For her, the video seemed to clarify that Fleischer was specifically asking her about transgender people, a group she had no experience with and seemed to have little inherent empathy for. People would often be very judgmental of the woman on the video or any woman who had had an abortion, Fleischer said. An IE may ask its volunteers to canvass via #KnockEveryDoor. David Fleischer discusses best practices to approach deep canvassing to impact the mind of voters efficiently. Training resources will include a structured training pipeline of live calls and webinars, training guides, recorded videos, and volunteer-to-volunteer coaching calls. Modern political campaigns have focused mostly on communicating with people who already agree with them and turning them out to vote, Fleischer says. He is deeply passionate about the superpowers of vulnerability and non-judgmental curiosity that we all carry within us, and the political and personal transformations that occur when we use those powers to bridge fear and difference. Cost: $50 for both sessions Have more questions about long form or deep canvassing? Broockman says that public opinion about gay people has improved by 8.5 points between 1998 and 2012. "Canvassers asked people to talk about a time they were treated differently. At the Leadership Lab's two-hour pre-canvass training that morning, volunteers were warned about "fake 10s," people who think of themselves as against discrimination many of them Democrats . There were days it was just hard to face that and everything that I was going through with my transition at the time. This model encourages a freeform and reciprocal conversation between the volunteer canvasser and the voter. "To go into it with high hopes and then get this really bad piece of news, then to go forward anyway and have the accurate results? The effect of most campaign messaging is short-lived and can evaporate in as little as 3-5 days. Its worth noting that some of the results were less strong than those Broockman and Kalla reported in their 2016 paper. It took a devastating loss at the ballot box for Fleischer to see the political wisdom in heart-to-hearts with strangers. The Los Angeles LGBT Center's Leadership LAB (Learn Act Build) specializes in deep canvassing and organizing through volunteer leadership development. Our work in Orange County during the . This doesnt mean that you all confront that person at once. Its much easier to put all your volunteers in a cozy phone bank where everyone gets to hang out and eat pizza.. particularly those who are most at-risk for missing critical elections. Deep canvassing is an approach to conversations which is non-judgemental and invites people to open up about their real conflicted feelings on an issue. The canvassers thought the conversations were changing people's minds, but Fleischer says he couldn't know if it was working without independent verification. And the data shows it works. Not so with deep canvassing. But the more they analyzed LaCours study design and results, the more problems they found. The experiment divided voters into a treatment group engaged in a conversation intended to reduce transgender prejudice and a placebo group targeted with a conversation about recycling. Thats what the Mormons use, he said on this sunny, bird-chirping Saturday in February. Typically, in a political canvass, an activist might list a bunch of facts or statistics about why the voter should support their cause. It was only in his 20s that he started to tell his folks the truth, and he started making the transition to living as a man. Then we try to convince them to change their minds. Had he been completely honest, he might have said, Im here to make you less prejudiced. As the team's National Mentoring Coordinator he partnered with organizations and campaigns across the country to develop and apply deep conversation approaches - around marriage equality, trans-inclusive nondiscrimination laws, criminal justice reform, and . The Los Angeles LGBT Center's Leadership LAB (Learn Act Build) specializes in deep canvassing and organizing through volunteer leadership development. Fleischers staff at the Los Angeles-based Leadership Lab which goes door to door to reduce bias against L.G.B.T. But for now, the findings are a relief to David Fleischer. Subscribe to the newsletter for new resources every month. But he said he's been bullied himself. Theres also the question: Is it worth the effort? Canvassers (who may or may not be members of the impacted community) listen nonjudgmentally. In New Hampshire, Susmik reached out to immigrant and refugee communities in the state, which has a particularly high number of Bhutanese refugees from Nepal. In one, a social worker (a social worker! Barrett marveled) announced that being transgender is a mental illness; in another, a man matter-of-factly said he hoped to develop a straight pill to change gay people. He also hopes it will usher in a new era of political persuasion. His deep canvassing career and vision took off in rural North Carolina, where hehelped change hearts and minds in our groundbreaking immigration deep canvass with Down Home North Carolina. Thats a new finding. Over 8 years on the LA LGBT Center's groundbreaking Leadership LAB team Steve helped create the tactic of deep canvassing. The design of this tool was inspired by the Business Model Canvas. #KnockEveryDoor will support volunteers in several ways: First, we will train volunteers. In terms of the length of the canvass program, you have to look at the outcome you are trying to achieve. David Broockman and Josh Kallas measurement of this projects impact become the landmark study that brought deep canvassing into the national spotlight, proving that it had the power to lastingly reduce prejudice. Though most political canvassing today is focused on mobilizing supporters, an