What's NGP-VAN? And How Can We Use It to Help GOTV?

In case you didn't get the memo, NGP-VAN is software that was developed to help market people and products. Wikipedia describes it as, "NGP VAN is a privately owned American company specializing in helping progressive campaigns and organizations leverage technology to meet their goals."
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGP_VAN  Here is the company website: http://www.ngpvan.com/

At the company site there are sections explaining their services, from fund raising and compliance to social organizing. For our purposes, we are going to focus on the voter contact piece of their product. The site explains this part as: "The VAN database was built under the guidance of Obama for America. Tightly integrated with the voter file and your voter contact program, VAN provides a complete suite of volunteer management tools for tracking your activists and setting up and scheduling events."  http://www.ngpvan.com/voter-contact

The MiniVAN is another tool that the company offers for free: "MiniVAN is the free mobile canvassing application that allows users to export canvassing lists from the VAN onto a mobile device (including iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android phones and tablets). Canvassers can enter data into their device as they talk to people on their list, and then upload their data back to the VAN with the touch of a button. Canvassing with MiniVAN allows NGP VAN clients to spend more time and resources on actually contacting people instead of on data entry. And there are accountability features, so now administrators can check the time of each entry. Get it for free at the iTunes Store or Google Play." http://www.ngpvan.com/voter-contact

The Progressive Democrats Moving Forward - Not Back Group on Facebook is hoping to be able to use this technology to help with the campaign for Michael Cole 36th Congressional District in Texas. You can check out his campaign website here: http://www.michaelcole.us/  There is also a Facebook page for his campaign: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelColeforCongress Stay posted for more information on our efforts.

https://www.facebook.com/ProgressiveDemocratsMovingForwardNotBack