We have several exciting beta features available for you to try! Reach out to your Client Success Manager or email [email protected] to try Hours Tracking, or our Zapier Integration. |
April 2024
👩👩👧👧 Live for all users: Allow attendees to sign up with a group using Group Sign-Up
Group Signup helps supporters seamlessly sign up with friends, family, and coworkers. Try it with your next event by enabling the Group signup toggle on the event creation page. Learn more
April 2024
⏳ Coming soon: Spanish signup forms on Mobilize
We're making it easier to mobilize your Spanish speaking supporters! Soon, organizers will be able to effortlessly create events with Spanish-language signup pages, ensuring seamless registration and clear communications from start to finish for Spanish-speaking volunteers and event attendees.
Spanish signup forms will be rolling out to all customers soon. Interested in early access? Let us know by filling out this form. ¡Feliz movilización!
December 2023
✨ Mobilize API updates: filter by state, event priority, and organization ID
Organizations can filter more granular event lists via the API: we've introduced two new optional parameters high_priority_only and organization_id, that allow filtering by event priority and organization ID respectively. To learn more, check out our public API documentation.
November 2023
👪 Group management tools for Group leaders
In the volunteer schedule, leaders can manage their group contacts and reservation size, providing more accurate group information to event organizers! Contact your Client Success Manager or the Mobilize Support team to try our beta group signup feature!
✅ Sync checkbox additional fields to VAN and EveryAction
Track the information you gather from Mobilize yes/no checkbox additional fields by syncing the fields to a VAN Activist Code. Use the checkbox-to-Activist Code sync to track volunteers' interests, completed waivers, age requirements and more.
October 2023
🔎 Creating a seamless search experience for Supporters
We've been testing and launching improvements to make it easier for supporters to find events and actions on mobilize.us and on organizations' feed.
✨Here is a highlight of the latest improvements:
Time-based badges: in order to make it easier for supporters to find events that match their availability, we added badges to indicate at what time events are happening such as today, tomorrow, this week or this weekend.
Tags for new events: we added a tag that shows when an event is newly added, so it is differentiated from old events.
Improved filtering on mobile: we are testing making filters more accessible to supporters in the mobile experience, so it is easier to explore and find events that match their interest.
✨With these improvement you can expect:
Streamlined event discovery experience, encouraging supporters to explore and engage more with your feed.
Increased event signups, potentially leading to higher attendance rates.
July 2023
🤳 Re-shifting made easier with the new Mobilize 🤝 MiniVAN integration
The easiest volunteer to schedule is one you already have. The new MiniVAN & Mobilize Integration helps you re-shift volunteers right from the MiniVAN app, by prompting them to sign up for an event (or series of events) after they complete their packet.
🏷️ New feed "badges" make event discovery a breeze
We've launched a small update to all organization feeds to help supporters find events that fit their schedule effortlessly. Events shown on your feed will now display badges to better indicate when the event is happening today, tomorrow, this week, or this weekend.
With these new badges, you can expect:
Clear information about event timing, enabling supporters to make informed decisions and actively participate in events that suit their schedule and preferences.
A simplified event discovery experience to encourage your supporters to explore and engage with a wider range of events.
Increased engagement with your feed, leading to more signups (testing these new badges on Mobilize.Us feed led to a significant uplift in RSVPs!)
May 2023
💬 Spanish-language communications are now available for all customers
Seamlessly communicate with your Spanish-speaking supporters with our new Spanish-language option for automated event communications.
Now, when you select Spanish as your event's primary language, all automated email and SMS messages for that event—including confirmations, reminders, and post-shift surveys—will be sent in Spanish.
Spanish language communications were previously a Beta feature and we thank all customers and users who provided feedback!
✨ In case you missed it: updated referral sources improve consistency in your Mobilize data exports
We have made an update to the way referrer information is displayed in our public API to ensure consistent data reporting across Mobilize.
To stay consistent with our SQL mirror and CSV exports, Mobilize's public API will no longer include UTM parameters for signups (participations) that happened on a promoting organization's feed.
This change does not affect availability of referrer information for signups that happened on your feed, including for events that your organization promotes. Note that promotion sources can still be found in exports when you want to see the sources of your signups.
If you have any questions, please reach out to our support team [email protected].
📈 Mobilize now supports Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tags
On July 1, 2023, Google is deprecating the standard Universal Analytics tags in favor of Google Analytics 4.
To continue tracking your supporters' engagement through Mobilize's Google Analytics integration, you will need to update your Mobilize Google Analytics settings to use a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tag.
