What if you flipped volunteer recruitment?

It’s not just you. Every small town struggles to find enough volunteers to do all the projects and events and ideas.

Cassandra Boniface with the Township of Stirling-Rawdon, Ontario, told us how they flipped the volunteer recruiting process.

“We created the Active Community Expo (A.C.E.). It’s held at our local arena, and is essentially a giant information night about what is available in and around our community in terms of lessons, sports, special interest groups, community service groups, volunteer opportunities, etc.

“Exhibitors use it as a chance to raise awareness about their clubs and take early registrations. Specials are offered as incentives. We hold demonstrations, draws, and giveaways.

“We have seen exponential growth with this event since its inception with both our exhibitors and our attendees. It’s a real community night and by holding it consistently on the Thursday following our August civic holiday residents know when to mark their calendars each year.”

You can see why we love this. It’s the opposite of the usual “serve on our committee” approach. It’s much more of “Look how much fun you’ll have joining the adult curling club!”

We share a lot more ideas for finding more volunteers in our new video/audio called “Find More Volunteers”