Chattanooga Stand is Evolving and 'Picking Up Steam'

• Like (4)
• Comment
• Email
• Facebook
• Twitter

Chattanooga FC games, Nightfall, Movies in the Park, and JJ's Bohemia are just a few of the places you may have seen Chattanooga Stand volunteers in yellow t-shirts, collecting surveys from local residents. As the campaign wraps up its eleventh week, coordinator Sarah Lester answered questions about the campaign's evolving strategy, what they have learned so far, and whether they are on track to collect 25,000 surveys by August 31.

According to the field strategy guide, campaign organizers are pursuing four primary angles:

• Top-Down : reaching large and diverse groups of people through small portals


• Bottom-Up: supporting established networks and equipping connectors


• Events: a yellow t-shirt and an easy ask, turning canvassing into conversations


• Neighborhoods: haven’t seen Stand yet? on the ground, coming your way

Ms. Lester characterized the strategy: "Find people. Create time and space for them to respond. Equip others. Do what works today, try something new tomorrow. Change strategy often."

Political organizers assist field team

The initial strategy was fleshed out and imparted to Stand's field team with the assistance of Justin Wilkins, Elizabeth Crews, and Adam Green, each of whom has served as grassroots volunteers in local and national politics, including the 2008 Obama campaign. Mr. Wilkins was involved in early planning for the initiative, providing insight towards "building a team around an aggressive goal," according to Ms. Lester. Ms. Crews assisted with the transition from the research phase to the initial implementation. Mr. Green assisted with the "nuts and bolts of field strategy" and plans for geographic targeting.

"They taught us the importance of engaging others, of sharing (letting go of) ownership of the campaign, and making the tools readily available to others," Ms. Lester said. "Since launch, they’ve made themselves available to answer questions about engaging volunteers, managing a database of volunteer information, how to motivate people, and exploring a 'house party' model of engagement. Motivating people to act—even if just responding to a survey—is a very rewarding challenge."

Lessons from the field

The campaign's biggest success came from canvassing large public events, such as Movies in the Park, where they offered Clumpie's coupons for free ice cream cones to anyone who completes the survey. Volunteers also canvassed Chattanooga FC games, Nightfall, and a Stand party at JJ's Bohemia. The initiative  led them to neighborhood meetings and events, churches, and businesses. Ms. Lester called a recent event at The Bethlehem Center as a "glowing success," but not only because of the number of surveys collected.

"Everyone in that loud, colorful gymnasium left knowing their voices were heard, seeing more in common with those around the table than when they arrived. This is the beauty and power of community," she said.

Not every tactic was as effective as anticipated. Neighborhood associations presented a challenge early on. "Response from neighborhood association meetings has been varied, given different levels of neighborhood participation and methods of communication," Ms. Lester said. "We’ve found more success reaching out through community events, having a Stand presence at gatherings already taking place in the neighborhoods."

The organization is restructuring its presentations to accommodate a call to action. "We’ve learned that presentations to neighborhood associations, churches and workplaces are less effective when people don’t have the time to respond immediately. Now, we make an effort now to build time in to our presentations to answer the survey," she said.

Behind schedule, but 'picking up steam'

As of July 13, Stand collected 9,539 surveys: 1,929 submitted online, 7,608 collected in person, and 2 by telephone. Ms. Lester said that Stand is "gaining momentum" with 1,433 surveys collected in just four days between June 9—12. According to the timeline published in Stand's field strategy guide, organizers originally hoped to reach 16,250 surveys at the end of this week.

"Sure, we may not have 16,000 today, and you could choose to interpret this as being behind goal, but Chattanooga's participation is an astounding success. We are raising the bar across the country—even the world—for community visioning efforts of this kind, which use surveys rather than nominal group participation by a show of hands or head count," Ms. Lester said.

Citing participation statistics for similar campaigns in Calgary, which collected 18,000 responses in 12 months, and Portland, with 17,000 responses in 24 months, Ms. Lester said that the numbers "speak for themselves." Based on the current tally, she said 5.70% of Chattanooga city residents have participated, compared with 1.88% in Calgary and 2.99% in Portland.

Ms. Lester said, "A plan is pretty on paper, but taking it to the streets is the only way to measure its effectiveness. Developed at the outset of the campaign, the field strategy and timeline are not up to date to reflect the many routes that have brought us to this point. Rather than documenting each step we took, we’ve taken another step forward, taken note, changed course, and moved forward again."

"Our goal remains 25,000 by August 31, and we are steadily making progress," she said. "We’re picking up steam, momentum is building, and I expect to see a continued and rapid climb in the numbers in the weeks to come."