Slack Community Guidelines

As a the New Georgia Project Volunteer, you are part of a team committed to registering and turning out Georgia voters while championing our campaigns’ important work.This Slack team is where we will all come together to work on crucial voter outreach and other volunteer tasks.This document outlines our guidelines for using the Slack workspace, so please read it carefully!

How to Use Slack

If this is your first time using Slack, see our First-Time Login Instructions, linked below.

1. Download the Slack application on your phone and computer/tablet. We recommend using the Slack app because it’s easier to keep up with than the desktop version. If you have Apple devices, visit the App Store. If you have Android devices, visit Google Play. Once downloaded, you’ll need to add the New Georgia Project Volunteer workspace and sign in using the account that you already created.

2. Join channels. The New Georgia Project Volunteer workspace is made up of channels that separate our discussions about specific organizing tasks. Click the “Add channels” button on the left-hand side of your Slack screen to pull up a list of channels, and join any of the special volunteer team channels that interest you. We’ll make sure you get all the resources and materials you need to get started once you join! 

   1. #general: For team-wide communications and announcements. All team members that are on Slack are in this channel. 
   2. #random: The only place in Slack where non-work related items should be posted. These posts should still be relevant to the New Georgia Project, and kept to a  minimum.
   3. #agenda-for-young-georgians
   4. #black-and-green-agenda (Environmental Justice)
   5. #georgia-cares (Healthcare)
   6. #georgia-raise (Economic Justice)
   7. #loose-the-chains (Faith and Criminal Justice)
   8. #nurture-georgia (Childcare)
   9. #oasis (Senior Care)
   10. #reproductive-justice
   11. #statewide-vaccination-campaign
   12. #vibe (Voting Initiative for Brothers Engagement)

3. Your Slack profile. We’ll use Slack to quickly communicate with volunteers, so it’s a good idea to make sure your profile is easy to identify, and that you have notifications turned on!

   1. Making sure Slack displays your full name and adding a photo to your profile, if you so choose, will make it easier for us to find you in Slack and answer your questions quickly. To make these changes, click on the square icon in the top right corner of your Slack screen and then click on “Edit profile”. You can make your profile photo anything you like (as long as it’s work appropriate!); it doesn’t need to be a photo of yourself. 

   2. Turn on notifications. Click on the square icon in the top right corner of your Slack screen and then click on “Preferences”. This will pull up a menu that will allow you to enable notifications. In particular, you should make sure you’ve enabled Slack notifications for direct messages & thread replies.

Community Guidelines

1. First and foremost, this is a work space. All conversation should be limited to the work we do at the New Georgia Project. While we recognize that many of the people in our community may also be volunteering for other worthy and inspiring causes, this Slack is focused on the New Georgia Project only.

2. Language and behavior. Please be respectful of everyone and use language that is workplace appropriate. Offensive or inflammatory comments used toward anyone else, including New Georgia Project staff, and other volunteers, will not be tolerated and will result in removal from this Slack team.

3. Always represent yourself as a volunteer. Be careful to ensure that you always represent yourself as a volunteer, and not an official representative of the New Georgia Project.

4. Respecting everyone’s privacy. Some of the work you do as a the New Georgia Project volunteer might involve handling sensitive personal/identifying information for Georgia voters. Please do not share personal information (including email addresses, phone numbers, or any other private information) in posts sent to any public channels, such as #general or #random. 

5. Non Partisan.  As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the New Georgia Project may not participate in, or intervene in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. While political intervention is prohibited, the New Georgia Project may engage in advocacy on public policy issues, including issues that are at stake in an election cycle and policy positions and actions taken by incumbents who are candidates for re-election. All conversations that take place via the New Georgia Project Slack channel should be related to the organization’s tax-exempt purpose. If you have questions about what this means, please raise them prior to using the Slack channel for communications.

Asking Questions

If you have a question about the work that you’re doing, please ask in the appropriate Slack channel. If you don’t know where to ask your question, you can refer to the list of channels in the How to Use Slack section of this guide, or you can ask in the #general channel and someone will route you to the right place. 

A staff member or experienced volunteer will usually answer you pretty quickly. Channel and team administrators are generally online and available to answer questions from 10am to 5pm ET.

If you have a question or concern that can’t be answered in Slack, or if you run into any issues that require escalation to staff, please email us at volunteer@newgeorgiaproject.org. 

Once you've read and accepted these guidelines on the Volunteer Agreement page, we will email you an invitation to join Slack. For step by step instructions on logging into Slack for the first time, please review the  First-Time Login Instructions.