April 2023
⏱ Track volunteer hours with our newest beta feature
Go beyond check-in and record detailed volunteer hours for your supporters with our Hours Tracking Beta feature. Use it to give credit to those volunteers who show up early and stay late, and to easily manage hours counts for grant proposals and reports.
Reach out to your Client Success Manager or [email protected] to give it a try! We just ask that Beta users share their feedback with us to help us improve the feature.
March 2023
💡Submit your suggestions for making Mobilizing easier in our new ideas portal
Our team relies on feedback from our community of organizers and users to continuously improve Mobilize, and help you maximize your impact.
To make it easier for you to share your feedback with our product development team, we’re launching a new Mobilize Ideas Portal where you can add new ideas, or browse and upvote ideas shared by other Mobilize users!
To get started, log in to your Mobilize dashboard and navigate to the "Feedback" link in the sidebar menu. Learn more about the ideas portal in our help center.
Note: Currently, you must be an admin or organizer user with a paid Mobilize subscription to use the ideas portal.
January/February 2023
🙋 Updates to the Mobilize supporter experience
At Mobilize we're constantly making small changes to improve the experience for your volunteers and supporters. Here are just a few of the changes we've made in 2023:
Clarifying the intent of the signup button
After several weeks of testing to understand how signup button language affects supporter conversion, we have started updating signup buttons across most event types to use more direct language. While it’s a small change, it has led to significant results: a 7% increase in registrations! And we have even more tests running or in planning. Stay tuned.
Updates to Spanish-language communications (Beta)
We’ve made a number of updates recently to our automated Spanish-language email and SMS notifications, currently in Beta. Automated communications are sent in Spanish when an organizer selects Spanish as the primary language for the event, creating a better experience for Spanish-speaking volunteers and supporters.
If you’re interested in helping us refine this functionality by being part of the Beta, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or email [email protected].
December 2022
📣 Statewide events help raise visibility of statewide causes and campaigns
A new setting makes it easier for organizers to recruit for events at the broad statewide level. Available for virtual and in-person events, the statewide setting makes events more visible to all supporters in a state, with a designated "events in your state" section on your organization feed.
🧾 Supporter profiles now include cancelled events
Supporter profiles now include a dedicated section for supporters' cancelled shifts. This will help Admins see all of their supporters' events, making it much easier to access attendance history.
December 2022
✍️ New blog: Four key Mobilize takeaways from the 2022 election cycle
Now that the 2022 election cycle has wrapped up, we wanted to take some time to crunch the numbers from the last two years on Mobilize.
Learn more about the four key Mobilize takeaways from 2022 in our new blog, including helpful data on virtual vs. in-person events and our record-breaking number of first-time volunteers. And ICYMI, check out our new Distributed Organizing Guide with NGP VAN!
October 2022
💌 Event reminders for Organizers now include attendance tallies
Event reminder emails include quick links to help organizers take key actions before their event, like editing the event details or sending a message to attendees.
Now, these notifications also include at-a-glance attendance tallies, giving you a snapshot of your signups that you can use to plan and prepare for your event, and make any necessary last-minute recruitment calls or texts.
Go to your account and notification settings page, available in the dropdown in the top right-hand corner of your dashboard, and make sure the “reminders the day before your events” toggle is on!
✅ 'Select all times' sign-up option allows supporters to more easily sign up for every time of an event
This option, available at the event level, allows supporters to sign up for all the shift times in an event with one click. This feature is perfect for multi-shift GOTV events, monthly meetings, regular training series, and more!
Reach out to your Client Success Manager or send a message to [email protected] to enable this feature!
🚫 Updates to user-blocking features
In the dashboard, Admins can effectively block supporters from attending future events. To equip users with more safety tools, we recently made two updates to the dashboard blocking capabilities:
Blocked attendees no longer appear on the timeslot details pages or CSVs of their previous events. If you want to review the event history for a blocked user, Admins can still view their past events in their Supporter tab.
Admins can now block attendees who have signed up for their event through a promoting partner's event link.
September 2022
⚡New Beta: Mobilize Zapier integration supports custom workflows with thousands of apps, no coding needed!
Zapier is a user-friendly, reasonably priced service that allows users to configure “zaps” that send data from one app to another when a designated "event" occurs. Zapier is compatible with thousands of apps, making this integration a powerful opportunity to embed Mobilize into your data workflows without a developer.
Our integration lets you configure zaps from Mobilize to Zapier-compatible apps when one of the following triggers occurs:
An event is created in Mobilize
A signup is created in Mobilize
A new volunteer is created in Mobilize
Learn more about our Zapier integration in our help center, or reach out to your Client Success Manager or Mobilize Support to request access! We just ask that Beta users share their feedback with us to help us improve the feature.
