Smart and static lists

A list is a saved group of people or households you can reuse anywhere: as a grid filter, a newsletter audience, a canvassing universe, or a form’s follow-up. Lists come in two types, and choosing the right one saves hours later.

Smart lists: a rule that refreshes itself

A smart list is defined by rules in the query builder: “everyone tagged lawn-sign in Springfield”. Membership updates itself automatically as people and households change: new matches join, non-matches drop out. Nobody maintains it, and it is never stale. Its count keeps changing on its own.

Static lists: a snapshot you control

A static list runs its rules once, at creation, and saves the result as a fixed snapshot. Today’s matches become the members and stay put. New matching people are not added later; membership changes only when you edit it by hand. Use one for a curated invite list, a board roster, or the attendees of a specific event.

The two lists you always have

Every context starts with two built-in smart lists, marked “Built in” in the table: All Subscribers (everyone who has opted in to email in this context) and All Volunteers (everyone with a volunteer standing, at any stage). They refresh themselves like any smart list, and they are always there — including while you are exploring the demo data, and after you clear it. Because other things point at them, they cannot be deleted or renamed; you can edit their description. If you want a variation, make your own smart list from the same rule.

Create a list

1. 1Open Lists and click +Name the list something your teammates will recognize in a dropdown.
2. 2Pick Smart or StaticAsk: should this group maintain itself? If yes, choose Smart; if it should stay frozen, choose Static.
3. 3Choose People or HouseholdsA list targets one or the other. Pick what you are grouping.
4. 4Build the ruleCompose conditions in the query builder: match all or any, with nested groups. For people you can rule on tags and issues, on standing (volunteer status, subscriber status, staff status, support level, voting status, do not contact), on any contact or address field, on the electoral areas a household sits in — so “everyone in precinct 12” is one rule — and on activity history: days since their last donation, dollars given this year, an active recurring pledge, days since their door was last knocked, days since they last opened a newsletter, and days since their last event registration or volunteer shift. “Gave last year but not this year”, “never knocked in this campaign”, “hasn’t opened anything in 180 days” are each one or two rules; the day-count fields compare as numbers (“is at most 90” = within the last 90 days) and “is not set” means it never happened. Donations, knocks and event registrations count within the campaign context the list belongs to; newsletter opens and shifts count workspace-wide. Household lists get the knocked-days field too. The area field is labelled with your campaign’s word for it and is always offered; until your workspace has a boundary map or imported area names, it simply matches nobody. Status fields offer a picker rather than a text box, plus “is set” / “is not set”. The live preview does the math in public: “Matches 1,284 people right now”, with a note reminding you whether that count will keep moving (Smart) or freeze on save (Static).
5. 5Create itThe button carries the scale it will act on: “Create smart list (1,284 now)” or “Create static list (snapshot 1,284)”.

Read the Lists table

• List: the name is a door. Click it to open the list’s own page, which shows its members, the newsletters sent to it, and its history.
• Type: a Smart or Static chip.
• Of: People or Households.
• Definition: the rule written as a plain sentence.
• Members: how many records are in the list right now.
• Last used in: the most recent newsletter, form, or turf that used this list.
• Updated: when the list last changed.