A need and a volunteer match on three things
Campaign Match does not rank, score or guess. A need either fits a volunteer or it does not, by three plain rules.
The role
Every need names one role from a fixed list: door-knocking, phone banking, text banking, yard signs, event help, data entry, social media, website, design, photography or video, treasurer or bookkeeping, driver, poll watcher, or other. A volunteer picks the roles they can do from the same list. The need's role has to be one of them.
- Door-knocking the need
- Phone banking
- Text banking
- Yard signs
- Event help
- Data entry
- Social media
The place
A campaign lists the counties its race covers and posts each need in one of them, or marks it remote. A volunteer gives a home county and says how far they will go:
- My county only. The need has to be in the volunteer's home county.
- My county and the counties next to it. The need can be in the home county or any county that shares a border with it. Borders come from the US Census Bureau's county adjacency file, so "next to" means what the map says, including across a state line.
- Anywhere in my state. Any county in the volunteer's state.
- Remote only. Only needs marked remote.
A need marked remote fits everyone, wherever they live.
The time
A need says when: weekends, weeknights, flexible, or specific dates. A volunteer says when they are usually free: weekdays, weeknights, weekends. The two have to overlap. A flexible need fits any volunteer. For specific dates, the calendar decides: a Saturday asks for weekend time, a Tuesday evening asks for weeknight time.
Approval first
A new campaign is hidden until someone at Campaign Match looks at it and approves it. Until then its needs are not shown to any volunteer and it cannot see any volunteer. Approval means the listing was reviewed. It is not an endorsement and it says nothing about the campaign beyond that.
Both sides say yes
A volunteer can mark "I'm interested" on a need. A campaign can "invite" a volunteer who matches a need. Either way, the other side gets a request and answers it. When both have said yes, each sees the other's email address on the match, with a copy button, and the conversation moves to email. Campaign Match does not send messages for you and has no inbox of its own. Either side can withdraw at any time; the addresses disappear as soon as one does.
What is not here
No in-app messaging. No payments. No scoring or recommendations beyond the three rules above. No public list of campaigns or volunteers. If the list of roles or counties is wrong for your race, pick "other" or the nearest fit and explain in the note.