increasing number of researchers, think tanks and campaign operatives have turned their attention to persuasion in the last few years, says Columbias Donald Green. At Vox, we believe that everyone deserves access to information that helps them understand and shape the world they live in. They share takeaways on how to construct outreach scripts that bridge divides and move people powerfully, with practical examples from advocacy campaigns on the ground. There might be a couple of reasons for that. Had it all been wishful thinking? "I told him that my father is fighting cancer right now. Canvassers can get mugged, they can get lost, they can get attacked by wild geese, Michelson told me. Steve Deline has been organizing around the methodology of deep canvassing, across multiple movements, for 13 years. Is First Republic Banks failure sign of a slow-motion banking crisis? Interacting with people different than me was a normal thing, and certainly not undesirable or scary. It has taught me patience, and taught me to see people from the most positive view that I can.. Fleischer asked her to rate that support on a scale from zero to 10. See below for examples around particular issues including climate change and marriage equality. It likely wasnt because someone berated you. Deep Canvassing to Shift Hearts, Mind and Votes. Their main hypothesis is that it works because its not threatening. Green was skeptical that the canvassers were as persuasive as they thought they were. Give me a few years, and I know Ill be a 10!, How Do You Change Voters Minds? Psychology explains how to stop it. In a deep canvass, we go to the turf where voters have voted against our causes in the past, and we find out why. Thats refreshing and useful. It was developed by the Leadership LAB in Los Angeles and has been effectively employed to help motivate voters in multiple organizing projects across the nation. But when pressed, LaCour couldnt produce any evidence that he had conducted the follow-up surveys of voters that would have been essential to measuring canvassings long-term influence. If they dont, and even if they do, theyre asked a question like, When was a time someone showed you compassion when you really needed it? to get them to reflect on their experience when they might have felt something similar to the people in the marginalized community. This tactic is the only thing that has been proven to work on nondiscrimination, so without it we wouldnt have been able to win, they say. Have a Conversation, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/magazine/how-do-you-change-voters-minds-have-a-conversation.html. After the canvass, the study participants answered the same questions about transgender people that they had answered before the study, including how positively or negatively they felt towards transgender people on a scale of 0 to 100. Insights from Deep Canvassing: Proven Scripts for Transformational Outreach, The New Conversation Initiative, Netroots Nation, 2021 (Video 60 mins). The canvassers also share their own stories: about being an immigrant, about being a member of the LGBTQ community, or about just knowing people who are. The impacts these conversations had on feelings of prejudice, Broockman admits, are about a third as strong. This is the You Are Not So Smart Podcast. The new research shows that if you want to change someones mind, you need to have patience with them, ask them to reflect on their life, and listen. He also admitted to lying about having received funds for his study from several organizations, including the Ford Foundation. Is this the first time youve thought about transgender people? Fleischer asked her soon after she backtracked. Its a reminder that our political opponents arent always as rigid or ideologically severe as they appear in our minds. I think in todays world, many communities have a call-out culture, says David Broockman, a UC Berkeley political scientist who has run these experiments with Josh Kalla, a political scientist at Yale University. Do you have a few minutes today to talk about transgender people?, Williams played a busy voter. Then they should try to change the voters minds. For instance, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,000 votes. If you would like to see first-hand what these one-on-one conversations are like, we encourage you to. . Please enter a valid email and try again. If marriage was the most valuable thing in their own life, wouldnt they also want their gay friends or gay people to experience it, too?. Theres plenty of work that offers some possible mechanisms by which opinions change. After the first canvass I attended, the Leadership Lab project manager Ella Barrett seemed uncharacteristically sullen. The Great Battlefield. Neighbours United, formerly known as West Kootenay EcoSociety, developed their script over 1.5 years of script iterations, building off the learnings of many other deep canvasses and organizations, notably Montana Engagement Partnership, and in collaboration with the New Conversation Initiative, with support from Yale Program on Climate Change Communications. The group goes out canvassing in pairs, with one person assigned the role of trying to change people's minds and the other responsible for recording it on camera. You can do training and prep together prior to canvassing and then come back and debrief afterward. Topping, whos nonbinary, and others, went door to door. We trained our volunteers to connect with voters at the door on a personal and values level, not to talk at them with scripted talking points. He also helped lead a second Deep Canvass operation in three states in 2021 during the federal immigration debate. LaCour, joined late in the process by Green as a co-author, published the results in the December 2014 issue of Science. That is, it will be a platform that individuals, groups, and