DFA-Link: An Underutilized Tool (Setting up an Account)

By Alta Price

Disclaimer – I don’t consider myself an expert in DFA-Link use. I am, however, starting to understand how useful it could be for online organizing since using it for the DFA Training Academy.

To make full use of DFA-Link, you need to create an account. There is a box on this page waaaayyyy down the right side with a link to Blog for America, or blogforamerica.com. I have Blog for America as one of my set of home pages, but you can just click or type in blogforamerica.com. Once you get there, click on DFA-Link.

The next part, I’m not sure what will happen because I created my account a long time ago. But you will have to give at least a valid email address and password, and quite possibly your name and address. You will be sharing this information with Democracy for America, and most likely get on their email list. However, they are very careful not to “burn” their list (translation – cause people to unsubscribe by sending too much mail) and I don’t think you will regret it. In fact, I use my “real” email address for DFA rather than the alternative “junk mail” address I use for most progressive groups. Also, I think DFA is a great organization and you should sign up anyway! (Just my $.02 worth.) When you log in you’ll need your email address and password. Keep your password handy, because you’ll have to sign in once each week for security purposes.

It took me the longest time to figure out what to do with DFA-Link once I was there. The basic idea: Use the search tool by entering your zip code and looking for groups, events, campaigns, or people. Once you find a group, event, or campaign that interests you, sign yourself up. Once you find a person, you can send them a message through DFA-Link without ever knowing their email address or sharing yours. We’ll go through the details of how to use each of these functions in subsequent tutorials!

Finding an Event

By Alta Price

I wanted to get this up ASAP to use for the Iowa Democratic Party State Convention this weekend in Des Moines. I have not been able to come up with a plan to get DFAers attending the convention and/or those who live in Des Moines together this weekend. Friday night we don’t want to conflict with the Hall of Fame Dinner. Some of us aren’t even coming down until Saturday morning (e.g., me). Saturday we don’t know how long the convention will run. What’s an organizer to do?

At someone’s brilliant suggestion (Sue? Sorry, can’t remember who!), we finally decided to share cell phone numbers and plan on the fly as events unfold. I set up two separate events at DFA-Link – Meet DFAers in Des Moines Friday and Meet DFAers in Des Moines Saturday.

If these links do not take you to the appropriate event pages, you can find them yourself now that you have a DFA-Link account (see previous blog post). Use the search tool and your zip code. If your zip code doesn’t do it, use this one – 50309 (zip code of Convention Center). Once you find the event, read the details (ignore the times and places – I had to put something in but these will change), and RSVP. Once you RSVP, the host can contact you through DFA-Link messaging (look for DFA-Link messages in your email inbox).

If you don’t want to go the DFA-Link route, but want to get together, just email me with your contact information and whether you are interested in Friday or Saturday or both. I will share your information with the Friday host (since I won’t be there on Friday).

We want to have a “formal” statewide Democracy for Iowa meeting sometime in September. But we’d also like to meet more informally at events like this. Maybe we can use DFA-Link more effectively to link up!

Alta Price altaprice@yahoo.com