August 2022
➕ Add attendees to pledges, petitions, groups, and interest forms right in the dashboard
In May, we made it easier for event organizers to add attendees to events in the dashboard. We recently expanded this feature, allowing you to add supporters to pledges, petitions, groups, and interest forms.
📈 Understand your event and signup data more easily with updated CSV exports
We've updated the format of shift and volunteer feedback exports and the CSV downloads on event and timeslot pages. Previously, the columns in these exports were listed in alphabetical order, making them difficult to use and understand!
Now, CSV exports follow a more logical column order so that the most important information appears towards the left of the sheet, requiring far less copying and pasting, and making workflows easier.
🖥 See integration errors in your Stats page for faster integration troubleshooting
To save you valuable time, a new table on your Mobilize dashboard Stats page shows the most common API Key and configuration issues from our VAN, Zoom, and ActionKit integrations, along with a short message about how to remediate them. For organizations with sub-accounts, sub-account dashboard errors will be displayed as well.
July 2022
➡️ Access signup source information at a glance
Get real-time insights from your dashboard on how supporters find and share your events. We'll show you source information for signups recruited by an organizer, volunteer, partner organization, and via the mobilize.us homepage. Go to any shift details page in your dashboard to check it out!
May 2022
🏃 Adding event attendees just got a lot quicker!
Speed up your in-person event lines or sign up your volunteer for their next event before hanging up the phone! We updated the Add attendees tool (located on the shift details pages of your events) to search across the dashboard for previous event attendees and add them to the event in one click. No more entering the same contact information for repeat volunteers!
April 2022
🔗 Adding virtual join links to events is now even easier!
We've made it even easier to add Zoom and other videoconference links to your virtual and in-person or hybrid events. Now, when you're creating a new event, you'll be able to specify the Virtual Join Link that will be used for your event in the Location section of the event creation form. This information no longer needs to be added to your individual event times, although you can still customize the instructions for each time if needed!
Mobilize uses the information in these fields to make sure your volunteers get the information ahead of time and can join the virtual event directly from their email, SMS, calendar invites, or volunteer schedule. Learn more about our best practices for videoconference links
March 2022
✉️ Group leaders can now add members directly, including those without emails
Group signup allows supporters to reserve event capacity for family, friends, clubs, and school groups. We've made it even easier for supporters to bring a group by adding members directly after they sign up. Only first and last names are required in for group members, which expands access for those without internet or email accounts.
Supporters without emails are treated almost exactly the same in the Mobilize interface. They get a supporter profile and their records sync to EveryAction, allowing you to prepare with all of your attendance data in one place.
Reach out to your Customer Success Manager, or fill out this interest form to use group signup today!
February 2022
📆 Supporters can now view their affiliations and manage recruitment content preferences from their schedule
The Mobilize schedule now features a section titled "Your organizations" where supporters can view all organizations they've taken action with and manage their content preferences at the organization level. This new, more granular notification management feature will help supporters interact more easily with the content they're interested in.
After unfollowing an organization, the supporter will no longer receive recruitment emails from that specific organization, like the organization newsletter. They can also re-follow an organization at any point in the future if they decide they're like to be more up to date about that organization's events. Learn more about following and unfollowing organizations
❗ Shift CSV exports now show point-of-signup contact details instead of details from the user profile
When users export signups from the event or shift details pages, they will now see the details that the supporter provided at the point of signup. This matches what is shown in the list of signups in the dashboard. This does not affect the supporters list or supporters export, which still show User details. Learn more about Mobilize CSVs
December 2021
👪 Dashboard admins can now manage user memberships across sub-accounts
Admins of accounts with multiple dashboards can now add users to sub-accounts directly from the Users tab of their main dashboard. Admins can also see each user’s memberships at a glance from the main Users tab.
This feature will be most beneficial for accounts with 5 or more Mobilize dashboards. If you're interested in using this feature, reach out to your Mobilize Client Success Manager. Learn more about managing user memberships
💬 Attendees' post-shift feedback is now right at your fingertips in your Mobilize dashboard
When Mobilize automatically sends a post-shift feedback survey by SMS and email after an event to capture attendance data, 53% of supporters who respond also give rich, qualitative feedback about the event. Those text responses are now displayed right alongside other signup details on the timelslot details page in your Mobilize dashboard.
To see your feedback, view the signups list for any past event where the post-shift survey was enabled. As always, you can also get this feedback from your CSV exports.
