Why a volunteer recruitment campaign?

In 2023, in response to feedback from our members in our Together we inspire surveys, we created and launched our volunteer recruitment campaign, Pass it on. Members asked for more support and focus on recruiting volunteers to ease the burden of administration pressures and build resilience at local levels and throughout the organisation.

We joined forces with an external agency, Creativity Unbound, to develop a campaign that would help us recruit volunteers, raise brand awareness, and cherish our existing members, reminding them that they are awesome.

You’re awesome… Pass it on!

Our aim has been to build brand awareness for modern Girlguiding across Anglia, reminding people that Girlguiding is still going strong, and to support the local ask for volunteers in our counties across Anglia.

Launch day

On 8 May 2023, we launched our Pass it on campaign with a big fundraising event at The Forum, Norwich. 50 volunteers courageously took the plunge and abseiled from the top of The Forum, whilst others sang campfire songs, sold cakes, and helped spread the word about Girlguiding.

We were thrilled to have been joined by our team from Hautbois Activity Centre who led midi-fencing and soft archery, our retail team supported visitors with merchandise and uniforms, whilst the team from Girlguiding Norfolk’s Archive Resource Centre shared their wonderful history of guiding displays. We were also excited to welcome reporters from the BBC and ITV, who shared coverage of the event, both on screen and over the radio.

The event received an amazing reaction, particularly on Facebook, where our engagement rate soared above all expectations. The event raised over £7000 to support the Pass it on campaign, and it’s delivery at region and local levels. So a massive thank you to everyone who attended, our amazing abseilers who raised so much sponsorship money, and members of the public for getting involved wholeheartedly.

Thanks, must also go to our special guests for their attendance: the Lord Mayor and Sheriff of Norwich, our partners easyfundraising, and children’s presenter and author, Jess French. We were honoured to have you all there supporting us and getting involved in helping us reach more potential awesome volunteers.

Next steps

Following the launch day event, we initiated the next phase of the campaign, including bus and radio campaigns, alongside an online advertising campaign, which began on launch day. We received so many photos of our bus adverts out in the wild across the region – some of them are even still out there today! Our radio campaign was fun, energetic and had a fantastic response from the public, listened all the way through by 93% of listeners, which is amazing! Our online campaign called for new volunteers to join us and share what makes them awesome with the women of the future. The campaign ads that featured on both Facebook and Instagram were viewed 55,758 times and reached 28,000 people!

The all members call

We knew how important it would be to bring our local members onboard with the campaign, so they could utilise the campaign assets and resources to best support that local ask for volunteers in communities across the region. At the start of the campaign, we ran an ‘all members’ call, hosted by our region chief commissioner, Karen Johnson, to introduce the campaign, explain its purpose and let leaders know how they could support the campaign.

The Promote and Grow challenge

We created a Promote and Grow challenge badge for our members, because who doesn’t love a badge? The challenge supports members to help us spread the word about Girlguiding, build brand awareness and take advantage of PR opportunities. The badge is still available and free to claim as long as members complete at least 5 of the suggested activities, and we have now sent out over 730 badges!

Local recruitment packs

We were able to secure some funding to put towards supporting the recruitment campaign at a local level. We invested in unit recruitment packs which contained leaflets and flyers for display in community areas and thank you cards intended for existing volunteers or parent helpers. Nearly 3500 packs were sent out to unit leaders, with a few leaders getting in touch to request additional leaflets to share – there are still top ups available for leaders, just get in touch via hello@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk to claim some!

Website development

To support the Pass it on campaign, we developed new areas of the website to provide more information to volunteer enquirers. During the opening months of our campaign (May and June 2023), our new volunteering webpage was viewed almost 1,000 times. We also made the jump to Google Analytics 4, to ensure we could continue using Google’s analytical functionality in tracking website campaign activity and seeing our return on investment.

The impact

What impact did this first phase have on our volunteer numbers? Well, volunteer joiners in June 2023 were higher than they’d been in the same month for the last 4 years. And our volunteer leavers were lower in June 2023 than in 2019, 2021 and in 2022!

The campaign continues

Phase 1 of our campaign was full on! In the next phase we took a more focused approach, attending freshers’ fairs to target students who could be recruited into our Inspire community of volunteers aged 18-30. With the support of funding from the Uniformed Youth Fund, we went out to Anglia Ruskin University’s campus in Cambridge, and the University of East Anglia. From these events, Girlguiding Cambridgeshire East received 20 enquiries, and Girlguiding Norfolk received 14 enquiries.

