Recruitment campaign checklist

Recruiting

• Set aside time to plan your recruitment strategy.
• Invite your regional official or organising officer to help with the meeting.
• Make recruitment and organisation a regular committee agenda item.

Involve departmental representatives

• Hold a meeting for departmental representatives to involve them planning the campaign.
• Encourage departmental representatives to calculate membership density in their departments and to set specific departmental recruitment goals.
• Develop a system for supporting and following up with departmental representatives.
• Provide departmental representatives with training on one-to-one recruitment.

Map your institution

• Develop a list of eligible non-members.
• Calculate your overall membership density by department and staff category.
• Identify key issues.

Set a specific numerical goal

• Take into account anticipated membership losses.
• Set clear recruitment targets in terms of members per month.
• Think about where each of your new members will come from. Target specific areas, eg particular departments, part-timers.

Choose a campaign theme

• Choose key issues or groups of staff to provide a focus for your recruitment, campaigning and publicity work.

Plan a recruitment campaign

• Decide on activities for your recruitment campaign which will have a measurable result.
• Make sure there are opportunities for members to participate and support the campaign.
• Decide a timetable for the events you are going to organise.
• Decide how long it will it take to create and assemble the materials you need and assess what the campaign will cost.
• Develop a plan to recruit volunteers.
• Assign responsibilities for different aspects of the campaign.
• Provide departmental representatives with recruitment materials and lists of the members and non-members in their departments.
• Notify departmental representatives of new staff in their departments.

Inform other campus trade unions

• Consider running a collaborative campaign to promote union membership.

Review the campaign

• Review and assess the progress of the campaign at each committee meeting.
• Adjust your plan as necessary to meet your goals.

When the campaign is finished assess what worked and what didn't work.