Impact: Votes per Hour by Volunteer Opportunity 

This analysis was conducted by gathering:

1. Turnout effects of each volunteer opportunity from Analyst Institute’s Turnout Meta-Analysis 3.0. Turnout effect is measured in percentage points. This analysis showed turnout effects of 0.04% for phone banking, 0.58% for canvassing, and 0.20% for text banking.

2. Approximate impact that a general volunteer will accomplish in one hour for each volunteer opportunity. Sourcing from field organizers in the space, this hourly rate was 45 calls, 20 knocked doors, and 300 texts.

With this data, each volunteer opportunity’s turnout effect was multiplied by the impact a general volunteer will accomplish in one hour (example: for phone banking, 0.04% turnout effect * 45 calls per hour = 0.018 additional votes per hour of volunteer time).

To compare donor organizing with phone banking, canvassing, and text banking, the assumption of $300 cost per net Democratic vote was used: $200 raised in an hour / $300 cost per net Democratic vote = 0.67 additional votes per hour of volunteer time.

At $200 per hour, a volunteer surpasses the impact of an hour of text banking with an hour of donor organizing.

Special gratitude to David Slifka and Hadar Sachs for crafting this analytical framework.