Volunteering is a fantastic way to strengthen your resume, improve leadership skills, and establish meaningful connections. If you’ve decided that you want to make a difference in your community, and want to organize a service project, you’ll need to recruit volunteers!
Recruiting volunteers requires excellent written and oral communication skills that will help prepare you for milestones such as applying to a job or college. Once you’ve successfully recruited a team of volunteers, you have demonstrated your ability to influence others through smart communication tactics. Here are a few ideas that will help you recruit volunteers for your community service project:
Social Media
You don’t need to be a social media influencer with a 1K following to recruit individuals. However, social media is a great way to share this fantastic community service project with friends and locals. If you want to get creative and make your post stand out, utilize graphics creation tools like Canva or Adobe Spark. Both are easy to use and free of cost.
Reach Out to Community Groups
Connecting with local Girl Scouts* or Boy Scouts is a great place to start. Ask if you can speak or hand out flyers at a Service Unit meeting or a Pack Meeting. If you’re not a member, you can find a local Girl Scout* council or a local Boy Scout Pack here. Any volunteer work can usually be applied to earning awards. Do your homework first and make a pitch to recruit volunteers by addressing the badge requirements your service project can be applied to.
Don’t forget other community groups. Churches and temples could bring you volunteers of all ages and abilities which is a perfect fit for a Youth Squad® service project.
Reach Out to People You Know
If you have a particular person in mind that you think would be an excellent fit for your project, reach out to them directly! Let them know the details of your project. Most importantly, explain to them why you think they’d be a great fit.
Create Flyers
Sometimes, places such as local coffee shops have a bulletin board where businesses and groups can promote upcoming events and offers. Ask local businesses if you can post a flyer or leave a stack of flyers by the cashier to promote your community service project.
Share at School
Ask a teacher if you can give a brief presentation about your community service project before class starts. Once they agree, you have the opportunity to practice your public speaking skills and tell your classmates about the project and how to join.
Many high schools require volunteer work and often have after school programs dedicated to community service. Contact the adviser of your school about your project and any other nearby school if the project would be relevant to their community.
Pitch to Local Media
If you want to take an extra step to improve your professional skills, pitch to the local media. You’ll want to reach out to newspapers, magazines, and televised news segments. Let them know what your project is and what type of volunteers you need. (Here are more tips when pitching to the media). This method will help you reach people of all ages who are not directly in your social circle. Additionally, you can put on your resume that you have public relations experience and have pitched to the media!
Ask Your Family and Friends
Ask your family and friends to share the opportunity with their colleagues and co-workers. This word-of-mouth strategy is one of the easiest ways to reach people not within your social circle. Start by merely talking to people you know.
When you start to recruit volunteers, plan to utilize more than one of these tactics to attract a diverse range of people. Whether you have decided to bring our Animal Welfare Program as a “Delegate” to your community, or have taken up another community service endeavor, these smart recruitment methods will help you establish a strong team dedicated to making a difference.
*youthsquad.makingfriends.com and MakingFriends®.com are not affiliated with, endorsed by or a licensee of Girl Scouts of the USA.