Gregory Heller

Many campaigns are run with a strong hierarchical structure. Decisions are made at the top, staff and folunteers are organized in a rigid structure and to help, supporters need to accommodate teh schedules and structures of the campaign.

Today, people expect to have things they way they want them, participate the way they want to participate, and be in control of their contributions to a cause.

Technology makes it possible to "distribute" the tools and mechanics of the typical campaign and allow supporters to participate at tehir convenience while still maintaining control and oversight centrally.

Rather than having centralized phone banks that take up organization resources (space, money, time) volunteers can be trained either over the web, conference call or face-to-face and then be deployed to work from home (or office). In the past, the dificulty in collecting data from volunteers often made "distributing" the work unreliable and costly. The web allows the distribution to take place electronically and allows the volunteers to enter their results in real time.