How to find others who care about an issue

When to use this resource:

• You’re planning or attending an event like a river clean-up or a documentary screening, and you’re looking for tips on getting people to join
• You want to make a change in your community (ban plastic bags, work to get your local school or your house of worship to invest in solar panels), and want to find others to help you
• You just took an action, like writing a letter to your state representative, and you want to get 5 friends to do the same

Outline of resource: 

1. Look around! 
2. Connect through organizations
3. Be easy to find online 
4. Be easy to find in real life
5. Make some announcements
6. Conversations in public 

Key points: 

• Start with what you know and expand from there 
• Use your purpose or ‘ask’ to determine who you should talk to

Once you’ve identified all the places where you might find interested people, you can use this resource for assistance on how to ask someone to join you. 

1. Look Around! 

The best way to get people involved in the thing you care about is to talk to people you already know about it. Think about your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, people you know from church or hobby groups, etc. Chances are, at least some of them share your concerns or interests, and would get involved if you asked them! 

To decide who to approach, think about what you’re trying to accomplish and cast a wide net, but be thoughtful about which direction you’re throwing your net. If you’re trying to recruit volunteers to clean up your neighborhood park in Dayton, Ohio, you probably won’t reach out to your uncle in Fresno for that. But the people next door, in your running club, your kid’s friend’s parents? Go for it! 

And if you’re thinking, that seems awkward, I can’t just ask them to do this random thing – put yourselves in their shoes and think about why they’d want to do it. You are doing it because you think it’s cool, important, or meaningful, and they might feel the same way. For more help on how to start these conversations, here’s a resource on getting friends to take action. 

2. Connect Through Organizations

One efficient way to expand your reach beyond your own circles is to think about organizations that already exist whose members might be into what you’re doing. 

Some examples: Let’s say you’re trying to get your kid’s school to offer better after-school programs. Who can help you do that? Some obvious answers are other parents and teachers at the school. But there are others who might care and be able to do something to support you. That’s a much more expansive group: alumni of the school district, teachers at other schools in the district, teachers in other districts that have implemented similar programs, non-parent residents in your town, education and childhood development advocates from around the area, and more. Think through the different groups of people who might have an interest in this issue and what organizations or affiliations those people might already have.

Start with any groups you already know of, and if that’s not enough to reach the people you need, search for others that likely contain the kinds of people you’re looking for. With the example above, you could seek out PTAs, neighborhood associations, educational or advocacy groups working on education, informal groups on social media (ex: “residents of [TOWN]” or “parents of”/”alumni of [SCHOOL]” groups on Facebook). Build a list of groups you find, links to their websites or social media pages, and how to contact them. Here’s a template of how to track that information to make it as easy as possible to use. 

3. Be Easy to Find Online 

You have the initiative to start something new on your own, but you can make it easier for others to make an impact by helping them join up with what you’re already doing! So make it easy for people to find you: 

• Set up social media for your project 
• Post about it from your own social media accounts
• Make a simple website. 

4. Be Easy to Find In Real Life 

Being visible and searchable online is an easy starting point, but being visible in real life is key too. Make a flier and hang it around town – on bulletin boards, in windows at your home/office, in bathroom stalls in public places, on telephone poles, etc. Ask your friends and current supporters all to do the same. 

You can get creative too! Think about who would be interested in what you’re working on and where those people are, and what will help them see you. If you’re organizing a neighborhood project and want to ensure everyone who lives near you knows about it, you might do big chalk writing in your driveway as a sign to passersby. Or, maybe you talk to the people whose houses are at the intersections leading into your neighborhood, and arrange to put up a big sign in their yard for maximum visibility as people drive by. 

If you’re organizing a project where your audience is more geographically dispersed, some of this in-person work might be a little more difficult, and you might get more bang for your buck using online forums for outreach. But distance shouldn’t stop you! You can drive to another town and put up flyers there. You can find a few core supporters online and have everybody put up flyers/signs in their own towns. If you’ve got a budget, you can order professionally printed window signs and ship them to the houses of supporters around the state/country. Where there’s a will, there’s a way – decide what you need to do to be successful, and think up creative ways to get around any obstacles you face! 

5. Make Some Announcements 

You can also harness the efficiency of group outreach without needing to rely on others to do the work for you. Think about where the people you need would gather: clubs or classes at school, meetings or events hosted by community organizations or faith institutions, casual get-togethers with friends or colleagues. If you think the people assembled there would be receptive to what you’re working on, they’ll likely be happy to hear from you about your project for a couple minutes. Identify the person in charge (the teacher, faith leader, person hosting the party, etc) and ask if you can say a few words at the start of the gathering about your project. 

6. Conversations in Public  

Activists might call this tabling, clipboarding, petitioning, street canvassing… whatever you call it, this involves setting yourself up in a public place, smiling and waving, and asking to talk to people about what you’re working on. This can be bare bones with just you, a clipboard, and some flyers about your project; or you can make a splash with a table banner, big signs, fun props, and other volunteers there to help you reach more people. 

Here are some tips for successful tabling: 

• Choose a good location: Someplace with lots of foot traffic, where people in your target audience are likely to frequent. Some classic spots include farmers markets, a popular public park, at the quad of your local college campus, etc. 
• Set up for success: Have some resources – fliers you can hand out, a petition sheet or volunteer interest form, a couple pens, and something visible. Help interested passersby know they should stop for you with a big sign, t-shirt, or very easy-to-read flier taped to the back of your clipboard.
• Have a good ‘hook’: Start off with a quick, simple question that will get people interested. Focus on the aspect of the issue that’s easiest to understand and appealing to the most people. (Ex: “Can you help us save the whales?” is better than “Do you support the use of ropeless fishing gear to protect whales from entanglement?”)
• Be friendly: Smile, wave, and ask EVERYONE to get involved (you never know who could be interested, unless you ask them)!