🏠 The new-and-improved Volunteer Schedule helps supporters view their impact, manage their events, and take more action.
The volunteer schedule now highlights a supporter's next event, suggests relevant events, nudges supporters to take more actions, and shows a summary of a supporter's impact across all organizations.
Additionally, supporters can join virtual events with Zoom or other video links directly from the schedule. We're continuing to invest in the volunteer schedule as a centralized hub for personalization and user agency, driving retention and fueling the network, so stay tuned!
November 2021
👥 Groups and Volunteer-led Groups help organizations identify volunteer leaders and keep supporters engaged and up-to-date.
You can now create Groups on Mobilize that supporters can join at any time. Groups help supporters stay engaged and connected with other group members and ensure that they're kept up-to-speed with the group's latest events and resources, so that they're poised to take action in the future.
Groups become even more impactful when you use Group campaigns to enable your supporters to create their own volunteer-led Groups. Like event campaigns, group campaigns expand your capacity to reach and retain new supporters within your volunteers' networks, and help you identify and empower volunteer leaders by letting them raise their hand to lead and manage a group.
💡 Add your organization's mission statement to help supporters and other partners on Mobilize find your events
Admin users can now provide a Mission on their dashboard's Settings page. This mission information will help supporters and other organizations to find your organization more easily. Be sure to include any keywords (causes, candidates, or geographic areas) that someone might be searching for when they're looking for your organization's events.
October 2021
👪 With Group Sign-Up (Beta), supporters can sign up for events with friends and family
Almost 20% of signups on Mobilize in 2021 came from friends inviting other friends through our bring-a-friend features. Group Sign-Up takes social volunteering one step further and allows supporters to sign up with a group, ensuring their spots are reserved and that members of their group receive key information about the event.
This feature is great for groups of friends who want to do a volunteer activity together, companies that want to encourage service, or families looking for fun activities where everyone can participate. In the dashboard, you can easily keep track of the groups signing up and monitor your events' capacity.
Read more about group sign-up in our help center. Or if you'd like to get early access to the beta version of group sign-up for your organization, sign up here and we'll be in touch!
September 2021
📝 Custom field responses are now included in event organizer notifications
Now when a supporter signs up and provides information in a custom field, the responses will be included in the notification you receive as the event's organizer or host, helping you stay on top of signups and any special requests that might be collected through your custom fields.
Learn more about custom fields with our video walkthrough 📹
August 2021
🏷 VAN/EveryAction integration users can now sync a unique Activist Code for any Mobilize event
If you use the VAN/EveryAction Mobilize integration, you now have the option to specify an Activist Code that will be applied to that supporter in VAN/EveryAction for any event type in Mobilize. Previously this option was only provided for pledges, petitions, and interest forms, and as a global setting for all other events.
Learn more in our comprehensive integration guide.
July 2021
💵 Capture donations directly on Mobilize with new fundraising events and actions powered by EveryAction
Our latest EveryAction integration lets you create fundraising events and campaigns and capture contributions directly on Mobilize.
The new tools combine Mobilize's network and easy-to-use event management and automated recruitment features with EveryAction's secure payment processing, powerful reporting tools, and pre-filled payment details for millions of donors nationwide to deliver a powerful new grassroots fundraising solution.
With fundraising events and actions on Mobilize, you can:
Provide your supporters with a one-stop shop for events, and volunteer shifts, fundraising campaigns, and advocacy actions;
Grow your donor list with optimized bring-a-friend prompts and distribution on Mobilize.Us and in our network of mission-driven organizations;
Keep your donors engaged with messaging and automated follow-up communications;
Drive donors to take more action with our automated recruitment tools and weekly newsletters; and
See contributions and insights in real time with data flowing instantly into your EveryAction CRM.
Ready to supercharge your online fundraising efforts? Get started today →
✅ Important update to the pre-checked shifts setting
In your dashboard Settings tab, Admins can choose to have Mobilize pre-check two shifts when supporters view an event with multiple shifts. The "pick-two" feature makes signing up for an event even faster and is a great way to increase conversion and overall signups––but may also lead to a higher rate of no-shows, or a disproportionate number of supporters signing up for the first shifts shown.
Now, when the "pick two" feature is disabled, events will not have any shift times pre-checked. Based on our testing, this can reduce conversion slightly for multi-shifted events, but may give you extra confidence that your supporters intentionally signed up for each time.
📈 CSVs exports can now be filtered by date range
Admins can now choose to narrow volunteer, event, and shift CSVs to a date range. The added control allows you to get more of the data you want and spend less time slicing and dicing CSVs.
