Free the data! Give the Riding Associations the tools they need

Volunteers and supporters are the heart of the Liberal party. During the last campaign, we were lucky to have both from inside and outside the riding. We made, I think, good use of our membership program, Liberalist. Yet despite having high security access for the riding, we found ourselves stymied when we tried to find something as basic as membership status for an volunteer from the next riding over.

Access to membership information is limited in a number of ways and I am proud of our focus on protecting privacy. But some of our policies seem to stand in our own way, impeding our efforts to grow the base.

The Party has done a good job at this point building out our database, including members, volunteers, takers of signs and more. Yet many either do not or cannot use the system. Some of the feedback I've received includes:

- It's too technical

- It's too hard to use

- I can't find what I need

In our database, we have exceptional talent - fundraisers, marketers, social media and communications experts. You name it - they exist. And yet, when I tried recently, there seemed no easily accessible list of nearby volunteers for Riding Associations to use.

In talking to Liberals around the country, I've heard several ideas. Some of the best include:

- Reviewing the processes and procedures around Liberalist to make the key information available where it is so vitally needed

- Making Liberalist itself a little more user friendly. I am no expert but I find using the application a little intimidating

- Working with our marketing and membership people to build campaigns to bring in the valuable information we need about our members and volunteer

- Better integration with social media like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, to better understand our members

And finally, something that I think we could start almost immediately, we can use the data we already have to create a listing of volunteers, showing their expertise, availability and qualifications, that can be easily searched and utilized for all projects - at the national, provincial and riding levels.

The Liberal Party prides itself on intelligence, drive and pragmatic action. We already have the platform, Liberalist. We need to better use our existing paid and volunteer resources to make the system more effective for we Liberals, both in Ottawa and at each Riding Association.