Tips for Leaders

Is Your Organization, Volunteer Group or Committee Having a Hard Time Getting New Leaders Involved?

Ask the question: "Who's Not Here?"
In order to answer this question, members of a community group have to understand the composition of their community. What groups or individuals should be involved in order to have a truly representative community organization? Which groups are missing from the organization (or the meeting or the project)?

Understanding the make-up of the community helps in analyzing the leadership pool so that certain segments of the community can be targeted for specific recruiting efforts.

This can also be considered as an "insurance policy" for a community action project since making sure that the group is inclusive is the best way to build in cooperation and ownership from the beginning.

Answering this question assumes, of course, that efforts will be made to involve those not present, as a way of making sure that all parts of the community are well represented.

This is idea number one from the Heartland Center's "10 Ideas for Recruiting New Leaders," which is in what we call our "Number Series," geared as a short synthesis of ideas from practice and research in rural and community development. To purchase 10 Ideas or any of our books, please visit our publications page.