The difference between Slack and Mobilize

There are tons of ways to use Mobilize to enhance the experience of your volunteers and supporters. Incorporating community tools like Slack into your Mobilize workflows is easy and can add a unique point of engagement, especially if you are practicing remote organizing.

At some point over the last four years, you’ve probably heard of Slack, a chat-based platform that allows groups to organize their communications in a slick alternative to email. You may be wondering if Slack is right for your campaign or organization, and if it would work well with the organizing tools you already use.

Mobilize allows you and your supporters to create events and seamlessly share them throughout your networks. Slack allows you to communicate easily with all of your supporters at once through channels. Using them together is a great way to build online relationships with volunteers, share critical information about your campaign, and manage your supporters during an event.  

Use Mobilize to get volunteers in the [virtual] door and online community tools like Slack to communicate once they’re there.

How to use Slack + Mobilize together

While Mobilize does not currently offer a full Slack integration, using the two together is easy as pie. Just include the link to your Slack team in the private details section of your Mobilize event. Signups will then receive the link in their event reminder email, and be able to to join your Slack team immediately!

You can include a Welcome channel for new members to introduce themselves to get the conversations going immediately.

Virtually manage your events in live time

Slack’s channel format allows you to create unique spaces within your Slack team. Organize your channels by volunteer activity type to make it easier to provide instructions, manage your volunteers, and recruit your active volunteers for future events.

Sierra Club uses Slack in tandem with their Mobilize events and creates slack channels for each event type that they host. Volunteers join the Sierra Club Slack team directly from the Mobilize confirmation email, enter the slack channel for calls, texting, or letter writing and are guided through the event in real time by staff and volunteer team leads.

By utilizing an online community building tool like Slack, you can check in, provide instructions, and engage supporters in live-time to ensure your volunteers have a great experience. The best part is that you can easily recruit your volunteers for your next event right in the channel!

Build an online community

In addition to event-based channels, use channels to engage your volunteers and supporters in all aspects of your work. Create channels for general updates and announcements, policy discussion and even regional-based organizing. Every member of a Slack channel can use the chat function, comment on posts, and react to messages, making this the perfect place to get volunteers to engage with your organization and with each other.

Include a Welcome channel for new members to introduce themselves and get the conversations going immediately. Use the poll feature to get a quick gut-check on a new organization proposal or offering. Ask volunteers to share their favorite conversation from a phone or text bank.

Troubleshoot tech issues in one place

Virtual organizing tools for call, text, canvass, and relational organizing are more important now than ever for communicating with voters. While a lot of virtual organizing tools have become incredibly easy to use, tech issues, user confusion, and last minute changes to instruction—like a necessary change to a phone bank list during a shift—can make the experience frustrating for first-time volunteers. It’s one thing to provide support to volunteers in person but with Slack, you can mimic the support and encouragement that you would provide in person online!

Create a channel solely dedicated to technical support and manage user questions and issues in live-time.

Community tools like Slack offer great opportunities to engage with supporters in creative ways. Use them in tandem with Mobilize to create seamless remote volunteering experiences - the possibilities are endless!

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