Social Network Influences on Political Campaign Volunteerism

Leveraging existing relationships may be an effective strategy to boost volunteer recruitment. In a 2015 AI study, randomly assigned members of the Young Democrats at William and Mary received a volunteer recruitment phone call either from a friend or from a member of the campaign. Those who received a call from a friend were a whopping 21 percentage points more likely to volunteer than those contacted by a member of the campaign.

Authors: Meg Schwenzfeier & Jaime Settle, 2015