Canvassing 101 VILT & Guides

Canva, Google Slides

Hamkae Center's civic engagement staff had been delivering virtual Canvassing 101 training for years, but it included limited demonstrations and practice for participants to remember what to do when in the field canvassing voters. Thus, the main challenge was to build an engaging VILT that prepared participants to interact positively with the org's Asian American voter base while learning the MiniVAN canvassing app and the basics of Virginia's voting system. Another challenge was to cut down the VILT's length since the original version of the training was about 2 hours long.

The original training was revamped, giving participants a low-stakes environment to practice high-stakes tasks via individual and group activities. Accompanying participant guides were designed to enhance participants' engagement with and retention of the learning material.

Participants learned the basics of the Virginia voting system and how to interact with and identify the issues important to Hamkae Center's voter base. They also learned how to use MiniVAN and enroll voters in permanent absentee voting. As a result, participants reported an increase in confidence after the training. Consolidating the training into 1.5 hours also decreased the length of the initial virtual training by 25%.