Welcome to the New Scout Recruitment resources of the Crater Lake Council! We are so grateful for your commitment to growing your Cub Scout Pack. Each Scout that joins means one more family in your community is able to contribute a positive, local impact. Thank you for your efforts to build tomorrow’s leaders by growing Scouting today!
This index will connect you to National BSA’s resources as well as some local council tips on how to prepare your Scouting unit for successful recruitment events.
Table of Contents
Preparing for Recruitment
Plan Your Calendar
All Packs, Troops, and Crews should develop program plans, along with plans to fund these programs. These calendar plans should stretch to the end of August each following year of Scouting.
Recruit Pack Leadership
A successful unit requires leadership from volunteers. This means that recruitment often comes to involving the parents of our Scouts. Because families have already committed to participate by signing up, they will now find the time to say YES to participation in all of the great activities, including volunteering! If your unit is having trouble with recruiting leaders, reach out to your Unit Commissioner. They are there to help.
Utilize BE-A-Scout
BE-A-Scout (www.beascout.org) is the online promotion and application system of the Boy Scouts of America. The Crater Lake Council and National BSA Council will both be promoting Scouting using BE-A-Scout as a landing page.
- Unit QR Codes
- Every Cub Scout Pack needs to make sure your pin is up to date and you have a volunteer monitoring the leads and applications that come through this resource.
- Recruitment Using BE-A-Scout Webinar Recording
Signing Up New Scouts
All Sign-Up Nights are designed to be fast-paced for today’s busy parents. The table rotation method has been used very successfully in recent years. It allows families more flexible timing and it allows the pack to have better one-on-one conversations with new families as they visit the tables.
The presentation method has been used successfully for many years. If using this method, remember that the goal is to sign up new Scouts and adult leaders.
Packs are asked to avoid the use of PowerPoint presentations because they tend to include too much information, take too much time, and often cause interested families to leave without signing up because they simply can’t stay so long.
Instead, new Cub Scouts and parents should be invited back to a Parent Orientation a week later, which gives the pack an opportunity to share more information about their activities and leadership.
- https://scoutingwire.org/use-this-virtual-rally-plan-to-recruit-scouts-during-covid-19/ has information on how to run a signup night using Zoom or other video conferencing software.
Promoting Scouting
- Open Houses provide a great opportunity to promote Cub Scouts. Always make sure you bring a signup sheet to collect the names of interested families.
Peer to peer recruitment is one of the best ways to recruit. Below are two resources to help you plan a peer to peer recruitment.
Please remember that scouts that recruit a friend can earn a campership to camp.
Peer to Peer Recruitment Plan 30 Day Plan
- 30 days out – Develop some incentives for Scouts who recruit a new Scout. Every Scout who recruits a friend will get a free recruiter patch from the Crater Lake Council. Cub Scouts are motivated by prizes.
- 30 Days Out – make sure peer to peer recruitment materials are ready to use. You can print your own or contact your district executive for help printing.
- 21 days prior – Hand out recruitment materials to families. Ask families to check school rosters, church rosters, and sports teams to help them think about who to invite.
- 7 Days Prior – Remind families to email their friends and start posting sign up for the night on social media
- 3 days prior – Send a reminder to the Cub Scout families of the awards Cub Scouts can earn by getting a friend to join.
- Hold Sign Up Night – make sure you have sign up materials for the new Scouts to sign up.
- Recognize the Scouts who recruited a friend at the next pack meeting.
This Scouting Wire post has great instructions on using Facebook geofencing and Next Door to promote Scouting
The Crater Lake Council will set up paid Facebook advertisements for your Pack. To make these advertisements successful, we need to receive your joining night date and information at least 30 days in advance. The Social Media Advertising will drive to BE-A-Scout.org, so having your BE-A-Scout Pin up to date will be important for social media success.
To make the Facebook Advertisement drive the biggest results a pack needs to:
- Find community Facebook Groups to share it with. Some of these groups have thousands of followers.
- Ask your parents to share the ad with their Facebook and tag friends that might be interested.
- Share this ad from your packs Facebook Page.
- Build excitement with countdown posts leading up to the recruitment event. Keep it short, but include a hook, date, time, and link to website or contact person to learn more.
- Keep it interesting with various post types (a photo post for attention, then a direct link to website post, and next in series a video testimonial).
- Bracket the recruitment event with posts leading up to, during, and after the event.
- Series of countdown posts.
- Thank you to volunteers and new Scouts who participated.
- ICYMI (in case you missed it) post with follow-up opportunity including contact person.
Global Social Media Advertising:
Both the National Council and the Crater Lake Council will be running Google Advertisements in August, September, October.
Council Printed Materials for Cub Scouts
The Crater Lake Council provides in-office printing services for units requesting recruitment materials. These materials must be requested at least two weeks in advance of a Unit’s recruitment event.
National Digital & Printable Materials
The Boy Scouts of America Brand Center is a resource that Scouting volunteers can use to promote Scouting.
The materials below are links to the Boy Scouts of America Brand Center. In order to download the materials, you need to set up an account. These materials are free to use to promote Scouting. These materials can be printed or shared digitally by Units.
- Digital Scout Talks – short videos 30 seconds to 90 seconds that you can share with prospective members.
- Email Templates – JPEG photos you can download to add to an email inviting prospective members.
- Fillable Flyers – fillable PDF flyers that the Pack can print or send out digitally to potential members. English Bilingual
- Postcards – can be printed by your pack and mailed to prospective members. The format is both PDF and JPEG. PDF will print on 4 by 6 postcards.
- Peer to Peer Cards – a fillable PDF that will print on business card templates.
Engagement and continued growth
- Follow up with the parents who did not join at your sign up night.
- Share your pack activities with local Facebook groups. Make sure you use your pack sign up link so they can sign up online.
- Plan to have your October Pack meeting be a Bring-A-Friend event. Get both your existing and new Scouts excited about recruiting a friend.
- If you are selling popcorn, make sure you have information on signing up for Scouting available at your sales.