Washington (CNN) -

It's one of the biggest questions in the campaign world: What happens to Obama for America?

On Tuesday, Jim Messina, chairman of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, gave some clues.

Messina said that supporters of the president want the grassroots organization to help Obama pass his agenda in his second term in the White House.

"The one thing I know is that people want to be involved in supporting the president's agenda in the next four years. How that looks is a discussion we need to have with our grassroots," said Messina in a conversation with Politico's Mike Allen. "We have to figure out what we do next and that's the conversation we're having with our supports now."

But Messina was clear that while OFA will live on in some form, he was equally clear the campaign structure won't be handed over to the next Democratic presidential nominee, saying "this organization was built for people who supported this president."

Messina's comments come two days after he reached out to Obama supporters through the campaign's massive email list, asking for feedback about how OFA can be used in the future to advocate policy during Obama's second term.

The email pointed supporters and activists to an online survey that asks basic database questions-such as age, gender, address, etc-as well as 30 detailed questions about supporters' experiences working with the campaign.

It further solicited input for future prospects for the group, which built unprecedented access to information about voters and had an aggressive push to make contact with them through phone calls and door knocks. At the end of the campaign, Obama's team said they had reached 125 million potential voters using their system of personalized contacts.

Messina said the email to supporters was "part of the discussion we want to have with people, what makes sense."

He suggested that the campaign's touted "Dashboard" social media tool could come in handy during the current negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff, allowing Obama supporters to call Capitol Hill.

"People just spent five years winning two presidential elections together, now they're not just walking away," added Messina.

He also added that it's crucial to keep the nationwide network alive: "You can't run two presidential campaigns from the grassroots and then say we're going to do it from DC. That's not how this is it's going to work."

Messina said he wants to make some decisions on the group's future by January's inaugural.

Four years ago the 2008 Obama campaign's grassroots network was kept alive in a limited fashion, and in January 2009 it was transformed into Organizing for America and folded into the Democratic National Committee. The 2012 Obama for America re-election campaign was launched in April 2011.

Messina said this time the campaign won't immediately turn over the grassroots operation to the DNC, but he also added that unlike four years ago the grassroots structure won't be severely curtailed, after pressure from some Congressional Democrats.

"People just spent five years winning two presidential elections together, now they're not just walking away," added Messina.

As for the re-election campaign itself, Messina said by law it "needs to shut down. We cannot spend funds for non-presidential activity."

But he added that some of the campaign structure will "absolutely live on" and says he hopes that every campaign will use "the tools we built."

And he was clear that "you can't just hand this to the next candidate for president. This organization was built for people who supported this president."

As for himself, Messina said "I'm going to Italy and hang out," adding "I've been going at this for five years. I've taken a one-week vacation in five years and so it is time to restore my energy. The president and I were joking recently about how bad I look. It is time to take a vacation."

Messina was chief of staff for the 2008 Obama campaign and then served as deputy White House chief of staff during the president's first two years in office, helping in the effort to pass health care reform, before moving back to Chicago to run the 2012 Obama re-election campaign.

As for what's next, Messina said "I think my future is probably outside the White House, helping him in becoming part of what ever happens to our social movement to help advocate for his (Obama's) agenda."