Create a Community (List/Segment)

Communities are made up of Lists and Segments. You can create a new Community based on data associated with the profiles in your account. That may include profiles that were included in an import, profiles that are contained in an existing List, or all profiles in general. You can filter to include profiles, and you can filter to exclude profiles.

Community Builder also allows you to select attribute values that originate from profile data in your organization. For information about how your organization can use Lists and Segments, see Communities Overview. Also see Segments and Lists Overview.

Limitations

While general Lists and Exports may be 500,000 profiles, Lists for Canvassing are limited to 10,000 profiles and the limit for a Phone Banking effort is 10,000 profiles. Email efforts are limited to 20,000 profiles, but if you intend to send an email to 5,000 profiles or more on any given day, see the requirements outlined in Email Deliverability and Sender Best Practices.

Compliance

As you prepare to build your community for outreach, keep in mind that it’s essential to limit your outreach communities to comprise individuals who 1) have usable contact information and 2) want to hear from your campaign or organization. Doing so will boost the impact and effectiveness of your work, keep your costs down, and ensure that you comply with legal and regulatory requirements. Learn more in Cost Effective and Impactful Outreach, Phone Banking Deliverability and Best Practice, and Email Deliverability and Sender Best Practices.

To create a List or Segment, follow these steps:

1. Within My Universe > Communities, click Create Community.
2. Select options from the drop-downs to set an attribute. As you view options in the drop-down menu, some scores may have a symbol to call attention to new scores or scores which are going to expire. Hovering your mouse above the symbol will display more information.
3. To add another set of filter attributes and criteria, click Add Filter.
   •  Turn Into Group allows you to create more complex combinations of attributes and criteria. View an example of a group. Select the Turn into Group icon on the first row of the filter that should be a part of the group in order to start.
      
   • Once you have more than one filter, you can remove a filter. Select the Remove Filter icon located in the same row as the filter to remove the filter. To remove a group of filters or a single filter within the group,  select the Remove Filter icon. 
      
   • If you need to remove all the filters in your community, you can use Clear All Filters.  
4. When you are finished adding filters, click Apply to see how many profiles fit the filters you have set.
5. In the Save As dropdown, choose Save as a List (static) or Save as a Segment (dynamic).
6. Name your list or segment, add a description if needed, then click Save. Note: the name of a new List or Segment must be unique across all existing Lists and Segments. 
7. You now have a new Community that you can use for research, analysis, planning, or outreach. Note: when you create a segment it will be ready to use right away, but when you create a list, there will be some processing time. You can view list status on the Lists tab within Communities. 
8. Once created, you can view the filters used to create the list or segment. You may see an alert for “unsupported filters” to call attention to filters based on data that has been removed from Organizer.
   • You can duplicate the filter to build a new segment or list. After duplicating a segment or list with unsupported filters, the unsupported filter will be removed and a placeholder will appear where you can add a replacement. If no replacement is needed, you can remove the empty filter by selecting the Remove Filter icon.  
     

Notes on Attributes

• Some attributes are “dependent,” meaning they require you to provide other information to pinpoint the precise filter attributes. For example, all states have numbered congressional districts, so you cannot select a district number without first specifying a state (though in these cases Community Builder will notify and help you choose the required information).
• When you select from the Civic category of attributes, you must also enter sub-attributes. See Filter the “Voting Activity” Category of Attributes in Community Builder.
• "is from" is inclusive. For example, if you select "is from 1 and 3" it means 1, 2, and 3.
• "is greater than or equal to" and "is less than or equal to" are also inclusive.
• See definitions of all attributes in the Data Dictionary.

Notes on Complex Filters

When working with a complex set of Filters that combines many filters with complex AND and OR logic, several options might be useful if you run into a problem achieving the combination you desire.

• Consider whether some of your filters can switch from Include to Exclude.
• Consider whether a Filter Group can help.
• Consider building one or more segments that use the filters and saving them as a List. You can then combine the lists and create a segment from them. Lists can be found in community builder under Collections then Lists. 

An Example of Using Grouped Filters 

When creating a segment or list, you may want to find profiles that fit a combination of filter attributes and criteria. For example, you may want to find profiles have specific demographic or model score attributes and who voted in one of the last two state-wide elections or you may want to find profiles that voted in all of last two state-wide elections. Adding a filter Group allows you to retain “AND” logic at the highest level and then use “AND” or “OR” logic in your group. In the filter example below, the first two filters contains an age attribute and registered voter is True. So any profile would need to meet both of those filters; above the age of 18 and registered voter. If a profile was over 18 but not a registered voter, it would not be included. The next set of filters is a group using “OR” logic for voted in one of the last two statewide elections. So this would include profiles that are over 18, registered voters, and voted in either of the elections in the filter group.