Check out the new date range filters in your Exports tab!
June 2021
🗺 Supporters can now view a map of your events!
You can now create a map of your events nationwide or of a subset of events based on tag, event type, location, and more!
Tap the map icon in the top left to see a map version of those results. You can then share the map with your supporters by sending the link directly to them (or they can make their own map by searching themselves).
📣 You can now promote a single event or action!
Starting today you can now promote just a single event or action.
Promotions are a popular way to feature actions hosted by other organizations (over 16% of signups last week came from promotions) and this has been one of the most requested improvements.
Traditionally you could either promote all events from an organization or promote a filtered subset of actions from an organization (based on event type, tag, location, etc…). Now you can also promote a single event by:
Going to the event
Tapping "Promote this action"
Selecting the organizations you want to promote for
Tapping "Promote"
🧏♀️ Event creators can now provide more detailed accessibility information for their events
Making your event accessible to people of all abilities improves the overall experience for everyone, and ensures your message can reach as many people as possible.
During event creation for virtual and in-person events, Mobilize now provides organizers and volunteer hosts the option to let supporters know which specific accessibility features are available. Learn more about the feature, or check out our best practices guide for providing helpful accessibility information.
Have a suggestion for improvements to our accessibility tools? We'd love to hear it: [email protected]
🕤 Improved signups display for petitions, pledges, and interest forms
New petitions, pledges, and interest forms will now be created with a single shift time spanning from the time of the action's creation to the action's specified end date. This will make it easier to see and search all signups at once. Previously, signups for these long-running "anytime" actions were shown as daily 24-hour timeslots.
As part of this change, petitions, pledges, and interest forms will also no longer sync an Event to VAN for each day the action lasts. Instead, you can configure an Activist Code to be applied for any supporter who signs up for one of these actions in the action's Custom VAN Settings. More about the VAN Integration
📆 Use the new "Scheduled event" option to create both in-person and virtual shifted events
Creating in-person and virtual shifted events is now even easier! When you start to create a new event you will now see a "Scheduled event" option, instead of the previous in-person and virtual event options. On the next screen, you'll be able to choose whether the event is in-person or virtual, and even switch between an in-person or virtual event if your plans change. Learn more about events on Mobilize
✉️ We've made it easier to manage your email notifications
A new set of updates to our notification management features make it easier for supporters, organizers, and hosts to control which emails they receive from Mobilize.
When users unsubscribe from a Mobilize email, we'll now show a brief description of the email(s) you've opted out of and provide the option to resubscribe or manage other notification settings directly on the page.
If you'd like to update your notifications, visit your Account Settings page (you may need to log in first).
May 2021
Message hosts and attendees in event campaigns
Our newest messaging features make it even easier for you to communicate with hosts and attendees instantly. Now, you can email all hosts and attendees of an event campaign. Use this feature to send hosts of upcoming events instructions or FAQs, or to recruit attendees of past shifts.
Simply go to your event campaign and select one of the messaging options in the upper-righthand corner:
Then, choose between hosts and attendees of upcoming or past events, configure the rest of the message, and hit send!
April 2021
Help your supporters find events by using default tags in your event campaigns
Applying tags to your events helps your supporters find events they're most interested in by using the filters at the top of your events feed. Now, you can apply tags to volunteer hosted events by setting default tags for an entire event campaign.
The tags cannot be removed or altered by hosts, which helps you maintain consistency across your events. Try it out in the Event Campaigns section in your dashboard!
👉 Mobilize is helping supporters find new ways to take action
Over the last few weeks, we've released a number of updates aimed at helping supporters discover new events and actions, whether they've come from Google Search, visited Mobilize.Us, or landed on a page for an event that has ended.
Updates include:
A new free-text search allowing supporters to search for events on your feed and Mobilize.Us using keywords in the event title or description. Try it out!
Improvements to increase the ranking of events and feeds in Google Search and other search engines
New landing pages for popular tags and event types have been added to help supporters on Mobilize.Us discover events for causes they care about
Event suggestions have been added to the bottom of all event pages, including events that have ended. This change increased signups by 2% in testing!
Odds & ends
Admin users can now restore deleted events from the Mobilize dashboard via the 'Deleted' tab on the Events list. Any signups cancelled due to the event's deletion will remain cancelled.
🐛 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.
🔽 Custom fields now support "dropdown" as a field type
You can now create "dropdown" custom fields, allowing you to specify a list of options that a supporter can choose from when responding to an additional question on your signup forms. This field type is perfect for asking a supporter for the name of their local affiliate, their voter registration status, the number of postcards or packets they need, or even their favorite animal! Learn more about custom fields with our video walkthrough.
Odds & ends
By popular demand, Postcard Writing has been added as a global Mobilize event type. Don't forget you can always use tags to help supporters discover events relating to a specific theme or type of activity.
Custom signup field response data is now available to event owners in our API. Previously, responses to additional questions were available only in CSV Exports and our SQL Mirror.
March 2021
📅 More signups through event suggestions on every event page
Event pages that have the "Sign up for other events and actions" setting enabled will start having suggestions at the bottom of the page. Only events and actions that are eligible to be shown in the promoting orgs feed will be included in the suggestions. The suggestions are projected to drive around ~2% of signups.
💬 Capture supporter's stories and more with our new "Long answer" custom field type
Custom fields can now accept long answers with our new custom field type. For example, you might create an interest/pledge form and add a long answer custom field to capture stories from your supporters. Capturing supporter stories increases an organization's power in communicating the values, purpose, and urgency of their mission, and can be helpful in creating powerful 1:1 relationships between an organizer and the supporter. These long answer custom fields can also be used to capture long-form questions for tele-townhalls or panel events! Learn more about custom fields
📣 Create quick social sharing actions to help spread the word about your cause on Twitter and Facebook
Create a Social Media Campaign online action and have supporters easily share your message in a matter of seconds. Choose your platform, craft your post content, and we'll do the rest. To get started, create a new Online Action and select the "Share post on social media" option under "Action settings". For more on online actions, watch the video tour.
📋 New automated check-in emails allows supporters to check-in up to one-hour before in-person events
You can now enable an automated event check-in message for any in-person events. Supporters will be sent an email one hour before the event starts reminding them of the event's location and asking them to check in when they arrive. Supporters checking in through this automated email will be marked as "attended", reducing the need for data entry after the event! Learn more in our guide to Mobilize automated communications. For virtual events, see automated check-in for virtual events.
February 2021
❤️ Give supporters more ways to take action with pledges and interest forms
Pledges and interest forms, like online actions and petitions, are a great way to engage your supporters with "bite-sized" actions that they can take online immediately. Pair these quick online actions with Mobilize automated engagement features like event suggestions and post-signup donation asks to help supercharge your impact. Pledges can also appear in your weekly automated newsletter or assign an activist code in VAN. To get started, simply select "Pledge or interest form" when creating a new event.
Other updates
You can now specify a pre-filled subject line and message for the email that supporters will send to targets when configuring a "send-email" online action.
🧮 Goals for petitions and online actions can now be customized or set to increase automatically
You now have even more control over how goals are displayed to your supporters on your online actions. When you are editing or creating a petition or online actions, you can now choose whether to display the supporter count and goal on signup pages. By default, Mobilize will automatically increase the goal in small increments to help motivate supporters to take action, or you can specify a custom goal to display instead.
January 2021
🕐 Weekly Office Hours for all Admin and Organizer users beginning Tuesday 1/19
Mobilize will be offering a space for folks to ask the Mobilize team questions, learn about new features, and drive a peer-to-peer learning experience. Here's how to join!
December 2020
✅ Custom Fields can now be made mandatory on event signup forms
When creating an event you can now choose to make a Custom Field required during the event signup process! This will help you capture critical pieces of information from supporters.
✉️ Volunteer hosts can now message their past attendees
To help maintain momentum following the 2020 election cycle, volunteer hosts can now message their past connections (supporters who have attended one of their events in the past) right from their dashboard. This empowers volunteer hosts to recruit for their own events, and boosts retention by keeping supporters engaged with groups that they are familiar with.
November 2020
Mobilize joins the EveryAction family!
Read more about how we got here and what's in store for the future on our company blog.
Odds & ends
🐛 Fixed a VAN integration bug which caused some signups to appear in a different shift time in VAN if a timeslot is added to an existing non-GOTV Mobilize event before or between pre-existing shift times on the same day.
