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Welcome to the Democracy for America On-Line Help Page.
Click on a Help topic below, or Click here to go back to the main Help Page.
Help Registering an Account/Creating a Profile
Candidates: How to Apply for an Endorsement
How do I create a DFA account/profile?
Step 1. At the top of the DFA homepage on the right side of the page, look for the text that reads “Welcome Guest” with “Login / Signup” located underneath. Click “Signup.”
Step 2. A new page will load, on this page, enter the required information in all fields and click “Signup”.
Your new DFA user account and profile is now created! However, before you can Login to the DFA website, you need to confirm your account.
Step 3. Confirm your account by accessing the email account you used to sign up, you should have received a confirmation email from DFA. Open that new message and confirm your new account by clicking on the Confirm link in the email.
Congratulations! You have successfully signed up for Democracy for America. Once you login on our website to your new DFA account you can write a Blog, send a message to other members, join a group, create a group, RSVP to an event, create and invite, and use many other useful tools!
To edit your Profile, on your user page, under where the Profile Picture should be click on “Edit your account information.” From there, you can edit your contact info, change your user image, add personal information to your profile, change your password, and more.
How do I log-in to my DFA account?
Step 1. To sign-in to your DFA account, simply visit the DFA home page, democracyforamerica.com then click the “Login” link near the top left of the page.
Step 2. Enter your e-mail address and password in the fields highlighted in the image below. Then, just click “Login.”
Step 3. Congratulations! You have successfully logged in.
Note: If log-in was successful, you should now see “Logged in as (your name)” in the top right corner of your page
How do I find a group in my area?
Step 1. In the middle of the DFA homepage to the right, find the DFA Community box, click on “Groups.”
Step 2. In the Search Groups box at the top of the page, you can search for a group in your area by entering either your zip code and a search radius or your state. You can also search by Group name, keyword, or Group type. Select your option, enter the field, then click “Search.”
Step 3. Groups that match your search criteria will now appear under the Search Groups box (it may take a minute to load so be patient).
Step 4. To join a group, first click the link to that group. Once that page has loaded, on the Group’s page, at the top right of the page under “Membership”, click “Join Group.” A box will pop up that will say “Join Group: (Group’s Name)”, click “Join Group”. It should then say “Group membership was successfully created”.
Note: If you successfully joined that group, on your “My DFA” page, under your groups, your group’s name and photo should now appear.
How do I create a new group?
Note: You must be logged in to do this. If you are logged in, you should see “Logged in as (your name)” in the top right corner of your page.
Step 1. In the middle of the DFA homepage to the right, find the “DFA Community” box, click on “Groups.”
Step 2. Above the top right corner of the “Search Groups” box Click on “+New Group”.
Step 3. Now enter your group’s information in all empty fields. Enter a name for your group, select the appropriate type for your group, and then enter your group’s website, if applicable. Then, enter a description of your group. Tell us the location of your group, and then decide whether you want your group to be visible to all, restricted, invite only or private. Then, once you have entered all that information, click “Create Group.”
Congratulations, you have now created a new DFA group! Now you can invite people to join your group, create events linked to your group, send messages to all your members, and more!
How Do I Create an Event?
Note: You must be logged in to do this. If you are logged in, you should see “Logged in as (your name)” in the top right corner of your page.
Step 1. From the Democracy for America homepage, click on "Events" in the DFA Community box.
Step 2. On the Events page, above the events search box on the right, click on “+ New Event” to create a new event.
Step 3. Next, select the event type that most accurately describes your event. For example, to create a “Unity Action Event,” just click on that event type’s title.
Step 4. Next, fill out all applicable event information: Event Name, Agenda etc. If you would like us to mail you a DFA event packet, please click the “Yes” bubble (found under Agenda) and enter your current mailing address.
You may also link your event to any groups of which you are an administer of, this will link your group and event pages together. When you are finished, just click “Create.”
Step 5. Congratulations, you have now created an event! From this page, you can administer your event. Remember, you should start by using our invite tools to invite people to your event. To invite people (on the page that pops up immediately after you created your event) under “Build Attendance” click “Invite friends, group members, non dfa people”.
See below, “Inviting to an Already Created Event”, for more help inviting people to your event.
How do I Invite Friends to my Events?
Note: You must be logged in to do this. If you are logged in, you should see “Logged in as (your name)” in the top right corner of your page.
Step 1. On your event’s page, click “Organize / Promote / Edit” then click, “Invite friends, group members, non DFA people.” From here you can invite your friends, groups, events, or other contacts.
To invite any of your DFA friends, under “Select more recipients from:”, click “Friends”, a window will pop up with all of your DFA friends. Click the boxes next to the friends you want to invite or just click “Select All” to invite all your DFA friends. When you have finished selecting your friends to invite, click “Selection Complete.” Your friends names should now show up under “Current Recipients”.
