Recruitment Training

 

Materials you need for this training: Sample attendee recruitment script Sample script for talking to attendees at an event (click here to download) Sample attendee follow up call (click here to download)

 

Recruitment builds your councils, builds MoveOn and ultimately, the progressive movement.

Some general principles of recruitment:

• People don't participate without being asked.
• To go past the usual suspects -- a personal ask goes much further than an email in getting new people involved.
• You won't be able to sustain your council by only keeping the same group of people involved over time. We need to constantly develop new leadership and involve new people in our councils.

  What is Effective Recruitment

First, think of a time when someone asked you to do something. What about how that person asked made you want to do it, or what about it made you not want to participate? 

Here's some guidelines for how to do effective recruitment:

• Have a compelling reason -- even with little time or resources, folks will make the effort if they have a compelling reason. When you recruit, it's important to provide them with a compelling reason to participate.
• Personal appeal -- often times it is not the job or the task that gets folks involved, but the person who is doing the asking.
• Persistence -- be confident with your ask; stress the importance of the work of the Council.
• Make it fun

How to Recruit

There's three main times that we need to do effective recruitment: before our events, at our events, and after our events.  We also do on-going recruitment to build our groups, and our core teams.

Good recruitment conversations include:

• Make a connection-- Take the time to get to know, or catch up with, your fellow members while recruiting.
• Provide context -- Why are you involved with MoveOn? Why is this campaign or event important?
• Ask for a firm commitment -- Just ask-- can they participate? And make sure you're asking them for something specific.
• Catapult the person into action -- Have a plan for specifically what you are asking for (coming to an event, joining the council etc).

 

Before Your Event:
Here's how to structure your recruitment to get people excited to come to an event: a "phone call sandwich".

• Everyone who you want to come to your event should get: an introductory call, an email about the event, and a reminder call. (Click here for a general attendee recruit script)
• Remember that not everyone will be home or available the first time you call them, so you'll need to set up several different chunks of time to do outreach calls.
• Do reminder calls: everyone who says they'll come to your event should also get a reminder call the night before the event.

When making the calls you can either have a group Recruitment night, where folks get together and make recruitment calls together,  or the Recruitment Coordinator should split up the lists between several different council members and ask them to commit to making a certain number of calls.

At your Event

• Make sure all new participants are talked to by a core council member, and that they are invited to join the council.
• Have Greeters --Council Members whose specific role is to welcome attendees as they show up. If it's a big event, have folks walk around with clipboards. Greet new attendees as they arrive, and circulate through the group or crowd to make sure we've reached everyone. Use sign-in sheet.  (click here for a script to use in greeting attendees)

After the Event

• Follow-up with new council members: a phone call from a council member a few days after the event is much better at ensuring someone's involvement than waiting until the next event. 
• Don't rely on email to do this follow-up.
• Don't wait to plan this until after the event: this should be part of the recruitment team's work.  Have a plan to divide up names and make outreach calls a few days after the event. Then, make sure that you have a way to track new people, and you can ask them to take on new roles for the next event.
• Don't forget to add new members to the council page!

Here's some tips about how to make phone calls.

• Your greeting should be warm and friendly as if greeting an old friend -- all MoveOn members are part of the MoveOn family.  And, be enthusiastic about the event you’re inviting people to come to.
• Your tone should be assumptive -- sometimes, our natural instinct is to tell people how easy a task is rather than how important it is.  Remember, it is always easier for someone not to do something.  Our work is important, and we should assume that everyone wants to participate in the way that they can.
• Move through your calls, yet look for opportunities to build relationships. While the length of the call should convey urgency, you should also look for opportunities to have real conversations, not just sell them on the event or the campaign. People will want to have an impact on this campaign, but they will also be attracted by the person calling them.

 

Building your Recruitment Team

How to build your team:

• Brainstorm and ask current council members to join the Recruitment Team.
• Different people can (and should) play different roles at times.
• Short term goals are to recruit new members for each; long term goal is to build people's involvement and commitment to the Council and to take on key roles in the Council.

 How to manage your team:

• As soon as you know what the next action is, get your team together and come up with your plan
• Give people specific roles. Two main ways to do this (mix and match as you like):
• Pre and post event callers: Split up the Council list and call members/ Follow up with new members afertwards
• Greeters: Recruit new Council members at events
• Keep good notes on members and make sure they’re on the council page e.g. On vacation through 8/31 or  "Call daytime". This will make it easier to build up relationships with them
• Ask new council members to join team after each event

Brainstorm 2-3 people on council who you'll ask to join the recruitment team.