MobilizeAmerica allows organizations to configure an integration with NGP VAN / EveryAction 8.

The integration syncs events, people, and signups from a single Mobilize Organization to a single VAN Committee.

Data is synced in realtime, including whenever an event is created or updated, or whenever a signup is created or updated.

Data sync is generally one-way—from Mobilize into VAN—with the exception of signup attendance statuses which can be updated in either VAN or Mobilize.

By default Mobilize syncs just the data for the events owned by your organization, but you can also have data synced for events that your organization promotes.

All Mobilize events & online actions owned by your dashboard will be synced to VAN as one or more Events in MyCampaign.

Mobilize creates a VAN Event for each day of Mobilize event timeslots, so an event with many times over several days in Mobilize may create multiple VAN Events. (This is because in VAN an event must exist on only one day.)

If an event has multiple shifts/times on a single day in Mobilize, Mobilize will group those times into a VAN Event with multiple shifts.

Petitions, pledges, and interest forms do not create Events and Signups in VAN but can be used to apply Activist Codes to contact records instead

Although in VAN events may have multiple locations and roles, Mobilize Events only have one location and role, so all events created in VAN will have just a single location, and all signups will use just one role (as configured in your VAN settings).

Mobilize will use VAN’s find-or-create logic for locations, to pick an existing location if one is found. How VAN determines location matches is described in their API documentation.

Event tags assigned to the event in Mobilize will be added as tags on the VAN Events

Events may have a Source Code applied if the event is a partner event you are promoting (see Promoted Events & Signups below)

Petitions, pledges, and interest forms do not create Events and Signups in VAN but can be used to apply Activist Codes to contact records instead

Checkbox additional fields can apply Activist Codes on volunteers synced to VAN (learn more)

Every unique Mobilize supporter (User) will be synced as a unique Person in VAN.

A User can be created in Mobilize by signing up for an Event, filling out a Lead Form, or creating an Event within a given organization.

Mobilize Users are considered unique by email address, and also usually have a full name, phone number, and zip code.

When syncing to VAN, we use VAN’s find-or-create logic to deduplicate records based on all the information we have about a user, which will merge that information into the existing VAN record if one is found. How VAN determines a match is configurable by VAN administrators as documented in their API documentation. 

For every User signing up for an Event or Online Action in Mobilize, we will create a VAN Signup record in the VAN Event with the appropriate status as configured in your VAN settings.

When a User’s attendance status is updated through Mobilize (e.g., they cancel or confirm before the event, or are marked attended or no-show after the event), we will update the status in VAN.

Although in general, our sync is one-way — we write data into VAN, but do not read data out — the one exception is VAN Signups created by Mobilize.

Starting two days before an event, Mobilize will read out the status of upcoming event signups in VAN around midnight every night. If a signup is marked “Cancelled” in VAN, its status will be updated in Mobilize and no reminder emails will be sent. (Read more about our automated notifications.

Mobilize will also continue to check for “Completed” and “No-Show” statuses in VAN for three days after the event, and we will update the status in Mobilize if either of those is set.

For signups that you recruit to a promoted event, we will create a “masked” representation of the promoted event in your VAN and sync masked representations of the signups to that event.

The event title and details will be marked “[Redacted].” The only details that will appear on the event are the date/time and event type.

The Signup model will continue to have the first name, last name, phone number, email, and zip code of the user.

Petitions, pledges, and interest forms will no longer sync Events and Signups to VAN. This is to improve data integrity and prevent long-running "anytime" actions from creating large numbers of events and skewing Event signup and attendance data. Instead, we recommend configuring an Activist Code to be applied for any supporter signing up for one of these actions in the action's Custom VAN Settings.

🐛 Bug Fixed (VAN Integration): RecruitedBy and CanvassedBy data entered in VAN for a signup will no longer be modified or removed when a signup is updated in Mobilize. Signup updates are synced to VAN whenever a volunteer checks in for a shift or responds to the post-shift survey, or when an organizer or volunteer host updates the signup in the Mobilize dashboard.

You can now set a VAN Activist Code for individual events and petitions. Using an Activist Code allows you to more easily build a list of supporters in EveryAction who have taken a specific action on Mobilize, while reducing the number of "events" created in VAN for low-lift actions like petitions. You'll find the new Activist Code sync option under "Customize VAN Settings" when creating a new event, petition, or online action.