Recruiting Resources

[Fehler]

It looks like we need to print our own recruiting flyers, since our council is limiting us to 100 (I have a list of 600 home addresses we plan to drop flyers at), and our council won't let us customize our meeting date/time (Northern Star does a council-wide "School Night For Scouting").  The national file store https://scouting.webdamdb.com/bp/#/ has some nice templates, but we can't afford color copies.  Anyone have a good black-and-white recruiting template we can modify?

[SlowDerbyRacer]

Curious about your approach.  Are the 600 homes a targeted list, or are you papering a neighborhood?  I gotta think there's a more cost effective and efficient way to reach people.  For us our main method is a table at the local schools' Back to School nights.  That hits your target market straight on. 

[Fehler]

The list is targeted.  I've got recent yearbooks from local schools, and using anywho.com I can reasonably figure out a home address for most of the students.  We'll be doing some back to school nights also, but most schools keep outside groups out as a general policy (otherwise there would be tables for 50 different competing groups).

[Longhaired_Mac]

I don't know the particulars but your Council may be limiting you because they can't afford it anymore than your Pack can. Our pack is spearheading a committee for a membership drive in Sept, "Rally in the Valley". We asked Scouters and parents to send in pics from different events and used them to develop our own personalized flier. A parent from our Pack is also translating a Spanish copy for a second flier. We were able to find a local company to donate the paper and printing. Have you asked your committee members or current scout parents what help they might be able to provide? If a business won't cover your printing then perhaps a couple of parents work in places where they are allowed to print for personal use as well as work. With 600 you want to make sure to split that up so it doesn't become a burden to one person.

You may want to investigate to see if there is a process you need to follow to get into your schools. Our local Exec had to go before at least 2 school boards to get permission to have our fliers distributed to kids in class. And even with that permission the individual Principals of the various schools can still veto or "lose" fliers. So we are making appointments to visit with the principals to discuss the event and if they won't help we thank them for their time and save the fliers for elsewhere. The generic posters and fliers the council has for us are being saved for Library's and other public spaces as semi-permanent advertising. That might be the best use of yours as well.

Class B uniforms in the class on Den meeting or Pack meeting days are great ways to get kids involved too. We actually discussed making some "craft/work" shirts to wear over the uniforms to keep them clean during the meetings but in the end we found our local Scout Office's "trading Post" had many t-shirts on sale from past summer camps or other events. For a $1 a piece the pack bought each of the scouts a Scouting t-shirt to change in to or wear over uniform shirts to stay clean AND can be worn to school without risking Class A uniforms to recces adventures. You might want to check with your local Trading Post or Scout store if you have one and see if you can't do something similar. If all your kids are matching at school it's going to create questions in the other kids which leads to questions about joining up.

And then there is always public announcements on radio stations and local TV. Even if the ads aren't during "Prime time" the information will still go out, and on their websites. And Facebook pages, which can then be shared outrageously by Pack members so friends and family see it. A $5 a month paid advert on Facebook for your Pack FB Page (which is as much a recruiting tool as a way to share Pack events & calendar) is well spent priming parents and kids before school even starts.

A little Googling of "Advertising for Small Non-Profits" will probably bring up some great tips for you as well.

[FireStone]

On 8/13/2018 at 4:09 PM, Longhaired_Mac said:

...The generic posters and fliers the council has for us are being saved for Library's and other public spaces as semi-permanent advertising. That might be the best use of yours as well...

 

We're doing the same here, using the new "Scout Me In" stuff in local stores, libraries, etc. In trying to maximize exposure with limited budget, doing a short print run of color flyers that can be posted in public places puts a lot of eyes on our Pack info without doing a 1-flyer-1-family ratio. We targeted local places with high traffic and/or high numbers of kids and parents, like the community center, libraries, ice cream shops, supermarkets, etc. 

We're putting up posters in schools (5 schools, 5 posters, it's fairly inexpensive), digital flyers are send home through the school district "virtual backback" system, and we do a lot with social media and facebook especially.