Adding Activist Codes in VAN that Integrate with Empower

Adding Activist Codes in VAN that Integrate with Empower

Much how Empower uses tags to group and organize people, VAN uses activist codes to categorize their contact records. If you create and use activist codes in VAN, there is a way to integrate them with Empower. 


What is an Activist Code

Activist codes are tags in VAN that describe groups of voters that you would want to categorize together. You could create Activist Codes like ClimateVoter or SignedPetition. Activist Codes are used very similarly to how tags are used in Empower.


To Create an Activist Code

  • Ask your VAN administrator to set up the Activist Code priority buckets that you’ll want to come connect to in Empower.

  • Brainstorm how you want to prioritize and organize the universe of contacts you are reaching out to via your Call to Action outreach (e.g. by geographic location or by a voter turnout score).

  • In MyVoters, create the Activist Code that you will use to prioritize contacts in Empower.

  • Create a list in VAN of voters that should fall into each of your tiers of priority. Use the “Bulk Apply” feature to add the appropriate activist code to the list of voters. A full explanation of how to use this VAN feature can be found here.


Example Activist Code

Here is an example of how to create and prioritize an Activist Code. Let’s say we wanted to organize people based on their Absentee Ballot request status. 


  • First, we would ask our VAN Administrator to create an Activist Code for “Requested ballot, not returned” and an Activist Code for “Returned Absentee ballot” and one final code titled “Needs to request Absentee Ballot”.

  • Next, we would tag the appropriate people to the correct Activist Code in VAN. Remember, we can do this quickly using the Bulk Apply feature.




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