Wiki source for ResearchingExtendedContactInfo
====Researching and entering extended contact information====
(Also see: [[PhoneNumberLookupInstructions]])
Extended contact information research serves two main purposes: It is (1) made publicly available on our website to provide voters with methods of contacting their candidates, and (2) used to provide us with information internally on where to mail each candidate's Political Courage Test, as well as how to follow up with candidates and campaigns after the PCTs have been sent to them. The more mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and websites we have in our system for each candidate, the greater the chances that the candidate will receive the PCT and any additional contacts with them we may attempt to make. Because of this, you should keep looking for additional contact information even if we already have a mailing address or phone number listed in Admin.
1) Before beginning, make sure to familiarize yourself with our formatting standards:
- [[Campaign Campaign Addresses]]
- [[New Entering New Addresses]]
- [[Zip City, State & Zip]]
- [[Phone Phone & Fax Numbers]]
- Cell phone numbers can be entered by clicking "Add New Web Address" and selecting "Cell Phone" from the drop-down menu.
- [[Email E-Mail & Web Addresses]]
- For websites and webmail addresses, click on "Visit" in Admin and make sure that the website works and is for the proper person.
- If you are at all unsure as to how something should be formatted, or whether it should be included at all, ask your supervisor for clarification. Do not make assumptions about formatting or inclusion.
1) After clicking on the correct candidate, click on the addresses tab at the top of Admin.
1) Click on the correct link under "Election(s):" for the current year and office of the election you have been assigned. Do not touch the office addresses listed to the right.
1) Campaign addresses will appear below on the left side of the page, and campaign web addresses will appear below on the right.
1) Clicking on one of the links that come up will cause the information we currently have in our database for that particular address to appear below.
1) If the candidate has a campaign website already listed in Admin, go to that site. If the candidate does not have a campaign website, perform a Google search to try to find one. Place the candidate's name (try nicknames too) in quotes, then type in the state and the office they are running for (ex. "Jane Doe" North Carolina House or "John Doe" Colorado Senate). If this doesn't work, try just their name and the word "campaign." If you are able to find a homepage for the candidate, copy and paste the URL into Admin as a Campaign Website (making sure to include "http://").
1) Once on the candidate's homepage, look for additional contact information:
- There will usually be a "Contact Us" link somewhere on the page. This will often be very visible and right at the top, although some candidates will place the link at the very bottom of their site and in fairly small print.
- If there is no "Contact Us" link immediately visible, poke around the site to see if you can find the information on a different page. Try pages relating to volunteering with the campaign or donating to the campaign. Candidates will often provide phone numbers to call to volunteer or addresses to mail donations to, even if they may not have a dedicated page for contact information.
1) Add any newly found campaign contact information by clicking on "Add New Address" or "Add New Web Address" and filling out the appropriate fields in the form that appears below. Click "Save" when all new information for that address has been entered. When entering a web address, make sure to select the correct type of address from the drop-down menu. If you are dealing with multiple campaign offices, make sure that you keep the phone and fax numbers with the proper address. See [[PhoneNumberLookupInstructions here]] for instructions specific to finding campaign phone numbers (for the 2010 election, this only really needs to be done for congressional and gubernatorial candidates).
1) In addition to candidates' campaign websites, try searching for contact information from other sources (either from the candidates themselves or from another official source):
- Facebook pages
- If the candidate has a Facebook page for their campaign, click on the Info tab at the top and check if any additional contact information is listed. Although we try to avoid it when possible, we will enter a Facebook page as a campaign website if the candidate has no other official campaign website available. The same applies to Twitter, Myspace, Linkedin, etc.
- Campaign Finance websites
- Most states will require candidates to file disclosures of the donations they have received as well as their expenditures, and then make those disclosures publicly available online. These reports will often include contact information for candidates. Ideally, the state will have an easily searchable database of disclosure reports, although you may have to search manually through PDFs or other forms of the documents in order to find useful information.
- If you are researching contact information for candidates running for a federal office, also try looking at the [[http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml Federal Election Commission's website]] for financial disclosure reports.
- Political Party websites
- The websites of state and local political parties will occasionally have lists of contact information for all or some of their candidates. While not always the case, it is often useful to check.
Repeat this process for all candidates on the list/election you have been assigned to research. Date and initial the tracking sheet when you have completed research for all of the candidates you were assigned.
