📖 Table of contents
📋 Overview
Group campaigns allow your supporters to organize their own groups for your organization. With volunteer-led groups, your organization can:
Expand its reach/capacity to more first-time supporters, and parts of the country
Empower supporters and identify potential leaders
Demonstrate momentum when there's not a lot of organizing happening
Using our hosting and sharing tools, supporters can quickly create a group from your template, invite group members, add events to their groups, and use our automated, one-to-one, and group chat messaging tools to connect with group members.
Related articles:
How supporters can create groups on Mobilize
💬 This is a new Mobilize feature, and as always we're looking for your ideas and feedback. Let us know what you think
📝 How to create a group campaign
1. Create a new event campaign
From your dashboard, navigate to "Event campaigns" and click or tap the button for "New event campaign"
Then, select Groups:
2. Configure your host-a-group form
Add a title and description for your group campaign form that will motivate your prospective group admins (hosts) and give them information about the groups they’ll be creating.
The slug you choose will be used in the URL for your host form and the campaign's landing page. This can't be changed once the campaign is created.
3. Access: Choose who can create groups, and who can approve them
Discovery options (who can discover the campaign on your hosting page and submit groups) include:
Anyone from the public – the campaign will be visible to any supporters looking for hosting opportunities on your Mobilize feed (for example, via the "Host" link).
Anyone with the link – the campaign won't be visible to supporters looking for hosting opportunities on your Mobilize feed, but you can still send supporters the link directly (e.g. via email or SMS).
Nobody – This option deactivates your campaign link so that supporters can no longer submit a new group.
Approval options (who can approve and manage supporters' groups) include:
Admins only – All groups submitted by supporters must be approved by one of your organization's admin users before they can appear publicly.
Admins and moderators – All groups must be approved by either an admin user or one of your chosen moderators (including volunteers) before they can appear publicly.
No approval needed – Choose this option if you don't want to approve new groups. Groups will be public and shareable as soon as supporters validate their email address or log in with a social account.
4. Add instructions for your groups, and a support contact
Specify a support email your group hosts can contact if they have questions before or after creating their group. This can be your email, another team member's, or a shared inbox.
Additionally, we recommend you provide instructions which Mobilize will include in the email your group admins receive when their group page goes live. (If you have approval enabled, the email is sent after approval.)
The instructions field is a great place to include any tips for organizing a group, links to group resources, or other guidance specific to your group campaign.
5. Configure defaults for your supporter-led groups
Choose group defaults to help standardize your supporters' group pages, and make creating a group even easier for your supporters. These defaults will be pre-populated in the form supporters use to create their groups.
Default title – Pre-populates a title for your supporters' groups. Can be edited by group admins.
💡 Pro tip: Use text in brackets, e.g., [Your City] Action Team, to indicate to your group hosts that they should customize the title.
Default description – Pre-populates a description for the group that will appear publicly to potential members on the signup page. Can be edited by group admins.
💡 Pro tip: Use language that will motivate potential members to join: What is the importance of joining? What will members be doing?
Default "how to prepare" instructions – Pre-populates the message that will be included in the confirmation email that members will receive after they join the group. Can be edited by group admins.
💡 Pro tip: Include language that thanks members for joining, provides additional information about the group, or make a follow-up ask.
Default tags – Automatically applies the selected tags (up to three) to supporters' groups, to help supporters find the group on Mobilize and on your feed. Learn more
Default photos – Upload up to six compelling photos (we recommend 1200x630px, or 1.91:1 aspect ratio) to help supporters' groups stand out on social media and in Mobilize feeds (for public groups).
Note: Images will be assigned to new groups at random and cannot be edited by the group admin.
6. Configure how progress and goals are displayed
Mobilize can show the total number of members and a progress bar that automatically increases as more members join, to help motivate others to join the group:
You can specify a default member goal that will be pre-populated when a group admin creates their group. Group admins can edit the goal, and it will be displayed on their group page along with the amount collected towards that goal on Mobilize:
Leave the default member goal unset to allow a group admin to specify their own goal.
If you'd prefer that Mobilize doesn't display the member goal or number of members on group pages, you can choose to hide the goal amount and totals by toggling these options to "off".
7. Provide details for social sharing & promotion on Mobilize
Add a social sharing title, social teaser/description and a social sharing image to help your group campaign stand out when it is shared on social media, or when it appears on your "Host an event" landing page (if enabled).
8. Save your campaign, and get ready to see your supporters become group leaders!
Click or tap 'Save' to publish your group campaign.
You'll receive notifications when supporters submit groups to the campaign, and can monitor progress from your "event campaigns" tab.
📣 Recruiting group admins
If you created a public event campaign, the campaign will appear on your host-an-event landing page shortly, and the "Host an event form" (that supporters use to create groups) can be distributed via your email or SMS program, or on social channels.
If you've asked Mobilize to help you recruit potential hosts, your new campaign will also be accessible through the "Host" link at the top of your Mobilize feed and event pages, and in automated communications.
Additionally, you will have the option after your event campaign is created to send a notification about the new campaign to any supporters who have previously committed to host an event, or who have hosted for your organization in the past:
