Debrief and Collect Data
A volunteer doorknocking operation is only as good as the debrief at the end of the night and the data that you collect and enter back into your database. If you can't track that those conversations happened, then they might as well not have happened at all.
Make sure volunteers know that they need to bring their walk packets back at the end of the night, and provide a warm, comfortable space for them to gather, debrief, and add up their tallies for the night. As the organizer, be present and ask volunteers as they come back, "how did it go?" This is more than just being polite - your volunteers are on the front line of your campaign, hearing voter attitudes and issues. For small campaigns that don't have the resources for polling and focus groups, then your reaction at the doors is the only way to know if your message is resonating and how the campaign strategy is working.
As you have your volunteers tally up, a few measurements will be helpful for future field planning.
1. The total number of doors knocked on
2. The total number of contacts completed (people you actually spoke with)
3. The total number of new supporters identified
These are useful for a few reasons. First of all, if you divide the total number of contacts made by the total number of doors knocked, you can get your contact rate for that particular volunteer. This information can help you make more efficient voter contact.
For example, if one volunteer had a much lower contact rate than other volunteers on the same night in the same neighborhood, you may have reason to believe that that volunteer is spending too much time per door and could use further training. Or, if you see that one night in particular has lower contact rates overall, that might tell you something about the people who live in the area in which you were doorknocking. Is nighttime a bad time to reach them at home, for example? You can also use contact rates to plan how many volunteers you will need, and how much time, to cover all your turf given the number of voters you need to contact.
You also want to make sure you are collecting all the data from the walk sheet, including voter IDs, issue IDs, requests for literature or lawn signs, donation pledges, etc.
Before sending volunteers home, be sure to recommit them for another doorknock in the future!