Recruiting in grassroots campaigns

When it comes to recruiting new constituents for our grassroots campaign, we always acknowledge it requires going out to the battlefield and spend hours and hours of hard work. Ignoring this fact would mean a grave waste of time and money, but there are some other aspects that are not that obvious and that we should as well keep in mind:

1. Open your organization: The office, the web page, the way you organize the meetings, your clothes, attitudes, microexpressions, etc. It all matters at the time to symbolize the openness of your organization and rethinking all these elements must be our first priority.
2. Feed your database: Take advantage of every event and ceremony you organize by making attendees fill up a simple form. It takes just a little time and it is going to be very useful to get a direct communications channel with potential members of our organization.
3. Work on “the other list”: The list of members is the most valuable asset in a grassroots campaign, but we cannot ignore the other list, the list of tasks. If you can’t immediately assign a task to a recent member, you will loose a potential activist because of your disorder. Therefore, the first think to do is to write down all the tasks needed to carry out our campaign and define how many members, time and resources are we going to need for each one. Keeping this “other list” updated and accessible for all recruiters will be the most important task of the recruiters’ coordinator.
4. Be persistent: If all else fails perseverance prevails and even more when you are not asking for any money but for a commitment.
5. The mountain won’t come to Muhammad: Go to meet your target wherever it is. Identify good points of entry and organize recruiters properly. Divide all the strategic areas on a map and then organize the teams so that purposes are repeated (alternately if there is more than one goal/problem to focus) but not the persons (the best way would be repeating just one person per area and renewing the rest of the group). Writing down all relevant information will be crucial for the next recruiters to prevent and advance any setback.
6. Innovate: Try alternative formats to attract people. Simplicity doesn’t mean monotony and being provocative could be the best way to have the attention of alienated individuals.
7. Set numeric goals: By setting numeric goals, campaigners will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of a daily recruitment.
8. Compose the message to introduce your organization: Avoid asking “Can I talk to you” and just conduct a personal introduction, appeal to a shared interest and a call to action.
9. Construct a brand: Everyone on the street has to be able to identify members of your organization and to achieve that it is necessary to adopt a colour, a logo, a slogan and all the promotional products possible to spread the brand out.
10. Prepare impacting materials: Adapt your promotional products to the goals of your campaign. Sometimes a promotional button is absolutely useless and it worth trying different and innovative products.
11. Foster members’ loyalty: Gratify your constituents by giving them any kind of bonuses. Thus they will requite with a more effective contribution to the campaign.
12. More than an organization: Let people know that the experience of becoming a constituent is more than just a fight to fulfil your goals. It is also becoming a member of something huger, something funny, something different, etc.
13. Follow up: If you wait too long, people are likely to forget about your conversation and the interest they experienced when speaking with you face-to-face. Make follow up calls every 24 or 48 hour to solve this problem.

When it comes to recruiting new constituents for our grassroots campaign, we always acknowledge it requires going out to the battlefield and spend hours and hours of hard work. Ignoring this fact would mean a grave waste of time and money, but there are some other aspects that are not that obvious and that we should as well keep in mind:

1. Open your organization: The office, the web page, the way you organize the meetings, your clothes, attitudes, microexpressions, etc. It all matters at the time to symbolize the openness of your organization and rethinking all these elements must be our first priority.
2. Feed your database: Take advantage of every event and ceremony you organize by making attendees fill up a simple form. It takes just a little time and it is going to be very useful to get a direct communications channel with potential members of our organization.
3. Work on “the other list”: The list of members is the most valuable asset in a grassroots campaign, but we cannot ignore the other list, the list of tasks. If you can’t immediately assign a task to a recent member, you will loose a potential activist because of your disorder. Therefore, the first think to do is to write down all the tasks needed to carry out our campaign and define how many members, time and resources are we going to need for each one. Keeping this “other list” updated and accessible for all recruiters will be the most important task of the recruiters’ coordinator.
4. Be persistent: If all else fails perseverance prevails and even more when you are not asking for any money but for a commitment.
5. The mountain won’t come to Muhammad: Go to meet your target wherever it is. Identify good points of entry and organize recruiters properly. Divide all the strategic areas on a map and then organize the teams so that purposes are repeated (alternately if there is more than one goal/problem to focus) but not the persons (the best way would be repeating just one person per area and renewing the rest of the group). Writing down all relevant information will be crucial for the next recruiters to prevent and advance any setback.
6. Innovate: Try alternative formats to attract people. Simplicity doesn’t mean monotony and being provocative could be the best way to have the attention of alienated individuals.
7. Set numeric goals: By setting numeric goals, campaigners will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of a daily recruitment.
8. Compose the message to introduce your organization: Avoid asking “Can I talk to you” and just conduct a personal introduction, appeal to a shared interest and a call to action.
9. Construct a brand: Everyone on the street has to be able to identify members of your organization and to achieve that it is necessary to adopt a colour, a logo, a slogan and all the promotional products possible to spread the brand out.
10. Prepare impacting materials: Adapt your promotional products to the goals of your campaign. Sometimes a promotional button is absolutely useless and it worth trying different and innovative products.
11. Foster members’ loyalty: Gratify your constituents by giving them any kind of bonuses. Thus they will requite with a more effective contribution to the campaign.
12. More than an organization: Let people know that the experience of becoming a constituent is more than just a fight to fulfil your goals. It is also becoming a member of something huger, something funny, something different, etc.
13. Follow up: If you wait too long, people are likely to forget about your conversation and the interest they experienced when speaking with you face-to-face. Make follow up calls every 24 or 48 hour to solve this problem.