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District-wide recruitment support

We work better when we work together. Bring your District together to find more volunteers so that everyone benefits.

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What is District-wide recruitment?

Are your Groups locally creating their own flyers, contacting the same university or competing for attention on social media?

District-wide recruitment is the idea that Groups shouldn't be working alone to try and bring new adults through the door, but instead be working together, with support from their District, to grow.

How can this approach benefit you?

For Scouts to thrive, we need to work together. When it comes to volunteer recruitment, that's no different and there are many benefits.
 
By working on this together, we can:
 
  • Support the Groups who need more volunteers but don't have the time or ability to find them
  • Save time by avoiding unnecessary duplication
  • Increase our reach for new volunteers
  • Fairly distribute volunteers across Groups
  • Strengthen collaboration between Groups
  • Create a professional and impactful vision of Scouts in the community

What can you do?

Sit down with your Team and get on paper:

  • How you can support your Groups with recruitment
  • What you can do as a District to recruit volunteers
  • Who will be taking on each task
  • When each task will be reviewed

To help you build your plan, use the District-wide recruitment task matrix. In there you'll find tasks that are broken down into four categories:

  • Community connection
  • Events
  • Internal communication
  • Resource creation

Each category contains plenty of ideas to get you going and are all designed, via extensive research, to create the best environment for volunteer recruitment.

Use the task matrix

Ready to welcome new volunteers?

Lets say things go well (which they will!). Now you have lots of new volunteers wanting to join different Groups across the District - can you handle them?

Before starting volunteer recruitment in this way, you'll need to have a few things sorted first. Go through the list below:

Have someone who can focus on it.

Call them what you want, a "Growth Coordinator", "Recruitment Guru" or "Volunteer Recruiter", but whoever they are, add them to your Volunteering Development Team and support them in creating a plan of action.

A crucial part of the joining journey for a brand new volunteer is the Welcome Conversation. This is your opportunity to find them the right place, make sure they're comfortable with what they're agreeing to and kick their volunteer journey at the Scouts off in a really positive way.

Does your District have a process in place for organising these?

It could be as simple as a group chat to connect Group Lead Volunteers and Welcome Conversation accredited volunteers. Or it might be easier to have a coordinator who finds the right people for the job.

However you work it, you need a smooth process in place so that when a new adult joins, their Lead Volunteer can organise a Welcome Conversation as easily as possible.

Make it clear to everyone what your local process is for getting criminal record checks done.

Is this up to the Groups to sort? Or do you have a District team that deals with them?

Whatever it is, put your process into a document and share it so everyone who needs to know, is in the know.

When you have people approaching you to join a Group, you need to be ready to handle them.

Have your growth lead, or Volunteering Development Team, prepped to answer enquiries quickly, get the right information from them and find the best fit for each individual.

Creating a document to outline who does what is going to be really useful here. Write it, share it and review it regularly to make sure it's working for you.

There are many other aspects to the joining journey that Groups need to be aware of and ready for so a new volunteer has a smooth start to their time in Scouts. This includes:

  • Adding a new volunteer to the membership system
  • Declarations
  • Growing Roots learning
  • First Response learning
  • References

Signpost your Groups to the Joining Journey pages so they can understand the process.

Growth support for all

Whether it's at Group, District or County-level, we have plenty of support and ideas for growth:

Create a plan
Recruit volunteers
Advertise your opportunities
Join a recruitment webinar

 

Bring the District together

Help your District to work closer by bringing them together:

Don't rely on a single communication channel. Use a mix- email, WhatsApp, Facebook, newsletters & face-to-face meetings to reach different audiences and strengthen connections. 

Bring volunteers together through informal events and activities. Strong relationships across the district create a supportive network, encourage collaboration, and strengthen volunteer engagement.

Ideas include BBQs, Scout 'skills training' socials, campfires, and volunteer appreciation evenings.

Have a District development planning session. A clear plan helps maximise impact across the district!

Encourage groups to share ideas, resources and successes with each other. Working together helps create a strong district, where everyone benefits from knoledge, experience & support.

This could include;
Joint camps between groups
Leaders visiting other sections to run activities or gain knoledge
Shared programme planning
Pair groups for joint sessions
District wide events- Hikes, activity days

The District is there to support and work alongside every Group. This means being visible, visiting Groups, and providing practical advice and guidance. These visits create opportunities to share news, promote upcoming opportunities, and better understand the needs of local volunteers.

Being accessible is just as important as being present. Volunteers should know who their District team is and how to contact them.

Consider whether team photos are available so volunteers can easily recognise District volunteers, and ensure contact details are clear, up to date, and easy to find. Building familiarity and strong connections helps create a more supportive and collaborative Scouting community.

 

 

Don't forget your finances!

You can do a lot for free but to really boost your chances of finding new volunteers, you might need to spend some money. This could be on:

  • Printing flyers
  • Buying banners
  • Running a paid ad campaign
  • Getting freebies for a community event!

If you need financial support for this, you could try speaking to your County or have a look at our grants and funds pages.

 

Extra ideas

There are plenty more ideas and resources that will help you and your District to find new volunteers. Take a look at some below: