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Quick Recruiting Tips
 

Programs should have a recruitment process that is active throughout the year. All Head Start staff should be aware of opportunities to encourage families and volunteers to become a part of the Head Start community. It is also important to remember that the recruitment process usually begins when families and or potential volunteers first interact with your program. The first interaction should be a positive interaction.

Quick Recruiting Tips

  • Put up notices about your program on Bulletin Boards at grocery stores, hardware stores, office Supplies stores, restaurants and schools.

  • Send out press releases (print) or public service announcements (broadcast) regularly to the media telling them about things you are doing. You can announce:

    New outreach programs in your community
    Festivals, Fairs, Holiday Events sponsored by your program
    Moves to a new location
    Awards received by staff or parents
    Special educational projects
    Gifts or donations made by local businesses or organizations
    Fundraisers, Celebrity or well-known attendees
    Anything that would interest the readers in your community

  • Open your mouth. Talk to all the people you see: gasoline and grocery store cashiers, hairdresser, sales clerks make sure they know about your program.

  • Speak at your church and at other area churches. Speak at seminars, conferences. Promote your speaking engagement with flyers, or a press release to community newspapers or radio stations.

  • Appear on local community cable shows that have programs geared to the community.

  • Contribute articles to your neighborhood newspapers so they are familiar with your program's activities.

  • Attend community meetings, speak up and let everyone know who you are and what your program is doing!

  • Send out postcards with simple announcements about events at your Head Start program. Postcards get read!

  • Send out greeting cards each holiday with a flyer about your program. Why not have the children make the holiday cards.

  • Go to school with your children. Talk to the classes and teachers about the Head Start program. Visit other schools and talk with the principals. Leave behind your materials in the teacher's lounge.

  • Take out a small quarter page ad in a popular community newspaper. This works best if you put the same ad in each issue of the publication for several months and have the ad positioned in the same place or same section each time.

  • Attend conferences, festivals, fairs. Network and pass out your program's flyers and cards.

  • Desktop-publish a program newsletter and distribute it widely.

  • Write letters to the editor about issues that affect your program. Letters that get printed in magazines and newspapers carry a lot of weight. Call in to radio talk shows. Make your comments and identify yourself and what you do. You never know who may be listening.

  • Be a copy cat. If you see a good promotional idea copy it.

  • Phone-a-thon. Call everyone you know and tell them you are recruiting.

  • Do a poster or flyer for your program. Put it where the foot traffic is.

  • Do a survey find out what children services your community wants.

  • Make sure your program is listed in all the area phone directories. Specialized community directories too!

  • Connect your program with other community campaigns. Help out with the events and share the publicity.

  • Hold an Open House. Invite the community to your program. Give tours when it is convenient.

  • Sponsor an artist. Have a talented artist do a mural on a wall or help the children do a mural. Publicize the event and invite the community to the opening.

  • Create a sticker with the phone number of your program. Stick it everywhere permissible.

  • Frame articles about your program. Keep a notebook of positive press.

  • Wear a symbol of your program everywhere, for example, a Head Start button.

  • Offer an inexpensive gift to parents who refer other parents and children to your program.

  • Create a list of the organizations and businesses that have helped or worked with you in the past. Send each one a note to thank them and to telling them you are recruiting.

  • Try all these ideas. The more ideas you use the better! The key to promotion is repetition. BE PERSISTENT. Soon you'll have all the volunteers and help you need.

Quick Recruiting Tips. DHHS/ACF/ACYF/HSB. 2001. English.