“Deep canvassing” is a form of door-to-door engagement which is different from conventional get-out-the-vote canvassing, a voter engagement strategy generally relegated to election season. In contrast, deep canvassing isn’t about elections. It’s about creating opportunities for community members to enter real conversation with each other, exchange stories, and create possibilities to evolve the beliefs underlying our political behavior.

At LA Forward Institute, we see many benefits to investing in deep canvassing as a regular practice. For too many of us, our desire and capacity to simply talk with one another – let alone be in true dialogue with each other – is atrophying. History has given us real reason to be afraid of each other. While we can’t instantly undo the harm and violence suffered by many of our communities, we are losing ground to an increasingly polarizing world, one eager for us to shun any neighbor who does not already see the world in the same way we do. Our inability to enter conversation with each other could poison our very chance at democracy.

Deep canvassing offers a practice to counter this inertia. The premise of deep canvassing relies on the possibility that strangers can humanize rather than pathologize each other. Deep canvassing believes that if we can create space for conversation about key life experiences, that we might begin to understand – and bridge – different perspectives that currently divide us. When we practice curiosity with those who might have different political beliefs – and create opportunities for them to do the same in return – we can strengthen our abilities to stay in challenging dialogue and mutually walk away with new insights to inform our civic engagement. 

While deep canvassing itself is not a direct intervention upon the systems and policies that maintain injustice, it is a practice that can foster habits of civic engagement and give rise to systemic change.