Our Local Survey Results

My survey of organizers, volunteers and supporters in California Congressional Districts 1 (D- Mike Thompson) and 6 (D- Lynn Woolsey) is now complete. We had 180 respondents, of which 91% were directly involved in the campaign in some capacity and 32% attended Camp Obama. Here are the main highlights that I took away from the survey.

Almost 90% of respondents found the experience either "Very Rewarding" or "Rewarding".

65% became involved in the campaign because of "the person -- to elect "Barack Obama president". The next highest response, at 17.7% was "the cause -- to bring about change". "Other" received 9.4% and "Pro-party" got 5.5%.

Almost 80% want "to keep the movement going" or are "willing to work depending on the issue or goal".

Respondents were evenly split on whether they wanted "to help the Obama Administration pass its agenda" or "to work on specific issues or causes". "Improving one's local community" was not far behind but definitely came in third.

Across the board, the campaign had a very positive impact on the people who were involved with it and people were happy with the organization, staff, message, training and tools. There were individual gripes but the general response was strongly positive -- 3.9 to 4.7 on a scale of 0 to 5.

As a result of respondent's experiences with the campaign many are significantly more likely to volunteer time in their local community, to a regional or national cause, a state or local campaign and to participate in a social network. They were only slightly more likely to run for office or maintain a blog.

Regarding future of use of MyBO, respondents are ambivalent about visiting MyBO or using its groups. Those who responded are somewhat less likely to post events and not very likely to continue blogging on MyBO.

Regarding future ownership of MyBO, there was no clear winner with 32% wanting it kept in place for the 2012 election, 29% using it as the basis for a new organization and just under 9% wanting to give it to the Democratic Party.

Regarding ownership/use of the database of volunteers and supporters, 31% of respondents want it to be the basis of a new and independent organization, 24% want it to be kept in place for 2012 and 17% want to share it with the Democratic Party.

85% of respondents are currently "Very Likely" to volunteer to work on President Obama's re-election campaign in 2012 with and 10% "Somewhat Likely".

So, where does this leave us? Attitudes are positive and there is plenty of willingness to apply our talents and resources toward continuing what we began during the campaign. However, it is going to take some work to transform what we created into a flexible, viable and effective movement that is part of a broader engine for change.

We have the talent; we have the will; we just need to make it happen!

Yes we can!