Recruiting for your Circle

Recruiting new members is critical to keeping your Circle strong. Typically, we

- replace Circle members who graduate.
- recruit members when we start a Circle.
- recruit more members to generally increase the Circle’s population.
- recruit more members to increase a segment (grade) of the Circle’s population.

SUGGESTED GOALS:

- Recruit between 3 and 5 new daughters every year to replace the anticipated losses thru graduation/moving. The success rate may be in the 30% - 70% range, so your goal should be met if 2 or 3 daughters actually join and participate in activities every year.

- Keep your Circle’s population distribution even --- try to maintain a population of 2 to 3 daughters in each grade. This minimizes recruiting efforts. This also maximizes the Circle’s stability in the long run to prevent a Circle from dying out when you “pass the torch”. This goal is probably the most challenging. Many daughters are excellent recruiters, but they will normally recruit their friends in the same grade unless they know your goals. This trend is normal, but it will skew your Circle population to have many members in one, two or three grades, which will make recruiting a challenge when you “pass the torch”. It is better to consciously decide how many daughters to recruit for each grade, so inform all your recruiters of your Circle’s target population recruiting goals. If your Circle has 2 to 3 Daughters in each grade of K-5, you should have between 12 to 18 Daughters plus 8 to 14 Dads, or about 20 to 32 members (some Dads have more than 1 Daughter). There are very few Circles with a perfectly even population distribution, so we all just do the best that we can. After all, recruiting results are variable and not easy to forecast.

- Attain / Maintain Critical Mass. There appears to be a critical mass in the size of the Circle population, which occurs at about 20-25 members (dads and daughters). A circle with a smaller population may find it to be more of a struggle to maintain its size, so it must spend more time recruiting. A circle with 30+ members may find that recruiting is very easy and may be tempted to turn away candidates. If you find that your Circle is almost too large to be manageable (does everyone fit in your house for the meeting and craft-making?), try to steer new candidates to the smaller circles.

- Just Starting a New Circle? Welcome and Congratulations!!! This is definitely an exciting time. You are most likely reading Friends Forever, The Guidebook for Members of YMCA Adventure Guides. The guide does a great job covering the program in general, but does not cover recruiting. Your Circle roster will be an important tool (see example on page 19). Some Navigators create their own roster in Word or Excel. Your roster will hold information on your current population (including age/grade), which will help you to determine your recruiting targets. It is most likely that you have daughters in a few grades, which is a great starting population. From this point forward, the first 2 suggested goals should help you grow your Circle steadily: recruit 3 daughters to actually join every year, and keep the population even (perhaps 3 daughters per grade). These goals are … goals, of course; there are very few Circles with a perfectly even population distribution, so we all just do the best that we can

SUGGESTED RECRUITING METHODS:
- Personal contact is the best source of new candidates. Dads tell prospective Dads about how much fun they have had with their daughters at the hayride, winter outing, bowling, banquet, and other Adventure Guides activities. Follow-up several times if necessary. Get to know the parents of your children's playmates --- and tell them about the program.
- Moms are excellent recruiters. Moms are in a perfect position in the social network to scout out prospective recruits from school. Mom Recruiters tell prospective Moms about the program. Prospective Moms “persuade” the Dads to join.
- Identify a volunteer from your circle to serve as your point of contact for new member coordination and promotional material distribution
- Alternatively, your Circle’s policy may be that everyone is a recruiter.
- Focus on recruiting prospective daughters’ Dads (and Moms). Sure, this sounds obvious. Parents are the decision-makers, of course. Tell prospective parents how much fun you have at the hayride, winter outing, banquet, and other events. Tell them how much you enjoy the special Daddy/Daughter time in Adventure Guides … making crafts and experiencing all the adventures.
- Tell prospective parents that our Princesses may stay in Adventure Guides as long as they wish. Princesses are not required to graduate the year they turn 12. This may be attractive since many parents have more than 1 daughter; all their daughters can therefore stay in Adventure Guides and graduate together. And some parents have sons in the Guides program as well as daughters in the Princesses program; sons and daughters may wish to stay in Adventure Guides at the same time.
- Target your recruiting efforts toward the younger daughters. Recruit daughters from grades K/1/2 so that these new members spend more years in the Circle.
- Target your recruiting efforts even toward 4-year-olds in preschool, since they are just one year away from joining the program as kindergarteners.
- Accept prospective Dads/Daughters who are recruited by member daughters.
- Accept any daughter (along with her dad) in the age range of 5-12+ years old.
- Accept “Cold Calls” (new Dads & Daughters who call the YMCA or Scout to join). There should always be room for one more member.
- Invite a referred prospective member to your Circle meeting
- Invite a referred prospective member to an event (hayride, bike-ride, etc)
- Adopt a local school to coordinate the distribution of promotional materials
- Operate a booth/table at Back-to-School Night or School Orientation – tell Moms and Dads how much fun you have with your daughters at the hayride, winter outing, bowling, banquet, and other Adventure Guides activities. Tell them how much you enjoy the special Daddy/Daughter time in Adventure Guides … making crafts and experiencing all the adventures. Distribute an informational flyer. Invite prospects to your next Circle meeting.
- Distribute annual promotional flyers at your "adopted" school
- Distribute annual promotional flyers at your member churches
- Borrow the recruiting poster kit - contact the Expedition Scout or YMCA Outfitter.
- Generic recruiting flyer and another flyer- feel free to save it and edit for your use.
- Always give new members a warm welcome!

  DON’T GET DISCOURAGED ---------
- Not all candidates will join
- Some candidates may even join their friends in another Circle.
- Some prospective Dads may initially have every intention to join, but realize that they have too many other commitments. At times, some of these Dads may neglect to answer your emails (and even your phone calls). This is quite normal for some folks --- they do not intend to be rude, so put these Dads at ease by letting them know you totally understand about all of our commitments and priorities.
- There are a lot of prospective Dads and Daughters out there! They just don’t know about how much fun we have with our daughters.

CIRCLE POPULATION CYCLE - In any organization, members will join, have a great experience, and eventually leave the organization. A daughter entering the Circle when she is in kindergarten can spend as much as 6+ years in the Circle before graduating. Some daughters will join when they are older (3rd or 4th grade), and some daughters will graduate early to go on to different activities. A Circle can lose as much as 20% to 35% of its population each year, depending on its population distribution and other factors.

Updated 14-Dec-2005