Recruiting Resources - District/Council

Top Resources

Printing assistance - contact our District Executive for assistance in printing your unit's fliers.

Update your BeAScout.org Unit Pin - Contact your Unit Commissioner or District Commissioner for help in updating your unit pin. You can also follow this online guide from BSA.

Golden Gate Area Council - Race to 4000 Recruitment Resources  - Check out our Council's dedicated page to recruitment resources for more information, including membership plans, how-to guides, a fee breakdown and more. Step-by-step guide to preparing and executing a world-class recruitment effort!

Recruiting Top Tips

Advertising your Join Night:

The private schools in San Francisco have generally been more amenable to letting scouts advertise during Back to School nights, during morning drop-off, and afternoon pick-up. Let us know if you're working with one of the schools in our District so we don't duplicate our outreach efforts.

Also think about dropping your fliers at places other than schools: pediatrician's offices, pediatric dentist offices, churches, after school clubs, libraries, etc. -- think about all of the places that you, as a parent, find yourself waiting and find a way to put a flier there!

You can also advertise your Join Night on Facebook. Contact our District Communications Chair with the details of your event (date, time, location, description and a photo to use -- preferably including your unit number in the description and photo) and we can create an Event on our District Facebook Page for your Join night.

Last, we suggest creating a post and/or event on Nextdoor. If you have parents in different neighborhoods across the District, you can have them post in their own neighborhoods as well. Get the word out!

Join Night Tips:

• Wear your Class B shirts, rather than Field Uniform, to be more approachable to new prospective scouts and parents

• Ensure that every prospective family meets at least one unit leader on Join Night

• Do your 'Back to the Unit' meeting (i.e. first Pack, Troop, or Ship meeting) on a different night than Join Night, so that Join Night is focused exclusively on prospective families

• Make sure a unit event (hike, campout, service project, etc.) is scheduled a few weeks after Join Night so that prospective families have another opportunity to see scouting in action

Your Best Recruiters:  Are your scouts themselves! Enlist their help with tools like the "Bring a Friend" card and celebrating scouts who earn the Recruiter strip. 

Respond to Leads from My.Scouting/BeAScout in a timely fashion: Yes, a baffling number of these Leads never respond to unit outreach -- but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try! Be sure to get back to any new Leads that come in within 48 hours. Recommend you send:

• Link to your unit website

• Personal invitation to meet you (include your name) at the next unit event, and provide details on the when/where of that event

• Phone number and email address to continue the conversation

• If you have qualifying questions for new members, this is a good time/place to ask them!

Ensure your website is updated: An outsize number of new scout families report checking out a unit's website long before deciding to attend the Join Night or first unit meeting. Make sure your website reflects the excitement and energy of your unit -- feature recent events, photos of scouts having fun and a list of upcoming/annual events. Consider having older youth help start an Instagram or Facebook account as well or share photos of your events with the district Communications Chair to get more information about your troop out there.

You're recruiting for adults as well: Have information handy about open adult volunteer roles in your unit. If a prospective family comes up to you and asks how they can help, be sure to have an answer ready to go!