If you decide you don't need to use or view particular custom groups, fields, or values, we strongly recommend that you disable the custom group, field, or value rather than delete it. Custom reports and searches rely on these custom fields, so deleting certain custom data could potentially break or at least cause problems for the reports and searches.
Working with Your Universe of Contacts In preparing for a campaign, you will need to identify the audiences you will be targeting for your canvass or phone bank. CiviCRM uses Smart Groups and regular Groups as the mechanisms to target specific groups of contacts. Here are some examples of how you can use Smart Groups and regular Groups for targeting during your campaign: use Smart Groups to identify contacts you want to target based on specific criteria, such as voter demographics, issue interests, primary language spoken, etc. track voter demographics using the custom data group called Voter Info use Groups set up as mailing lists to identify contacts who want to subscribe to a particular newsletter or issue to send an email blast about your campaign use these Smart Groups and regular Groups to generate your walk list or phone bank list. Learn more about working with Smart Groups and regular Groups in the T ags and Groups chapter of this book.
Working with Voter History CiviEngage enables you to manage voter history and other voter information collected during a voter engagement, voter education or electoral cycle. Many organisations have access to a voter file from which they manage all their voter engagement work outside of CiviCRM. Once the voter engagement or electoral campaign is over and voter information is updated with who voted and other demographics, organisations will often only want to keep information on the actual contacts they made during the campaign. In this case, only those selected records from the voter file and additional voter information, such as responses to specific electoral campaign questions, a voter ID, and their registered party can be imported and maintained in CiviCRM. T hese voter records then become contacts that organisers will continue to engage and target for their base-building efforts.
Custom Contact Subtypes CiviEngage creates new contact subtypes for Individuals and Organisations: Individual Contact Subtypes: Media Contact Funder Contact Elected Official Organisation Contact Subtypes: Media Outlet Foundation These subtypes allow you to track specific contacts such as funders and foundations, media contacts and elected officials, and record tailored information for each one.
Funders and Foundations: T rack due dates for grant proposals, letters of inquiries and reports by adding an activity to the funder's contact record and choosing from the Proposal, Letter of Inquiry, or Report activity types. T ailor information about an individual funder, such as their funding areas and issue interests by creating a new contact record with the individual contact subtype Funder Contact and using the Funder Info custom field set. T ailor information about a foundation (organisation record), such as their program areas for funding creating a new contact record with the organisation contact subtype Foundation and using the Grant Info custom field set. Media Contacts and Media Outlets:
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