If you are a group administrator, you can invite all the members of your group. Under “Select more recipients from:” just click on “Groups,” a window will pop up with all of your DFA groups that you are an administrator for. Click the boxes next to your groups that you want to invite. When you have selected the correct groups, click “Selection Complete.” Your group’s name should now show up under “Current Recipients”.
Follow the same steps for inviting people from your events or campaigns.
We will now explain in more detail a new feature of our website, inviting any “Other Contacts.” First, under “Select more recipients from:” click the “Other Contacts” link.
Step 2. Here, you can add email addresses individually by filling out the contact’s email, name (optional) and zip code (optional), and click “Add to recipient list”. Or you can send bulk emails (shown below), or import addresses from your existing email address book (shown below).
Step 3a. To send messages to multiple email addresses, first click “Bulk Add Emails,” and a box will pop up that allows you to enter multiple email addresses, which can be separated by spaces, or commas, or line breaks, whatever you prefer. Then click “Add emails as recipients.”
Step 3b. To import addresses and add addresses from an existing address book, click “Import addresses from Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo,” a box then pops up asking you to grant access to your address book. Click “Start address import now.”
How do I send a Message?
Note: You must be logged in to send a message. If you are logged in, you should see “Logged in as (your name)” in the top right corner of your page.
Step 1. After you log in, on the DFA homepage in the upper right hand corner by your profile picture, find "Inbox" and click on it.
Step 2. To send a message, you can choose either of two links, click either “Compose Message” above the Inbox messages or below your Inbox messages click “New Message.”
Step 3. To send a message, under Personal Message at the top right, click “Personal message to one or more people."
Note: In order to send a message, you must first be a DFA friend with your intended recipient.
Step 4. Under “Select More Recipients From:” click on “Friends”, “Groups “Events”, “Campaigns” or “Other Contacts. In the new box that pops up, select the recipients of your message and check the box associated with that person, group, etc. When you are done selecting which friends to send your message to, click the “Selection Complete” button. For more on adding “Other Contacts” see the Help section on Inviting People to Events.
Now enter a subject and your message into the appropriate fields. When complete, you have the ability to test/preview the message, which will send you the message to your email inbox so that you can look over it first, or you can go ahead and click “Send Message” and the message will be sent to your selected recipients.
Candidates: How do you apply for an Endorsement from DFA?
Note: You must be logged in to apply for an endorsement. If you are logged in, you should see “Logged in as (your name)” in the top right corner of your page.
Step 1. After you log in, on the DFA homepage on the left side of the page under “Endorsements”, scroll down and click on “Apply for an Endorsement”
Step 2. Now enter all of your campaign information. When you have entered all of the required information, click “Create.”
Step 3. Fill out all the required fields for the information for DFA. When you have entered all the required information, click “Continue.”
Step 4. Now use one of the three methods listed below to add a new image to appear with your candidate profile on the DFA website. When you have chosen or uploaded a picture, click “Continue.”
Step 5. To finish, you must Publish your candidate page. To Publish your campaign, click the box next to “Published” then click “Continue.” If you have successfully applied for endorsement, a new page will load and at the top it will say “Campaign was successfully updated.”
About DFA Night School
What is DFA Night School?
DFA Night School is our on-line training program that allows anyone to learn the skills to win from their own home. Each session is an interactive conference call and web presentation where trainees participate and ask questions. Featuring expert trainers, topics range from Volunteer Recruitment to Framing a Message to Fundraising to Online Media. Each monthly session lasts about an hour, is packed with important skills, and is completely free.
Do I have to pay tuition to participate in Night School?
No, Night School is free.
How do I register?
Go to www.democracyforamerica.com/nightschool and look under “Upcoming Trainings” and click the link to RSVP.
How do I tune in?
First, you must download or view the slideshow, which will be made available a few days before the presentation at www.democracyforamerica.com/nightschool and on the “Event” page for the Night School session itself. You can download it to your computer in PDF form and watch it on the computer or print it out and flip through by hand (during the live presentation).
You can tune in to the audio of Night School in one of two ways: (1) you can dial into our conference call line and enter our access code, or (2) go to BlogTalkRadio and listen online. The phone number and access code, as well as the BlogTalkRadio website, will be emailed to you the day of the Night School session (assuming you are RSVP’d).
How do I listen to past episodes of Night School?
There are a few ways to view past episodes of Night School:
(1) You can download or view the slideshow and listen to the accompanying audio at our website www.democracyforamerica.com/nightschool
(2) You can subscribe to the Night School podcast by going to http://democracyforamerica.com/nightschool and clicking on the iTunes link at the top of the page.
(3) You can buy Night School DVDs at the Training Store at https://democracyforamerica.com/contribute/nightschool Each DVD consists of three Night School sessions; the individual cost of the DVDs depend on the quantity ordered.
How do I send in questions during Night School presentations?
You can email them to nightschool@democracyforamerica.com or send them to the AIM screen name: DFANightSchool
