narrative that speaks to you or your community.
@@H3@@Location, location, location@@ENDH3@@
You will want to plan ahead where you will want to set up your table, either in a public space, a free speech venue, or a protest. It will be doubly important to make sure that it is okay for you to table where you are since setting up and tearing town takes more time.
@@H3@@Materials and Supplies@@ENDH3@@
Tabling requires a lot more setup. Listed below are some of the necessary equipment you will want to bring.

Folding table and chairs
Canopy for sun/weather
Posters with Project No Cap slogans

Why 435?

Uncap the House

Project No Cap

Trifold pamphlets

You will also want to wear clothes appropriate for the weather. Consider wearing Project No Cap merchandise, but it is less important if you have signage instead.

Giveaways

Some tabling events might qualify for a care package to be mailed to you to hand out to people who are interested in getting involved with Project No Cap.
@@H3@@Mailers@@ENDH3@@
One of the initiatives we can offer at a table are mailers. Mailers are letters that we have already typed out a letter, the mailing address, the representatives name, but require a constituent of that district to fill out their information. After we get people to sign their name on these flyers, we can mail them to their representatives to create spikes in activity. By sending letters to our representatives in bulk, we are creating a lot more activity about uncapping the House making it more likely to get a response.

See a sample mailer here. [LINK LINK LINK]

Introduction

A Chapter is the last step in the grassroots path and represents that Project No Cap is very established in your community. A grassroots chapter is a group of Volunteers and Engaged Citizens that meet at a regular location at a regular time. Once per month or more frequently.

At this point, you’ve been Canvassing and Tabling for a while in your community, collecting email addresses all the while. You’ve also hopefully gained one or two new volunteers in your community. Once you’ve gotten in the ballpark of 100 email addresses from people in your community, it’s time to start thinking about starting up a Chapter. Don’t set your expectations too high, if even 5 of those 100 show up, it would be impressive. Most likely, you will lean on your fellow volunteers, friends and family to be your first attendees.
@@H3@@Creating your Chapter@@ENDH3@@
Once you’ve made up your mind to start a chapter, the first thing is to find a location. Think about local establishments in your community. The idea is to look for a casual location where people come and go without getting table service. Ideally, you want a place that is calm enough to have a conversation with half a dozen people. Sports bars and clubs are probably not a good choice due to the volume level. That said, some level of public visibility is good as it lets curious passers-by ask questions. Think: food halls, coffee shops, breweries, and the like. Somewhere outdoors is okay, but consider all seasons and all weather.

Work with the other volunteers in your community to decide a location. Go try it out together sometime. The most important thing is that you hold it somewhere you are all comfortable as you are the bedrock for this chapter.

Once you’ve got a place in mind, reach out to the owner or manager. Be sure to mention that this is a

non-partisan, non-profit

project and that attendees will patronize the establishment and not annoy other guests. Clarify that you aren’t trying to pitch the idea to them, but rather get permission to use the space once a month.

Once they respond and are open to the idea, work with the owner/manager to pick the best time and day. Start off with one day per month and set it up like

the first Thursday of each month

or

the last Monday

of each month. This sort of pattern is easy for people to remember and won’t change day of the week like a fixed date each month would.
@@H3@@Before your first meeting@@ENDH3@@
You are going to want to give yourself 3 or 4 weeks between when you’ve got your location confirmed and your first chapter meeting. Use this time to do some of the following preparations:
Organize an additional canvassing or tabling event. Make it a focus of your efforts to tell people about the upcoming chapter meeting.
Work with the Development Team to get an RSVP set up on the website.
Work with the Development Team to send out an invite to all of the emails you have collected via ActionNetwork. We can also email others in your state/local area that found us through the internet instead of grassroots efforts.
Ask friends and family to join you at the Chapter meeting.
Confirm with the owner/manager of the venue about 2 weeks out from the event.
About 1 week out, prepare your agenda for the event. In the links section below, there is a Sample Agenda that you should consider using for your first meeting.
Make sure to bring extra Tri-fold Flyers, stickers and buttons from your Grassroots kit.
@@H3@@Your first meeting@@ENDH3@@
So your first chapter meeting is here. You got this!
Wear a shirt that says

Why 435

or

Uncap the House

so people can see you as they are coming in. I recommend you arrive at the venue 10 minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting. If you are meeting over a meal time, eat ahead of time or at least order your food before the others arrive. You’ll be leading the meeting, so you probably be quite distracted from eating.

As people show up, have them sign in with their name and email address. People may show up after the official start time. You can wait a couple of minutes after the planned start time, but don’t wait more than a few minutes or you’ll be wasting the time of those who did come on time. When they show up late, briefly welcome them and ask them to join in.

Go through your agenda as you planned it, being sure to allow conversation to flourish if it takes of naturally. That said, make sure to keep conversation moving if it gets too off topic, or if a couple of people dominate the meeting. There will also be times where you need to take back control of the meeting to move on to the next agenda item. Let the agenda be flexible, but don’t be afraid to take back that control and present the next part of the meeting. The appropriate ratio is probably 60% conversation to 40% presentation, depending on how much you prepared for your agenda.

As your meeting comes to a close, be sure to thank everyone for their time and tell them when the next chapter meeting is. Also, end the meeting with some Call to Action: calling a representative, telling someone new about the issue, etc.
@@H3@@After your first meeting@@ENDH3@@
Be open to any feedback you got during the chapter meeting, explicit or implicit. Remember that this is YOUR community’s chapter meeting. Each one is going to be a little different.

A week after your chapter meeting, send an email out to all of the attendees, thanking them again for attending. This is a good opportunity to remind them about their Call to Action. Also, take the opportunity to tell them about any upcoming canvassing or tabling opportunities and remind them when the next chapter meeting is.

It’s also important to remember that the Grassroots Path doesn’t end with starting a Chapter. The grassroots chapter really only exists to facilitate further growth within a community. You should be encouraging your chapter members to invite new people, creating new volunteers and new Engaged Citizens. You should also organize more canvassing and tabling events and get your members to do those!
@@H3@@The next chapter meeting@@ENDH3@@
The basic agenda is really just a starting point. There are all sorts of things you can do at Chapter Meetings that you can’t do with canvassing or tabling alone. Here are some examples for your consideration:
Have a special guest attend the chapter meeting
Host a debate on some topic of your chapter’s choice
Collaborate on content. Take photos, record videos, and write papers together.
Work together to find more canvassing and tabling opportunities
Learn from other chapter members about local issues
Longer form education on Representation, Congress, the government, history, etc.

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