Successfully Recruiting Volunteers

In August 2005, the Chicago chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum held an enormously successful volunteer recruitment session.

How successful? Let Ron May of The May Report tell you:

 

"That MIT-EF meeting was amazing. It was not the usual crowd. Sure there were familiar faces like Stephen Meade, Kirsten Osolind, Jack Curley, you know what I have a complete list for you, so let me wait on that. All in all, there
were 70+ people in the room, and that included 12 MIT-EF board members, two or three from Cambridge, and others who are members of the MIT alumni club here in Chicago. Plus, there were two or three from Gardner Carton & Douglas.

Cancel all those folks out and you still had about 60 guests!

That is phenomenal. When was the last time you saw 60 people show up to volunteer?

And the quality of people was high. There was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, Daniel Fisher, who is also an MIT grad in computer science, and only 26 years old. He is in the surface biz, which in the navy they jokingly refer to as a target. You can be a submariner, a target (or surface ship) or an aviator. There were a lot of new faces and I will give you all the details later today.

Things are looking up."

 

Congratulations to chapter chair Peter Balbus '82 and the executive committee of the Chicago chapter for their hard work and efforts in creating such a well-attended event. Here are some Best Practices from them on how to hold your own successful volunteer recruitment event.

1. Work closely with the Global Office staff to coordinate your event. Tap into the resources they have available, especially connecting with the local MIT alumni population.

2. In Chicago, we expanded our chapter's charter to reach out beyond early-stage entrepreneurial activity, placing a greater emphasis on technology innovation and targeting executives in larger, more mature companies.

3. Craft a clear statement of your chapter's charter or mission and use this as the core message in your announcements.

4. Have a clear intention from the very beginning about the purpose and intended outcome for the volunteer reception.

5. Have a clear strategy that addresses the composite needs and business interests of your targeted attendees, members and sponsors.

6. Distribute multiple rounds of announcements through multiple channels -- 5-6 targeted announcements total each week in the 4 weeks leading up to the event.

7. Get your event announcements in all the major print and electronic media as well as event bulletin boards in your area.

8. Use the Volunteer Bulletin Board on the MIT Alumni Association Web site.