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Creating Grassroots Movements for Change: A Field Manual

Chapter 3: Recruiting

Your movement is poised to take off, but the way you spread your message will have a huge impact on the extent to which it reaches potential members. Remember: A grassroots movement depends on the power of many. The more members you can recruit, the stronger you become.

To effectively grow your membership, you will need:

• A computer with internet access
• One or more group profiles on social-networking sites
• Friends and contacts
• An email address
• A mobile phone

These steps will ensure your message is spread far and wide:

Step 1: Get your friends on board. Approach people you know first. Invite everyone you’re already friends with on the social-networking sites you’re using; if you’ve just joined and aren’t already linked to friends, seek out family members, childhood friends, classmates, coworkers, and any other acquaintances who know you by name. Not only are they likely to join your group—after all, they probably know about your dedication to this cause and will take the invitation seriously—their membership will help legitimize your movement.

Tip 1: Consider talking to or sending personalized messages to these initial contacts, especially if they don’t know you well enough to know of your dedication to this cause.

Step 2. Grow by referral. Ask every new member to invite all their friends to join the group. Support creates attention, and attention creates more support in a snowball effect; the faster you’re able to grow your membership, the more willing and excited people will be to join and invite their friends.

Tip 2: Sites like Facebook and MySpace have news feeds that alert site users when their friends join a new group. So the faster your numbers grow, the more users will notice your name, visit your group out of curiosity—and hopefully join out of conviction.

Step 3. Take advantage of existing groups. Make contact with other groups that have a similar mission or would be sympathetic to your cause. Ask the creators or administrators of online communities and blogs to advertise your group by posting links, notices, and invitations in solidarity with your mission.

Step 4. Contribute to discussion forums. Search for discussion forums on sites like Google Groups and Yahoo Groups that relate to your region or cause—anywhere your target audience might frequent—and post short, powerful messages about the injustice your group addresses and links to your group.

Step 5. Use video platforms. If videos exist that document the problems you’re fighting or that highlight your movement, take advantage of video platforms like YouTube, Howcast, MySpace, Dailymotion, and Metacafe to drive viewers to your group. You can also upload your own videos to these sites.

Step 6. Send mass emails. Collect and organize a database of email addresses from members, friendly organizations, and other contacts who might be interested in your cause. Send them a plea that’s concise and includes links to your group online as well as any supporting material, like articles or videos that illustrate why they should care.

Tip 3: Don’t spam—you’ll lose credibility and members. Maintain excellent organization of your database, refrain from sending messages too frequently, and allow recipients a way to easily and effectively remove themselves, or "unsubscribe," from your list.

Step 7. Encourage member marketing. Some of your members will likely have an interest in helping to spread the word and attract a larger audience. Include information on your site about how they could help by starting their own blogs on the topic, creating an email signature that directs recipients to your group, and referencing the group in their personal social network profiles and status updates.

Step 8. Search engine optimize. Put some effort into search engine optimization so that your web site will be easily found by search engines like Google. Use the most important keywords to your cause on your site frequently, and code them into your HTML. Request other sites to link to you, and ensure that your site pages are indexed, or able to be crawled, by visiting search engine directories, such as Google Webmaster Tools, and submitting a feed.

Step 9. Advertise. If you have the funds and the freedom, consider advertising online or off. Facebook’s and Google's advertising services allow clients to target by keywords, which could help put your group in front of interested users. A less expensive option is to hand out flyers or pamphlets at populated public spaces or events.

Step 10. Be compelling. Above all else, be passionate about your cause and honest about your group’s motives and goals. Members will be attracted to your dedication and clarity of vision.

Did you know: As of 2008, the Save Darfur Coalition had more than one million members of its Facebook cause, one million names on its email list, 43,500 MySpace friends, and 26,000 web site members. Visit the Save Darfur Coalition at http://www.savedarfur.org/

Case study: Genocide Intervention Network, a movement founded to provide a systematic response to the recurring problem of genocide, began as the idea of some American college students. They built a web site and Facebook and MySpace groups, and then recruited volunteer student outreach coordinators. These coordinators were charged with contacting and working with existing Darfur groups on high school and college campuses nationwide, as well as creating new chapters, which they did via email, posts on student activities boards, and phone calls. Visit Genocide Intervention Network at http://www.genocideintervention.net/

Case study: Fight-Back, a group launched in India to resist gender violence around the globe, aims to engage people “where they live, work, and play.” To that end, they hung posters around colleges, media outlets, advertising agencies, and apartment buildings; their TV commercials ran in a number of coffee shops and restaurants throughout India; and their specially-designed wallet cards were distributed outside women’s restrooms in train stations and at a series of popular rock concerts. Visit Fight-Back at http://www.fight-back.net/

To edit this chapter, visit the Howcast wiki guide at http://www.howcast.com/guides/2449-How-To-Create-Grassroots-Movements-For-Change-3-Recruiting

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