Welcome to District Captain training Part 2! 

1. Learning the Acronyms & Setting up your Technology

• Convention of States uses a lot of Acronyms. Use this Acronym Guide to find the meanings when you run into new ones (Print the Guide)
• Open the email asking you to confirm your new COS email account and click the link inside.
• Download the COS Action App to your phone (iPhone / Android) and sign into it.
  • Watch the App Introduction Video.
• Watch Telepatriot training videos.
  

• National Training Video
• Michigan Training Video
• As a District Captain it will be your responsibility to encourage your Telepatriot Volunteers to be involved with Calling missions.
• Join the Michigan Zulip Workspace via the email invitation that you will receive.
• Introduction to Zulip
• Get the App

2. Convention of States University (1 hrs, 40 min)

The DC 100 course will teach you how to do things on our website, so you may want to have a computer or laptop available to follow along in parts.

To access this course login to COS University using the same email and password you made for this website. (Reset your password here.)

• DC 100 District Captain Leadership Training (1 hr, 40 min)

3. Your District Numbers, State Representative and State Senator

Before you go any further you will need to discover your Representative, Senator, House District (HD), and Senate District (SD). Use the instructions below to find your legislators and district numbers, and save that information somewhere that you will be able to refer to easily. If you already know all four of these things go ahead and move on to step 4.

• Find your State Representative and House District
• Find your State Senator and Senate District
  

• Print/Download Instructions (text) (text and images)

4. Citizen Builder

Citizen Builder (also known as Dashboard) is where we contact volunteers and petition signers, keep track of volunteer activity, and report interactions with legislators.

• Watch Introduction to Citizen Builder
• Watch How to Filter People in Citizen Builder

District Captains have 4 specific responsibilities in Citizen Builder.

1. Processing Volunteer Applicants.
2. Processing Followups (This is when we reach out to Petition signers).
3. Maintaining a Potential Volunteers List
4. Submitting Action Reports

More on all of these below.

5. Processing Volunteer Applicants

When someone applies to be a volunteer their application appears in the Leadership Management Tool (LMT). District Captains are responsible for processing applications for Volunteer Activists submitted by people living in their House District.

Watch Introduction to the LMT

Learn How to Process a Volunteer Applicant in the LMT

6. Processing Followups

When people sign the COS petition their name appears in the Followup Tool. District Captains are responsible for sending a followup email to all new petition signers in their house district and calling petition signers that have indicated that they want to learn more about volunteering.

• Watch Basic Followups Tutorial
• Watch Volunteer Followup
  • Watch How to remove the Volunteer
• How to process a Followup with Volunteer Interest

7. Creating and Checking Your Lists

When people sign our petition, get a followup email, and come back later to tell our computer system that they are interested in volunteering, the only place they will appear is in a specially crafted list. It is the responsibility of a District Captain to have a Potential Volunteers list and to followup with any individuals who appear on it.

• Watch Essential Lists Tutorial
• Create both these Lists for your House District.
• Learn How to process Potential Volunteers List

8. Submitting Action Reports

Action Reports are a critical part of uniting all our individual efforts into one focused movement. They can be made through the COS Action App or the COS Website. Watch the videos below and save/print the instructions for your future reference.

• Watch Action Reports from the COS Action app
• (COS Action App) Action Report Instructions: Print/Download (text) (text with screenshots)   This still needs to be created
• Watch Action Reports from the COS Website
  • (Website) Action Report Instructions: Print/Download (text) (text and images)
  • Direct Link for submitting New Action Reports

9. How to Do it All

After learning all the parts of a District Captain job it can seem very difficult to break it down into an achievable list of tasks, but never fear, we've been there, done that, and made the list for you already!

Every Week do these 5 things 3x (or more). (Video explanation)

1. Check for Applicants in the LMT
2. Check Followups
3. Check your Potential Volunteers List for new potential volunteers
4. Check your cos email
5. Check slack via app or website

Every month do these 5 things at least once

1. Meet with or call all of your assigned volunteers.
   

1. Call or meet with your Senator and Representative.
2. Make action reports regarding your contact with your legislators.
3. Discuss goals for your House District with your Regional Captain.
4. Attend your Regional Meeting with your Regional Captain.

10. Setting Yourself Up for Success

While you now know pretty much everything you need to get started, the following steps will help you be truly prepared to do this job.

• Save your Regional Captain's name/number in your phone. Expect to use that number often, especially in the first couple of months.
• Create a COS file on your computer/laptop and save the following files to it.
  • Save the Followup Volunteer Interest Email
  • Save the Volunteer Applicant Email
  • Save the Telepatriot Email (coming soon)
  • Save Text option file (coming soon)
• Plan 3 days a week that you will login to Citizen Builder and make any necessary calls. There should be no more than 2 days between checking days. (e.g. Monday, Thursday, Saturday) Checking more often is encouraged.
• Plan to attend regional zoom meetings
• Save the COS Michigan Website to your Browser for quick access.
• Familiarize yourself with the District Captain Resources Page

If you have completed all these things then call/text/slack/or email your Regional Captain and let him/her know you are ready for your final zoom training.

• Bruce Finlayson - (231) 499-2224 - brfinlayson@yahoo.com
• Chet Grant - (248) 892-2302 - chester.grant@cosaction.com
• John Phillips - (734) 819-0048 - john.h.phillips@cosaction.com
• John Poelstra - (517) 403-0155 - john.poelstra@cosaction.com
• Sarah Santana - (760) 481-2406 - sarah.santana@cosaction.com