Democratic Groups Playbook
Build relationships. Grow participation. Organize year-round.
Run with Ralph is developing a Playbook for Democratic Groups—including precinct organizations, county and state parties, Democratic clubs and caucuses, and grassroots groups. The Playbook will help them build trust, grow participation, develop leaders, and organize with people year-round—not only when an election approaches. Read more about the Democratic Groups Playbook below—and join the waiting list to be among the first notified when it is released.
You can unsubscribe from the waiting list at any time.
Build Relationships Between Elections
Democratic groups can be the year-round civic infrastructure of the party. Precinct organizations, county and state parties, clubs, caucuses, and grassroots groups can create places where people build relationships, develop leadership, understand public problems, and act together.
Too often, however, political participation becomes concentrated around elections. People hear from the party when volunteers, votes, or donations are needed, but may have few meaningful ways to participate after Election Day. That can make politics feel transactional and leave valuable relationships, knowledge, and energy undeveloped.
Winning elections matters, but a durable Governing Majority cannot be assembled only during campaign season. Trust grows through consistent presence: listening to people, learning what they experience, welcoming different perspectives, creating useful roles, and connecting community concerns to practical ways of improving daily life.
Democratic groups therefore need more than meetings, voter lists, events, and campaign activity. They need a year-round strategy for reaching beyond their usual participants, developing volunteers into leaders, strengthening local partnerships, communicating clearly, and giving people reasons to remain involved.
The Democratic Groups Playbook helps groups move from episodic mobilization to sustained relationships, broader participation, stronger leadership, and greater capacity to win elections, advance the Affordability & Opportunity Agenda, and govern effectively.
Next: Disciplines Needed
The Disciplines Democratic Groups Need to Earn Trust
Strong Democratic groups do more than hold meetings and mobilize reliable voters. They build relationships, welcome broader participation, develop leaders, connect elections to governing, and help people solve shared problems.
This Playbook teaches the disciplines Democratic groups need to build durable participation and governing power:
Be Present Year-Round
Create regular opportunities to listen, connect, and contribute between elections. Become a familiar and useful community presence—not an organization that appears only when it needs votes, volunteers, or donations.
Reach Beyond Usual Circle
Build relationships with people who do not already attend meetings or think of themselves as active. Seek out missing voices, learn why people participate or stay away, and make group easier to find and join.
Give People Meaningful Roles
Offer more ways to contribute than canvassing, donating, or attending meetings. Connect people’s interests, abilities, relationships, and available time to useful work—and help volunteers develop into trusted leaders.
Practice Democratic Pluralism
Create a culture of equal standing, honest disagreement, shared obligations, and respect for evidence. Work across differences without allowing any faction to meet its needs at the expense of another group’s rights or basic needs.
Connect Daily Life to Governing
Help people understand how public decisions and systems affect affordability, opportunity, and agency. Connect community concerns to achievable reforms, elections, and the governing power needed to produce better outcomes.
Build Power to Produce Results
Turn relationships and participation into the capacity to support candidates, strengthen campaigns, advance reforms, and govern effectively. Measure progress, learn from results, and show people that democratic action can improve daily life.
Built Around a Practical Method
The Democratic Groups Playbook draws from the Affordability & Opportunity (A&O) Agenda being developed by Run with Ralph and follows a practical method:
This is not simply an election-turnout exercise. It is about helping Democratic groups build year-round relationships, broaden participation, develop trusted leaders, strengthen governing capacity, and demonstrate that democratic action can improve people’s lives.
What the Democratic Groups Playbook will Include
In addition to the core disciplines and the Affordability & Opportunity framework, the Democratic Groups Playbook is expected to include practical guidance on:
It will also help Democratic groups think about how small gatherings, modest resources, shared meals, local hosts, and repeated contact can build the relationships and community capacity that campaigns and institutions often struggle to create.
Why Run with Ralph
Run with Ralph brings together experience in campaigns, government, legal advocacy, nonprofit leadership, and systems change.
The focus is practical: helping Democratic groups listen to people, build relationships and participation, communicate clearly, develop leaders, and connect community concerns to strategies that can improve people’s daily lives.
The Democratic Groups Playbook is for groups that want to become a trusted, year-round presence in their communities, strengthen candidates and campaigns, advance achievable reforms, and help build a Governing Majority capable of delivering results.
Get Notified When the Democratic Groups Playbook is Released
The Democratic Groups Playbook is being developed by Run with Ralph now.
Join the waiting list to be among the first notified when it is released.
By joining the list, you will also receive related Affordability and Opportunity reform ideas and Run with Ralph briefs as they are issued.
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You can unsubscribe from the waiting list at any time.
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