Peer-to-Peer Recruitment

Peer-to-peer recruitment means troop members — scouts, adult volunteers, and parents — inviting people they already know to try Scouting. This playbook covers the system behind it: how leads get reported, and how the Membership Coordinator follows up.

To tell other people about how peer recruitment works, direct them to the Recruiting Friends page.

Promoting It

Peer-to-peer recruitment only works if members remember to do it. Keep it in front of the troop regularly, not just once a year.

• Tie invitations to upcoming events. Before a fun, low-commitment outing, remind scouts and families that it’s a great one to bring a friend to. A specific invitation works far better than a general one.
• Announce it at troop meetings. A quick reminder from the front of the room, ideally delivered by the Senior Patrol Leader, reaches the scouts directly.
• Remind families by email. Link the Recruiting Friends page and the lead form so parents and adult volunteers can take part too.
• Make sure members have invite materials to hand out.
• Celebrate recruiters publicly. Present Recruiter Strips at Courts of Honor and call out what the scout did. Recognition in front of the troop is the strongest promotion there is.

Invite Materials

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• Printable invite cards and flyers, and where members can get them

Lead Reporting Form

Members report potential recruitment prospects using the Recruiting Leads Form:

Report a Recruiting Lead

The form collects who’s reporting, who the prospect is (scout, adult volunteer, or both), their age or grade, contact info, how the reporter knows them, how interested they seem, and what steps the reporter has already taken.

Responses are collected in a Google Sheet:

Recruiting Leads Responses

The form and its responses sheet are for reporting only. The Membership Coordinator copies each new lead into the recruiting CRM, where it’s tracked from then on.

Getting Notified

Anyone with edit access to the form can turn on email notifications for their own account. The Membership Coordinator should be an editor on the form and have notifications turned on, so no lead sits unnoticed.

1. Open the form in edit mode and go to the Responses tab.
2. Open the ⋮ menu and choose Get email notifications for new responses.

Following Up

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• Who contacts the family, and how soon after the lead comes in
• Coordinating with the reporting member, who already has the relationship
• Inviting the family to a specific upcoming meeting or event
• Tracking each lead’s status in the recruiting CRM

Awarding the Recruiter Strip

A scout earns the Recruiter Strip patch when they make the primary contribution toward inviting someone who ends up joining the troop. When a scout recruits someone, let the Advancement Coordinator know so they can order it for presentation to the scout. This is very important for building a culture of recruitment in the troop and for giving the proper praise to the scouts who take this initiative.