We were pleased to join Girlguiding UK in supporting Children in Need in 2023. During November, we took the opportunity to reach out to families with girls on our waiting lists, to ask them if they would like to join in the fun. We got in touch with over 9,500 contacts, sharing our Children in Need activity pack, our spot-kick challenge and links to the volunteer recruitment campaign for parents interested in getting involved in Girlguiding alongside their daughters.

The impact of the campaign was still showing later in the year. Volunteer joiners in September 2023 recovered to pre-pandemic trends and are higher even than they were in 2019. Plus, volunteer leavers are still lower in September 2023 than they have been in the last 5 years.

Pass it on… 2024 – what’s next?

After the momentum we built in 2023, the charity’s trustees were keen to maintain the investment in volunteer recruitment. After presenting results from 2023 and plans for 2024, the communications and growth teams received the full backing from the executive committee to invest in the ongoing campaign. We are delighted to be able to continue the project and to support our regional investment with external funding.

LinkedIn

This year we’ve already undertaken extensive development of our LinkedIn strategy to support reaching new audiences potentially interested in volunteering, organisations implementing volunteering schemes for their employees, and potential partners who can help us bring more amazing opportunities to our volunteers and girls.

Volunteer enquiries

In January, we launched a new enquiry mailout for contacting potential new volunteers, welcoming them to the organisation and signposting them to some excellent resources. We also shared our ‘Welcome to Girlguiding Anglia’ resource which shares all of the amazing opportunities for flexible and regular volunteering available in Girlguiding.

International Women’s Day

On International Women’s Day, we used our campaign to share some shocking statistics brought to light by Girlguiding’s Girls’ Attitudes Survey 2023: 1 in 10 girls believe they’re hardly ever given the same opportunities as boys. Girlguiding provides an incredibly important girl-only safe space for girls to grow, learn and have fun. Using an online campaign across Facebook and Instagram, we called for people to volunteer with Girlguiding Anglia and help us build a more equal world.

The region roadshow

We have great plans for our region roadshow in 2024. We kicked things off with the RSPB at 3 of their reserves across the region: Rainham Marshes in Essex, Minsmere in Suffolk, and The Lodge in Bedfordshire. Deputy chief commissioner, Claire Course, and assistant chief commissioner, Chris Skinner, joined over 260 girls at the reserves to experience the outdoors, have adventures, and promote wellbeing. Our events with the RSPB were followed by a visit to Girlguiding Hertfordshire’s 110^th anniversary event, attended by region chief commissioner, Karen Johnson, and hundreds of girls from across the county.

Coming next

Our new online campaign will be launching soon; if it crosses your Facebook or Instagram feed, please give it a like or a share. We’d love to reach more potential volunteers who can help our members continue the great guiding experience they offer to over 44,000 girls in Anglia.

Website development

We’ll be continuing to review the user experience on our website to support further development in 2024. We’ll be looking at how to bring even more new volunteers in through our website by providing more information about different types of volunteering opportunities for enquiring volunteers. We’ll also be making recruitment assets more accessible for leaders to use for local recruitment.

Waiting lists

Following the success of reaching out to adults of girls on our waiting lists, including Children in Need 2023, Brownies Go Explore 2023 and Super Rainbows 2022, we will be sharing new opportunities for these girls to get involved in 2024, sharing with them our brand new Summer Quest challenge. The challenge will be launching to our full membership in May half term 2024.

The region roadshow

Our next region roadshow event sees us at the Suffolk County Show at the end of May with volunteers from Girlguiding Suffolk. We’ll be attending the Essex and Norwich Pride events this summer, with many other counties supporting Pride in other cities across Anglia. In September and October, we’ll be visiting university campuses to attend freshers’ fairs, highlighting volunteering opportunities to students and reconnecting relocating students with the Girlguiding communities in their new homes. Keep an eye out to see where we’ll be popping up in your county over the coming months.

Volunteers’ Week 2024

Volunteers’ Week 2024 will be the flagship marker for our recruitment campaign this year. We’ve been busy creating a hero video to share across Volunteers’ Week and other waves of the Pass it on campaign. Make sure to keep an eye out for it coming across your social media channels and our website. Don’t forget to give it a like or share to keep the message going.

Hearing from you

We’ll continue keeping you up to date on all our recruitment activities on our social media, website, and newsletter, Signpost. Don’t forget, if you need any support or any resources, get in touch with the region team via hello@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk.

As in our previous plans, our main focus in this next phase will be brand awareness at a regional level and supporting our members’ local recruitment. We’d love to know if there’s anything we can do to support you more with your own local recruitment campaigns. Please get in touch and share your thoughts and needs.

Thank you to all our members for their support and hard work, you’re amazing… Pass it on!