(Also see: [[PhoneNumberLookupInstructions]])
Extended contact information research serves two main purposes: It is (1) made publicly available on our website to provide voters with methods of contacting their candidates, and (2) used to provide us with information internally on where to mail each candidate's Political Courage Test, as well as how to follow up with candidates and campaigns after the PCTs have been sent to them. The more mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and websites we have in our system for each candidate, the greater the chances that the candidate will receive the PCT and any additional contacts with them we may attempt to make. Because of this, you should keep looking for additional contact information even if we already have a mailing address or phone number listed in Admin.
1) Before beginning, make sure to familiarize yourself with our formatting standards:
- [[Campaign Campaign Addresses]]
- [[New Entering New Addresses]]
- [[Zip City, State & Zip]]
- [[Phone Phone & Fax Numbers]]
- Cell phone numbers can be entered by clicking "Add New Web Address" and selecting "Cell Phone" from the drop-down menu.
- [[Email E-Mail & Web Addresses]]
- For websites and webmail addresses, click on "Visit" in Admin and make sure that the website works and is for the proper person.
- If you are at all unsure as to how something should be formatted, or whether it should be included at all, ask your supervisor for clarification. Do not make assumptions about formatting or inclusion.
1) After clicking on the correct candidate, click on the addresses tab at the top of Admin.
1) Click on the correct link under "Election(s):" for the current year and office of the election you have been assigned. Do not touch the office addresses listed to the right.
1) Campaign addresses will appear below on the left side of the page, and campaign web addresses will appear below on the right.
1) Clicking on one of the links that come up will cause the information we currently have in our database for that particular address to appear below.
1) If the candidate has a campaign website already listed in Admin, go to that site. If the candidate does not have a campaign website, perform a Google search to try to find one. Place the candidate's name (try nicknames too) in quotes, then type in the state and the office they are running for (ex. "Jane Doe" North Carolina House or "John Doe" Colorado Senate). If this doesn't work, try just their name and the word "campaign." If you are able to find a homepage for the candidate, copy and paste the URL into Admin as a Campaign Website (making sure to include "http://").
1) Once on the candidate's homepage, look for additional contact information:
- There will usually be a "Contact Us" link somewhere on the page. This will often be very visible and right at the top, although some candidates will place the link at the very bottom of their site and in fairly small print.
- If there is no "Contact Us" link immediately visible, poke around the site to see if you can find the information on a different page. Try pages relating to volunteering with the campaign or donating to the campaign. Candidates will often provide phone numbers to call to volunteer or addresses to mail donations to, even if they may not have a dedicated page for contact information.
1) Add any newly found campaign contact information by clicking on "Add New Address" or "Add New Web Address" and filling out the appropriate fields in the form that appears below. Click "Save" when all new information for that address has been entered. When entering a web address, make sure to select the correct type of address from the drop-down menu. If you are dealing with multiple campaign offices, make sure that you keep the phone and fax numbers with the proper address. See [[PhoneNumberLookupInstructions here]] for instructions specific to finding campaign phone numbers (for the 2010 election, this only really needs to be done for congressional and gubernatorial candidates).
1) In addition to candidates' campaign websites, try searching for contact information from other sources (either from the candidates themselves or from another official source):
- Facebook pages
- If the candidate has a Facebook page for their campaign, click on the Info tab at the top and check if any additional contact information is listed. Although we try to avoid it when possible, we will enter a Facebook page as a campaign website if the candidate has no other official campaign website available. The same applies to Twitter, Myspace, Linkedin, etc.
- Campaign Finance websites
- Most states will require candidates to file disclosures of the donations they have received as well as their expenditures, and then make those disclosures publicly available online. These reports will often include contact information for candidates. Ideally, the state will have an easily searchable database of disclosure reports, although you may have to search manually through PDFs or other forms of the documents in order to find useful information.
- If you are researching contact information for candidates running for a federal office, also try looking at the [[http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml Federal Election Commission's website]] for financial disclosure reports.
- Political Party websites
- The websites of state and local political parties will occasionally have lists of contact information for all or some of their candidates. While not always the case, it is often useful to check.
Repeat this process for all candidates on the list/election you have been assigned to research. Date and initial the tracking sheet when you have completed research for all of the candidates you were assigned.