campaigns alike can plug into to receive training and support for progressive volunteers who wish to canvass in their communities. Instead of pelting voters with facts, we ask open-ended questions and then we listen, Dave Fleischer, the LGBTQ rights organizer who developed the technique, told me in 2016. Thats likely a lot of people. Dave Fleischer, director of the Leadership Lab. In 2020, these seem like radical propositions. It will take more studies and replications of this study before scientists know exactly what is influencing people's opinions. LaCour appeared to be breaking new ground, showing that one brief but memorable interaction could reduce prejudice. The canvasser shares vulnerably about their own life and asks curious questions to create mutual understanding grounded in lived experience. What do social scientists know about reducing prejudice in the world? He vowed to keep at it, but soon there was no need. Why is deep canvassing relevant to the world we live in today? Leadership LAB Conversation with a Voter about Transgender Rights, 2016(Video 8:30 mins). The distinguishing feature of a deep canvass is you take a lot more time to talk to voters and have a bona fide two-way conversation about real experiences that shape their thinking about the issues. Empathy may also be a factor. activists in another state. Nancy Williams, right, who is transgender, talks with a voter as part of a canvassing effort in Los Angeles. What we can now say experimentally, the key to the success of these conversations is doing the exact opposite of that.. In the runup, conservative news outlets were blaring headlines about a scary immigrant caravan marching north through Mexico to the US southern border. The mans daughter, though, would have none of it: She practically pushed him out of the way to tell Riley they were a 10. Fleischer headed west to work with the Los Angeles L.G.B.T. Instead, they did something more radical: They listened, nonjudgmentally, and began a conversation. The new research also tries to identify the secret ingredient that makes deep canvassing work, and whether versions of it that occur over the phone or through video prompts can be useful as well. In 2004, for example, some 3,500 orange-hat-wearing Howard Dean supporters (many bused in from around the country) managed to annoy Iowa voters days before the states Democratic caucus. In addition to being a strong persuasion medium, for some issue areas, the deep canvass can also help to serve as an effective voter research tool as well. David directs the Leadership Lab at the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Broockman and Kalla were intrigued by LaCours findings and hoped to replicate it for an experiment measuring the Leadership Labs transgender canvassing. The Leadership LAB of the Los Angeles LGBT Center trains people in canvassing techniques aimed at reducing prejudice. I felt like I could deal with facing the possibility of losing my dad and I could deal with the possibility of being rejected by the people I loved. Hes married to a woman now, and hes so much happier. As part of the LA LGBT Center's groundbreaking Leadership LAB team, he helped create the original deep canvass approach. We have a national reputation for our success developing practical, positive, non-partisan, non-judgmental ways to connect with voters. Still, Fleischer isnt ready to give up. Were just beginning to learn how to do this well, but its important. Green, who was unaware of the deception, quickly requested a retraction. I dont like seeing people mistreat Jackson. The two other experiments in the study targeted transphobia. Without in-person, full-time, paid organizers running all aspects of the operation, we are piloting a canvass model that is lightweight, easier to learn via online training, and depends on peer-to-peer coaching, encouragement and knowledge sharing among volunteer hosts, canvassers and support team members. A shocked and embarrassed Green requested that Science retract the study; soon after, Princeton rescinded a teaching offer to LaCour. We work to empower volunteers to connect the personal to the political with voters in order to make long-term, meaningful impacts on elections. Costs in the early training phases are somewhere around $200,000 - $250,000. Yeah, I would say so, she said. There are other potential problems. And once he thought they had discovered a powerful way to fight prejudice, an enormous scientific fraud perpetrated by other researchers tumbled their progress back a year. "They were very transparent about all the statistics," she says. ", Williams says around the time she began volunteering with the LGBT Center, she canvassed a man who didn't support nondiscrimination protection for transgender children. . This toolkit is full of useful links to materials they have developed and shared including Climate Action Scripts online and in person, Script Iteration Examples and lots of training resources. Those appeals worked last November in Houston, where the same voters who elected a lesbian mayor in 2009 repealed a city ordinance protecting transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations. Topping calls this giving them grace. Its a powerful idea: Giving grace means being able to hear someone say something that can be hurtful, and trying to think about how to have a real conversation and connect with them.. Caitlin Homrich-Knieling, Deep Canvass Coordinator at We the People Michigan in the United States talks about script development and how they come up with script as well as a useful tool called The Cone of Curiosity. It has also attracted controversy. While a discussion of transgender rights can trigger deeply ingrained feelings about sex and gender roles, the issue is also a fairly recent political consideration for many people. To run a canvass you need staff, office space, voter lists, technology and more. Its also a challenge to change a campaigns habits and make the goal of canvassing be to successfully relate to other people. 4. He handed her a small video player, on which she watched a Baptist minister in Houston make the case about bathrooms. Support our mission and help keep Vox free for all by making a financial contribution to Vox today. Hi, my name is Laura, and Im with the Leadership Lab, Gardiner told Williams, channeling a shy first-time canvasser. He began by sharing his experience of losing the 2008 California marriage equality referendum campaign, which led David and his Leadership Lab colleagues to develop the deep canvassing approach to determine why people were susceptible to the anti-marriage equality campaign. The Leadership LAB of the Los Angeles LGBT Center trains people in canvassing techniques aimed at reducing prejudice. Its about sharing and listening, all the while nudging people to be analytical and think about their shared humanity with marginalized groups. Canvassing needs to be managed. Tennessee and the Central Valley have been the sites of large-scale workplace raids by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] in recent years, she says, and various cities in Orange County have attempted to opt out of the California Values Act. Thats a state law that limits the collaboration between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement. Technology has helped a bit with the scale challenge, but theres always the question: Do you knock on as many doors as possible, or do you knock on fewer doors and have potentially more fruitful interactions?, Theres also a lot that can go wrong when fresh-faced canvassers descend on unfamiliar neighborhoods. Dates: March 31 from 1:00-2:00 PM EST and April 7 from 1:00-2:00 PM EST. Take a mental break with the newest Vox crossword, Sign up for the Have A Conversation. In 2014, Fleischer and his team modified their canvassing work to persuade and mobilize voters by phone. When I asked how her day went, she shook her head and recounted a series of disheartening conversations with voters she couldnt persuade. If only I could have 10 minutes with Ted Cruz, Fleischer said once. Its only right. I think people dont talk enough about the focus on persuasion we had, because the story line became, Oh, they won because turnout was so high.. 2. Who can you reach with a deep canvass? How To Organize A Political Campaign, In 2018, Kalla and Broockman published a meta-analysis of 49 experiments that were designed to test whether voters are persuadable by conventional means: phone calls, television ads, traditional canvassing, and so on. Without that theoretical understanding, its difficult to generalize and use the approach in other settings, Bruneau says. Social science experiments are usually conducted on college campuses, in a lab, in contrived scenarios. It can take six months or more for an organization were partnering with to get the hang of the method and recruit and train volunteers to carry it out. Long Form Canvas, Most people have been judged because of gender, race or some other issue. 5. If they met a voter who wanted to get rid of the law, they wouldnt call them out for prejudice. The day before one canvass, representatives from an animal rights group told me they hoped to better understand how to help people connect emotionally to animal welfare. Volunteer's go door-to-door, talking to strangers, and often change their attitudes about things like same-sex marriage and transgender rights. The woman eventually told Riley that she had voted against gay marriage in California, but that she now regretted that choice. Volunteers will be responsible for localizing the script they wish to use. You've probably noticed this if you've ever tried to change someone's political opinion at a dinner party. Deep Canvassing Script: Voting for Climate in 2022, AYCC, 2022 (4 pg Google Document). Broockman says they didnt set out to find the exact mechanism. It usually isnt until Fleischer opens up about his own experience including feeling different in his small, conservative Ohio town that voters feel safe to get vulnerable, too, he says. Now we can show experimentally that when you take away the two-way nature of the conversation, the effects go away, Broockman says. Deep canvassing is when volunteers and organizers engage in extended, empathetic conversations, with the goal of combating prejudice and shifting beliefs. That means canvassing is much more about conversational skill rather than identity. When we see racist behavior, we should call it racist and not be euphemistic by calling it racially charged. Arguably, theres a time and place for calling people out, particularly when it comes to powerful, influential people. To me, protecting transgender people with these laws is just affirming that theyre human. Fleischer then steered the conversation to Nancys experiences with discrimination. In a distributed organizing model, a sprawling crew of part time, sometimes, and one-time volunteers work across space and time and use consumer software platforms like Google apps, Maestro Conference Calling, Slack and Facebook to manage everything from canvassing logistics to training to research to tech development. All Muslims are often blamed for single acts of terror. So the research suggests that deep canvassing works. Like, of course were on your doorstep on a Saturday talking about transgender issues!, Moments later, Williams reminded the volunteers to be open and nonjudgmental. In his work, Bruneau finds that political partisans have a skewed view of how they think their opponents think of them. Its a type of conversation thats closer to what a psychotherapist might have with a patient than a typical political argument. Though there was currently no ballot measure in Los Angeles to worry about, there