Common questions about Threshold — what it is, how relational organizing and voter-file matching work, what AI Coach and SmartTurf do, how pricing works, and how it compares to legacy organizing tools. Expand any question below.
FAQ
Threshold FAQ: AI-Powered Campaign Organizing
Frequently asked questions
What is Threshold?+
Threshold is an AI-powered organizing platform for Democratic campaigns, organizers, and volunteers. It turns voter data, volunteer relationships, events, lists, and outreach conversations into organized action — and into reportable data a campaign can actually use.
What is the big idea behind Threshold?+
Campaigns are won by maximizing finite time and finite resources. Threshold uses cutting-edge AI, voter-file matching, and CRM technology to eliminate busywork so organizers spend more time moving people and less time cleaning data.
What does Threshold help campaigns do?+
Threshold helps campaigns find voters, organize volunteers, manage relational contacts, scan paper forms, match people to the voter file, coach outreach, create events, send reminders, cut turf, track outcomes, and export clean data.
Why does relational organizing matter?+
The most persuasive messenger is someone voters already trust. Volunteers already have relationships with friends, neighbors, coworkers, family, and community contacts. Threshold turns those trusted relationships into structured, measurable outreach.
What makes Threshold different from legacy organizing tools?+
Threshold combines relational organizing, voter-file matching, canvassing, events, messaging, reporting, AI coaching, and CRM workflows in one modern stack. It is built for how campaigns actually operate: fast, distributed, volunteer-heavy, and resource-constrained.
What does "a relational organizing platform built for scale" mean?+
It means Threshold is not just a contact list. It gives campaigns the infrastructure to onboard unlimited volunteers, collect relationship-based contacts, match those contacts to voter records, prioritize follow-up, log outcomes, and report progress across regions, teams, and programs.
How does Threshold match contacts to the voter file?+
Threshold combines name similarity, phonetic matching, address context, alternate spellings, voter-file lookup, survey data, and AI re-ranking to produce cleaner, more accurate matches — moving from messy human inputs to confident, usable voter records.
What is "Paper to Voter File"?+
Paper to Voter File turns messy handwritten names, addresses, survey responses, petitions, and sign-up sheets into clean campaign data. Instead of hours of manual entry, organizers scan paper and review structured results.
How fast is the scanning and matching workflow?+
Threshold's patent-pending OCR and AI pipeline reads messy handwriting and matches records quickly — often in under 10 seconds, depending on the workflow and data quality.
What does AI Coach do?+
AI Coach helps every volunteer make the right ask, with guidance based on campaign priorities, voter-file context, and existing relationships. It can suggest who to follow up with, draft scripts, explain workflows, log conversations, and turn plain-English notes into structured campaign data.
Can AI Coach enter data?+
Yes. Volunteers can describe what happened in a conversation, and AI Coach helps log the outcome, notes, survey responses, activist codes, and next steps.
What is SmartTurf?+
SmartTurf is Threshold's coming-soon list-building and turf-cutting product. It lets organizers target voters, build universes, analyze lists, and cut walkable turf dramatically faster than legacy tools.
What will SmartTurf allow organizers to do?+
Organizers will ask for lists in natural language, save voter universes, analyze counts and geography, and cut walkable packets — for example, "Cut 40 walkable turfs near Cambridge for high-priority voters."
How is SmartTurf different from legacy turf tools?+
SmartTurf is designed to cut and deploy turf up to 20x faster by combining AI, geocoding, voter-file data, saved lists, and a campaign CRM built for modern field programs.
Does Threshold support canvassing?+
Yes. Threshold supports door-to-door canvassing, relational outreach, and hybrid workflows where volunteers talk to neighbors, friends, and targeted voters without jumping between disconnected tools.
Does Threshold have native mobile apps?+
Yes. Threshold has native iOS and Android apps so volunteers and organizers can work in the field, not just from a desktop dashboard.
What else is included in the platform?+
Voter-file search and matching, relational contact management, SmartTurf list and turf cutting, survey collection, door-to-door canvassing, events with RSVPs and reminders, action plans, team chat, messaging, push notifications, leaderboards, outreach scripts, CSV import, VAN-ready export, role-based access control, and campaign branding.
How does Threshold help campaign admins?+
Admins manage users, roles, product access, campaign settings, AI Coach guidance, survey questions, activist codes, target universes, exports, integrations, messaging, reporting, and audit activity.
Can campaigns export data?+
Yes. Threshold supports CSV exports and VAN-ready workflows, including matched voter details, outreach outcomes, survey responses, activist codes, notes, contact dates, and volunteer attribution.
How does Threshold handle events?+
Threshold's Events Platform helps campaigns create event pages, collect RSVPs, manage guests, send reminders, and connect event engagement back into the broader organizing program.
Who is Threshold for?+
Large campaigns, regional civic engagement programs, local races, organizers, volunteers, and data teams that need premium organizing performance without bloated tooling or per-user pricing.
How is Threshold priced?+
Threshold uses grassroots pricing: no per-user fees, no per-response fees, no setup costs, and unlimited volunteers. It is designed to scale at a price campaigns can afford.
See Threshold in action
Build your list, match it to the voter file, and turn personal networks into measurable voter contact.
Keep reading
All resourcesPlatform
Why Threshold: AI-Native Relational Organizing
Threshold is an AI-native relational organizing platform that turns volunteers' real relationships into measurable voter contact. It replaces opaque, gamified legacy tools with professional-grade infrastructure — patent-pending handwriting-to-voter-file matching, an AI coach that also does the data entry, geocoded contacts, and customizable reporting — so organizers spend their time moving people, not cleaning data.
Product Guides
Threshold User Guide: Setup to Export
This guide walks organizers and volunteers through Threshold end to end: signing in, building a relational contact list, scanning handwritten sheets, matching people to the voter file, prioritizing and logging outreach, using AI Coach, building lists and turf with SmartTurf, running events and messaging, admin setup, and exporting clean, VAN-ready data.