Show both start and end times on event details page for events with only one shift time, and improve the display of events where the times are different on different days
Make “Link to join” and information on joining a virtual event more prominent in the calendar invites that are sent to registered attendees automatically
Election Day! 🗳️🇺🇸
October 2020
🛠️ Small changes and fixes
Improved the ordering of events on the volunteer’s public schedule (accessed through "Menu" > "My volunteer schedule" when logged in)
🐛 Bug fix: Fixed an issue preventing in-progress shifts from being shown on the volunteer’s record in the dashboard
🐛 Bug fix: Filtering an events feed by State now returns virtual events with a location in that state as well as in-person events
⏭ Use feed searches in custom event suggestions to create a personalized set of recommended events
Now you can configure a dynamic list of events to display to supporters after they sign up for an event, or in your weekly automated newsletter. Suggestions can be generated based on the same criteria that can be used to search your Mobilize feed (including tags, event campaign, event type, date range, location, and more!), so they're perfect for:
Weekends of Action (date range search)
GOTV (campaign search)
Recruiting for training events (event type search)
When you include a feed search in your custom suggestions, we'll personalize the results for each supporter, showing them the most relevant results based on information like their location and past attendance history. Learn more
👩🍳 Add specific events and actions to your weekly automated newsletter
Now you can add up to six specific events and actions to your Weekly Automated Newsletter, just like customizing the event suggestions for an individual event. You can also add any pre-filtered “feed link” to populate the suggestions dynamically based on tags, event campaign, event type, or other criteria! Learn more
Odds & Ends
If you are logged in as the host or co-host of an event or online action, you will now see an “Edit event” link on the public-facing event page. Click the link to go straight to the editing page on the dashboard for that event. Cool, huh?
🐛 Fixed a bug preventing some partners from requesting promotion from certain above-the-wall/non-aligned partners
We've made a few updates to our Public API and SQL mirror based on feedback from you, our partners and users!
🤝 With co-hosts, multiple organizers or volunteer hosts can manage signups and receive notifications about an event
Event creators can make other users or volunteers co-hosts of their events, making it easy to share event planning, recruitment, and volunteer management responsibilities with a co-worker or volunteer without changing their permission level. Replies to chats and event registration emails will now be sent to all event hosts. To learn more, read our guides on co-hosting and co-hosting for volunteer hosts.
♿︎ Event pages display event accessibility information and contact information more clearly
Accessibility notes provided by the organizer during event creation are now displayed more prominently on the event details pages, along with information about how to contact the organizer for questions or accommodations. Supporters can also search Mobilize or any partner's feeds for events that meet ADA standards, according to the event host.
🙋🏿♂️ The Volunteers tab in your dashboard is now the Supporters tab, and includes more information about social connections and filters to help you identify highly-engaged supporters
Changes to the Supporters (formerly Volunteers) view include:
Displaying total number of signups as well as bring-a-friend referrals for each supporter. These values can be filtered on as well.
Each supporter’s location (City, State, Zip) is displayed and is filterable
The first and last signup/action dates for each supporter let you see who is new to your organization!
This is just the start of the changes to provide more insights into your supporters in the dashboard. If you have feedback or ideas about what would be helpful for your team, let us know!
📋 Event creators can now export signups for a single timeslot
You can now export signups for an individual timeslot on the details page for that timeslot. Navigate into an event, and then select a time, and the button will appears above your list of attendees.
Odds & Ends
To protect the privacy of event hosts and organizers, we no longer provide the host's phone number to attendees on their volunteer schedule or in automated communications. As always, event attendees can use "Contact the host" buttons or the reply-to function in registration and reminder emails, or the event’s group chat (where enabled) to get in touch with the organizer or other attendees.
Same Mobilize, new logo! Read about our new look on our blog
September 2020
👨🎓 Add a training event link on the Event campaigns > Settings page to increase volunteers attending your volunteer host training by up to 75%.
Organizers recruiting volunteer hosts can now specify a "training" event that mobilize will automatically suggest to supporters when they express interest in hosting an event. Over the past few weeks this has increased the number of people attending trainings by 75%. We will also soon automatically recruit for training events after a host makes an event, after they commit to host online, and in a few other spots. Learn more
👉 Event creators can now choose the events shown to supporters after they sign up for an event or online action
Hosts can now select up to 6 events to appear wherever events are suggested to supporters who signed up for that event (for example, in the dialog shown after signing up, the post-event feedback email). The suggested events can be private or public but must be something your organization promotes or owns. This is a great way to chain multiple events or actions together! Learn more
📮 Automatically send event recommendations to your supporters every week with the Automated Weekly Newsletter (beta)
A weekly personalized batch of event recommendations will be sent on Thursdays to all supporters affiliated with your organization. This feature is intended to increase shifts, help supporters find ways to get involved, and help your organization regularly engage supporters without the need for complex tools. Manage or customize the newsletter in your organization's settings page (requires Admin access).
Learn more about the automated weekly newsletter
🔃 Mobilize now automatically asks volunteer hosts to add shifts to their events
For event campaigns that allow multiple shifts and are scheduled to be active for at least one week, we will now display an automatic “repeat every week for a month” option to help encourage volunteer hosts to host events multiple times. Mobilize also now sends hosts an SMS nudge after they receive positive feedback about their event, asking them if they can host again. Learn more about volunteer host recruiting
✅ Attendees of virtual events can be automatically marked as attended when they click the "join" link
Attendees can be automatically marked as Completed when they click through the “link to join” at in email reminders and the 30-mins-before SMS. This feature can be enabled in your organization’s Settings page (requires admin access)
📲 Supporters will receive a 30-minute-before SMS reminder for virtual events with a Zoom link or other "link to join"
For virtual events with a ‘link to join’ or a Zoom meeting/webinar link, an additional reminder with the link to join will be sent 30 minutes before the event. If automated check-in is enabled in your dashboard settings, supporters will be marked as completed when they click this link. Learn more about notifications
🙋🏽♀️ Empower your volunteer leaders to host events for your organizations with new “event campaigns”
The “Distributed Organizing” area of your Mobilize dashboard has been renamed “Event campaigns”. We’ve also made major improvements the volunteer host experience, added the ability to create non-discoverable campaigns, and added features to automate host recruitment of volunteer leaders! Event campaigns and volunteer hosting features are now available to all partners at no additional cost.
Learn more about event Campaigns and how Mobilize can automatically recruit new volunteer leaders for your organization
⚙️ Event creators can now customize or turn off automated communications
We’ve added additional controls to let you fine-tune your supporters’ experience. The following automated communications can now be toggled on/off for each event, including the day-before attendance confirmations and five-days-later follow-up messages. You can also add a custom message (300 character limit) to your confirmation and post-event communications. This is a helpful way to share additional events for supporters to sign up for, personalized communications, or any other helpful information! Learn more
📚 “How to prepare” text can now be pre-filled for volunteer hosts
You can now set the default “How to prepare” message for supporter-hosted events in an event campaign, to help volunteer hosts provide consistent instructions for their attendees!
🔗 Volunteer hosts can now add a "link to join" to their virtual events
Now, volunteer hosts can provide a link to join when submitting an event (for example, a link to a Zoom meeting or Google Meet), and we’ll make these links stand out in automated email and SMS reminders before the event. If automated check-in is enabled in your dashboard settings, supporters will be marked as completed when they click this link.
✅ New event types: Letter Writing and Automated Phone Bank
New "Letter writing" and "Automated phone bank" event types can be selected when creating a new event. If your organization uses our VAN integration, you may need to ask a dashboard admin to map these new types in your VAN Settings first!
✏️ Create petitions to gather signatures and support causes on Mobilize
Alongside Online Actions, Petitions are a great way to engage your supporters in low-lift asks that are more digitally based. Petitions allow you to collect signup information while sharing out your signature goal with your audience! Read more about petitions
🏋🏽♀️ New online actions let you create low-lift online opportunities for your supporters
Online actions have been expanded to include new “Action setting” options, letting you engage your supporters in new types of actions, including pledges, intake forms, and call and email campaigns. Learn more about online actions
August 2020
🎦 Automatically register attendees for Zoom meetings with our new Zoom integration
The new Zoom integration automatically adds Mobilize event attendees to linked Zoom meetings and webinars, and if the meeting requires registration it automatically sends those supporters their own personalized Zoom join links. Read more
📊 Stats pages now display how many shifts are coming from friend referrals, promotions, and event suggestions
We have recently made a few additions to our Stats page, in the Sources Tab. You can now easily view how many of your supporters come from: bring-a-friend asks, automated event suggestions, and promoters. Is there any other information you would like to see in the Stats tab? Let us know!
📮 Admins will be prompted to email potential and past volunteer hosts when a new Event Campaign is created
This feature is intended to help make supporters who have committed to host aware of hosting opportunities, as well as help volunteers who have hosted in the past be aware of new hosting opportunities. Learn more about recruiting volunteer hosts
✨ Emails have been redesigned to highlight the "join link" for virtual events and other instructions
We've refreshed the look of all Mobilize emails to make them easier for supporters to read and scan! For virtual events, we'll highlight specific “join links”, including Zoom, hangouts, phone bank, text bank, or livestream links with a prominent "Join event" link that will always redirect to the latest link for the event. No more worrying about notifying attendees if you have to change the link at the last minute!
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💬 Mobilize Insights 💬
Interested in getting early access to any of the features above, or providing feedback to help us make Mobilize work better for your team?
Join our Mobilize Insights research community!
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Next: Explore our help center to learn more about existing and newly-released features