was a palpable urgency to the Leadership Labs work. She said she was trying to evolve on the issue, though. ", The Leadership LAB of the Los Angeles LGBT Center trains people in canvassing techniques aimed at reducing prejudice. Leadership Lab-trained volunteers were found to be successful at reducing transgender prejudice in front-door conversations, the effects persisting months later in follow-up surveys. We have a national reputation for our success developing practical, positive, non-partisan, non-judgmental ways to connect with voters. Its too bad that the takeaway was that only gay people could persuade people about gay marriage, Broockman says about LaCours retracted study. Theres this belief that if we just say the right words, the voters going to change their mind. Though the abortion debate is less obviously rooted in prejudice than transgender discrimination, Fleischer and his canvassers noticed that many voters reacted negatively to a short video of a middle-aged woman recounting having an abortion when she was 22. Mehrdad Azemun is Senior Strategist at Peoples Action. Deep Canvassing. Were out talking to voters about an important issue Fleischer began, only to have Nancy excuse herself and walk away. "We had a certain sense of responsibility.". That doesn't mean everybody came away feeling more positive about transgender rights. The idea grew out of Fleischers own experience as a Jewish, liberal gay kid in Chillicothe, Ohio. In many campaigns, polling data and focus groups tell us that very few people are persuadable, so we ignore those voters and stick with talking to the voters who are already on our side. Namely: Its larger, and it targets more issues, both trans rights and policies protective of undocumented immigrants. Center, which houses the Leadership Lab, and proposed an unusual idea to his new colleagues: Canvassers should talk to Prop 8 supporters about why they had voted against same-sex marriage. Williams says the man said he hadn't considered what that might be like. But David Fleischer, the director of the Leadership LAB of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, thinks he's found a way to begin changing people's prejudices with just a short conversation. He was thinking as if trans kids don't have all the other things kids have to deal with on top of being transgender," Williams says. Share on Facebook Eden Mayle Field Manager Maria Do Field Organizer Deep canvassing has since been proven to change hearts and minds and find common ground across differences by. Are Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in love, or are they good actors? They still felt more positively about transgender people than those who had gotten the unrelated canvass. And its this meta-perception, Bruneau finds, that then fuels ongoing conflict and dehumanization. One group aired a lurid television ad of a man following a frightened, wide-eyed young girl into a bathroom stall. The technique also raises empathy in canvassers, who . In Pennsylvania and beyond, Eboni has also supported organizations on outreach, strategy, program management, leadership development and political education. Fleischer is especially interested in learning whether deep canvassing can affect peoples thinking on two issues racial prejudice and abortion rights. In the experiment on immigration, Broockman and Kalla found that 78 percent of all the people who came to the door when the canvasser rang ended up staying for the entire conversation. The news crushed Fleischer. Its just not easy. First, theres a learning curve involved in setting up a deep canvass because this method is so different. The canvassers role is primarily to listen, to build trust and then to have a respectful conversation about areas where both parties may disagree. Leadership Lab volunteers spoke with 3,330 residents in Pocatello, Idaho, a small, heavily Mormon city facing a ballot referendum that would have reversed a local nondiscrimination ordinance protecting gay and transgender people. Volunteers working a 2-hour shift, on an average, can complete 5 conversations. We want to avoid asking for permission, she told them. As a result, our elected officials are reflecting the communities they represent less and less. That campaign completed 3,000 conversations, and persuaded over 40 percent of those people to support the amendment. Listening to a political opponents concerns. If I would have only talked to people who agreed with me, I would have only talked to my mom and dad, he told me. It could take awhile. But instead he began with a simple question: If she were to vote on whether to include gay and transgender people in nondiscrimination laws, would she be in favor or opposed? Its not about listing facts or calling people out on their prejudicial views. He enlisted a graduate student at UCLA named Michael LaCour to see if there was a measurable effect. That lack of control scares campaigns. In 2012, Steve embedded with the Minnesotans United marriage equality campaign, which mobilized over 14,000 LGBTQ and ally volunteers to have more than 220,000 deep canvass conversations on the phones, contributing to a first-ever ballot box victory that many thought impossible. Fleischer has an unwavering confidence in his ability to persuade most people to be more empathetic and less prejudiced, and his optimism is shared by progressive groups who train with him. You can also contribute via. Sample Scripts for Deep Canvassing: Signature Gathering and Voter Research, CallHub, 2022 (Online article). President Trump called it an invasion, apparently hoping that by raising xenophobic, dehumanizing fears about nonwhite immigrants, as he had in 2016, hed help his party win seats in Congress. Fleischer wasnt surprised; people rarely feel safe enough at first to express deep hurt.

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