Recruitment Resources
Recruitment Resources
Request Recruitment Materials
It's time to get out in your community and show them how great Scouting can be! Recruitment materials are now available for order now. Please allow up to two weeks for custom-printed materials to be completed.
Follow the links below to make your request:
Cub Scouts Scouts BSA
Recruitment Event Resources
Schedule the mobile archery ranges for your event using the form below:
Mobile Archery Ranges Booking Form
If one of your Scouts BSA Scouts recruits a new Scout, they and their friend will both receive a free pocket knife and and the recruiting Scout will receive a "Recruiter" strip patch! Fill out this form to receive the items:
Recruitment Knife Form
A Testimonial from Pack 301 On Effective Community Event Planning: How We Recruited 39 New Youth from One Event
The Event: Chaska Community Festival, Chaska River City Days
When we started looking for events to participate in, we started by reaching out to our community groups. We also asked parents if they had any connections to community events. This helped us greatly with booth placement and promotion. In the end, the event lasted from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.
Supplies We Had on Hand:
We had reserved one of the Northern Star Scouting mobile archery booths well in advance of the event. We utilized a customized banner and several yard signs around the booth. We found clipboards, spreadsheets, and pens to be very handy. We also made use of Google docs and forms.
Volunteers and Their Roles:
We ensured at least three adults were present.
- One person was responsible for greeting visitors and inquiring if they were interested in learning more about scouting. We found that many parents interacted well with volunteers who had clipboards while their children were participating.
- Another adult was there to assist with managing the range, ensuring all children could shoot bows even if additional assistance was needed.
- The third person was there to maintain a welcoming and friendly atmosphere, without immediately promoting scouting. Instead, they engaged visitors in conversation.
What Attendees Received:
We gave out promotional materials and invitations to the next fun activity, which was pre-planned to be two weeks or less away from the recruitment event.
Leads Collection & Forms:
We gathered the adult's name, phone number, and email address as well as the child(ren)'s name and age on a paper form for each interested attendee as they arrived at the booth. All prospects were entered into a Google sheet to allow information to be shared among unit leaders. The columns indicated the meeting location, the child's name and grade, and other important contact information.
Results:
Over 700 kids and adults visited the archery booth, and we got over 50 leads from interested families. The best part? We recruited 39 new youth!
Reasons for Success:
The booth was accessible to any child interested in trying their hand at shooting without any charge.
Follow-up Needed After the Event:
Within 48 hours of the event, we sent an email to attendees, inviting them to our next pre-planned activity to explore scouting. We also made a phone call the weekend before the upcoming activity to invite them. We continued to invite them to attend a pack, den, or unit meeting. It was important for both parents and kids to experience it firsthand before committing. We kept reaching out until they asked us to stop. If they didn't participate in the first activity, we kept inviting them to the subsequent ones persistently until they requested us to stop contacting them. If they had connections with another scouting family, we encouraged that family or scout to invite them to events. We identified this by asking parents if they were acquainted with anyone in scouting. Following a popular marketing strategy, we utilized 7 follow-up touch points with potential youth.
Sample Follow-Up Email Template
Sample Follow-Up Phone Template
Next Activity for New Attendees:
Once we got the families to our fun activity, we were able to engage the kids right away and we were able to establish personal connections with families and took notes on their inquiries and identifying any leaders or families they bonded with. We ensured there was a designated individual to engage with families at the event, introducing them to others and addressing any queries. These were fun activities that our Pack did as part of the summer program for our Scouts but timed to coincide with recruiting event. Previous activities included a fishing night and a tie-dye t-shirt night.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, we believe that the accessible nature of our booth, our diligent follow-ups, and our engaging activities contributed to our successful recruitment of 39 new youth. We hope that this testimony will serve as a guide to help others grow their units through community events.