1. How To Play Bingo Through Zoom
2. Bingo Games Via Zoom
3. How To Do Bingo On Zoom
4. Play Bingo Through Zoom

When you get to the parking lot, we’ll assign you to a parking spot (at a safe social distance from other vehicles), we will supply each player with 5 bingo cards. At 2pm, call into our zoom conference and let the games begin! Amy & JJ will be calling the numbers and, when you get a bingo: HONK YOUR HORN! So, let’s go over the basics again. 100% Plug & Play. Access our 50+ Premium Playlists & Bingo Cards directly through our website. Print as many cards as you need, plug into a speaker and press play - or play virtually via Zoom.

Many of us have found ourselves quarantined at home due to the corona virus outbreak. Being able to associate with our friends can be a challenge, but with many of us using Zoom for our meetings we have a new option to have fun remotely. With Zoom you can setup your own free account and then can invite others to join your own private meeting. Here are some Bible games that can be played using Zoom.

Bible Charades – To play Bible Charades, all you need is to see others and your own imagination. Since Zoom gives all the players the capability to see each other, take turns acting out your favorite Bible character or story and see who can guess it first.

Bible Pictionary – To play Bible Pictionary you use the Whiteboard feature in Zoom. One person shares their screen and selects the whiteboard. The same person who is screen-sharing uses the tools on the toolbar to draw a picture of a Bible character or story. Everyone else’s tries to guess what the picture is. Each person can take turns sharing their screen and drawing while others try to guess.

Who Am I – This game is based on the Heads Up! Board Game but uses the Bible character cards from jw.org. If everyone has some of the character cards printed out at home, then this game could easily be modified to be played over Zoom. See this previous post showing how to play this game: Who Am I Bible Character Game

Introducing a new type of event

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, many Fundraisers are looking for alternatives for in-person events and ways to keep funds flowing for campaigns to continue their important work. There are two types of virtual events your campaign may want to run:

• Fundraiser (closed): Use Zoom or Google Hangouts for closed-door fundraisers to give your donor’s a private space to chat with the candidate directly about the state of the campaign.
• Town Hall (open): Use Zoom or Google Hangouts for open town hall type meetings to talk openly with volunteers, supporters, and possibly even reporters. Make sure your candidate is prepared to answer tough questions about the Coronavirus as well as potentially hard-hitting questions about the campaign from supporters of your opponent. Additional platforms like Maestro and Tele-Town Hall can also be used for larger phone-based events.

This guide is primarily written for the use of Zoom. If your campaign is set up on Google G Suite, Google Hangouts can be used in a similar fashion as Zoom’s Free and Pro versions, although there are fewer controls and video/audio quality are often not as strong.

What about Facebook or Instagram live for town halls?

If your candidate is press-trained, nimble on their feet, comfortable with technology, and has a strong Internet connection at home, then a Facebook or Instagram Live is a great option for an open town hall. For candidates that do not satisfy those four criteria, it is better to use a moderated format like a videoconference or to post short selfie videos addressing specific questions. Those are much less daunting formats, less technologically fraught, and safer for campaigns that need to stay on message.

How To Play Bingo Through Zoom

Good news! There are straightforward best practices to follow

1. 3-4 weeks ahead of time, find co-hosts for the event who are willing to send around the link to friends and neighbors who might be interested in attending a remote fundraiser. Give them a goal: for example, ask each person to invite 20 people. Make sure you find a time that works for all your co-hosts and the campaign to hold the event.
   Quick Tip: With their permission, list co-hosts on the donation page. A friendly name often helps encourage people to donate.
   
2. Once you have co-hosts, create a custom ActBlue or NGP link for the event as its signup page, including the date and time of the event in the page’s description. Don’t include the open Zoom link yet; this will help limit the number of people who didn’t pay entering the meeting.
   
3. Send out the invitations! Ask your co-hosts to send their invitations via email and follow up with hosts frequently about reaching out to their friends and neighbors about the event. The campaign should send the invitation to their own list of supporters. Be sure to have your candidate call donors who aren’t responsive to the emails!
   Quick Tip: Now is your chance to get face to face interaction with that donor who lives across the country and was always interested in attending a fundraiser. Don't limit by location when inviting guests, people can attend from anywhere!
   
4. Before the event, put together a visual aid or presentation. Videoconferencing does not have the same degree of natural interactions that in-person events do, so it will fall on the campaign to fill the gap. Here are some suggestions on what to include:
   1. Updates: An update on your district’s/state’s response to the coronavirus. Offer up helpful links and resources. (If you have a lot of out of district donors, a message about unity might be the way to handle this topic instead of specific updates.)
   2. Electoral Reminders: Why your race is still important this year. Is your race very competitive? Is your seat one that might flip a legislative chamber?
   3. Visuals: Use Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Keynote to control the flow and present your screen. Use screenshots of recent local news articles, photos, and avoid text-only slides.
   4. Surrogates: Are there experts or community figures that would help the candidate create interest in the event and drive home your points? They may be easier to recruit and schedule now, including folks not in your region.
      

5. Send out the details for the Zoom conference one day in advance. This allows you to control distribution while creating a reminder. Optionally, include in the email a calendar invite with the login. You can use the function in Zoom to automatically send a reminder a day before but it often goes to spam or promotions tab. We recommend you use Mail Merge on gmail to automatically send a personalized email to everyone who is signed up. There is a greater chance they will open and read the email before the event, growing the number of people who are on the call!
   For people who already donated to the event, thank them in the email. For supporters who RSVP'd to the campaign but haven’t donated yet, this is a great time to send them the link again to the event page.

6. 30 minutes before the call, have the candidate and moderators sign on early to test the microphone and camera. Check it in the same spot the candidate plans to do the event. (Sometimes you don’t realize what’s behind you until the camera turns on!) Be aware of the lighting and make sure their computer is plugged in and ready.
   

7. Have a staffer ready as a moderator and “Co-Host” in Zoom to keep the conversation moving along. The staffer, if enabled as a Co-Host, can mute loud attendees and sift through any questions submitted via text. The staffer should read questions aloud to the candidate, so the candidate can focus just on answering rather than navigating the software.

8. Have a great event!

Sharing visual content is a great way to keep viewers engaged

How to open the event

• Give attendees a few minutes to get everything loaded -- for example, start at 3 minutes past the hour.
• Set an agenda at the top of the call to give everyone an idea of what to expect timewise and when they can ask the candidate questions

The update and pitch

• The candidates’ talking points or presentation should be at least 15 minutes, ideally with visuals -- a 10-minute stump speech is less effective in this format.
• Seed a few key supporters with questions to kick off the Q&A period - silence can be intimidating!

The ask

Bingo Games Via Zoom

• Take advantage of that you know all the attendees are at their computer and able to fill out the checkout form.
• Attendees who donated prior to the event: recognize those folks, and get reliable supporters to say in the chat or verbally that they donated
• Attendees who did not donate prior to the event: The staffer should paste the ActBlue link in the chat and use the audio track to call the audience to action -- “Go there right now, I know you have your credit card ready”, and encourage attendees to say when they donated.
• Give donors the option to donate in other ways, sending a check or calling a staffer to give their information over the phone.

How To Do Bingo On Zoom

After the event

Play Bingo Through Zoom

• Have language prepared so it’s easy to individually send emails to supporters after the event. Thank all the participants for joining and be sure to include any upcoming events or information provided during the presentation part of the event.
• If there was a link/article your candidate mentioned that people responded positively to, considering including it in the email. If there were folks on the call who said they might want to support the campaign further or may have friends who can support, make sure to send them the link to donate again so they have it readily available.
• Keep notes on donors' expressed interests and preferences