Welcome to the North Carolina Student Climate Coalition Power Shift 2009 resource planning guide.  Below you can find: 

• Powershift Campus Coordinator job description located HeRe  
• Best Practices Power Shift Coordinator Recruitment guide
• You can view and use the Power Shift Planning Template HeRe
• Info on how to get involved in the planning committees 

Best Practices

Power Shift Coordinator Recruitment

 

This best practices sheet has been compiled so as to help those who seek to develop their recruitment skills for Powershift and beyond. The statements made are suggestions only. Individuality and testing different strategies in approaching potential recruiters or volunteers is always encouraged!

Steps:

• Identify Potential Leaders
• Get a Commitment
• Develop clear next steps

Identifying potential leaders:

Before asking someone to commit to something that you are involved in, you should always learn some about the potential volunteers experience. This not only builds the relationship between you and that person, but it makes sure we are being inclusive and helping each other grow in our endeavors and abilities to effectively collaborate.

Investigating Interest:

-Assess Skill / Experience Level - Ask them questions that will allude to what their experience has been and what they are interested in doing with their activism.

-Providing context for the position-  See Powershift recruiter job description for full context and  see example questions below

 

 

     -Why is the position important?

 

 

     -How does this position tie into the person's interests?

 

 

     -Why is he/she well suited for the position?

 

 

     -What will the person gain from taking on this role?

 

Getting a Commitment The end result of a good conversation with a potential  Powershift recruiter or volunteer  should be that a clear ask has been made and next steps have been established, including a scheduled re-check in with that person at an agreed upon time to check in with each other. Its not only peer accountability, but a chance to talk to a peer about how your respective recruitment efforts are going and help each other over come obstacles.

  

Make a clear ask:

 

-set up clear expectations

 

 -Develop clear next steps

 *We do a great job learning from one another and when you do recruit a coordinator if possible you want to set up a chance to talk to them about recruitment best practices to reinforce with Recruitment on campus. We want to be a resource for each other and see as many students as possible go to Powershift this year, that can mean having to help each other along when encountering adversities, especially early on when there may be only one or two persons on that campus  working together on getting the initiative off the ground.

A good resource for helpung lead students through early recruitment is the

Power Vote Toolkit which can be found at http://www.powervote.org/organize/resources (pages 51 - 55 are most helpful regarding recruitment).

Leader Identification

Skills Assessment/Experience and Interest Level

Explanation of “Job Description”

 

How are we identifying leaders?

Tips: Look at leaders that are already recognized and excited about Power Shift

          Have One-on-one conversation to assess their skills and interests

          Conference call for announcements and to put it out there. But Do one on one for

          Commitment.

Pitfall: using the same leaders over and over. Do not automatically make Power Vote Coordinator, the PS ’09 recruitment coordinator. 

What are we doing now to assess skill, interest, and experience level?

• Using Power Vote follow up and debrief to understand abilities and interest and to frame asks for PS Coordinators
• Be sure to identify what support they will need from you and other leaders to be successful.
• How do we do this with people we have never worked with? Ask direct questions about their past experience with specific skill sets like event planning. Example:Why they are interested or excited about Power Shift?
• Identify Skill sets that they want to develop through talk about their major and their future plans, but do not pigeon hole them. Ex: don’t assume a PR major wants to do media work. Ask that person if he/she would be interested
• Q’s to identify interest level: What are you most excited about PS? What do you hope to get out of this semester? Discover their passions and how they see themselves in relation to other students and how they choose to set themselves apart from others? How to use their passion of frustration, channeling it into holding admin or officials accountable.? Find out what other groups they are involved in to determine interests, passions, social network and capacity.

Pitfalls:

• Don’t go back to Power Vote leaders, bring in new ones. The PV leaders can still do PS recruitment, but we need to develop new leaders.
• Don’t assume that person is only interested in their major, flesh out what their professional and personal interests are.

Putting in all in context:

• Connect,
• Context (why is it important, what will they gain),
• Commitment
• Catapult

 

Why is the position important?

• How does this position tie into the person's interests?
  • Movement Building,
  • Revolution (be sure the language you use matches their interest, don’t scare them with “revolutions,” they may be intimidated by that language.
•  Context:
  • We’ve done this once and now we want to do it again and make it bigger!! Lobbying our new Administration is crucial right now. We need to show them that young people are not forgetting about these issues and to keep the energy and momentum high.
  • How to mobilize people? Being visible, getting out and talking to people, in person and over phone outreach, outreach to other group on campus, like ones you are already involved with. Talk to Profs and people on campus.
  • Be specific with ask!
  • Stress importance of position in recruiting people from this campus to PS, lay it out, why is it important, why leader would be good for the position.
  • Why is he/she well suited for the position?
  • What will the person gain from taking on this role?

 

• Getting a Commitment
  • Make a clear ask—give them or tell them the specific description of the position, outline tasks (calls, planning, goal development, logistics-travel, fundraising, housing, main contact for EAC and SEN…be specific and direct about all that the position will entail.
  • We do not want people to feel overwhelmed as they did with Power Vote, many students did not know what they were committing to, we do NOT want that to happen again!)
  • So, be direct and specific and be sure the leaders know what we are expecting of them before we get a commitment. Some may not be able to commit to the workload or we may need to get co-coordinators to divide the work.
  • Be sure that everyone in the spreadsheet knows that they will be called.

 

• Set up Clear expectations/Set goals

 

• Developing Clear Next Steps
  • Everything does not all have to be done in the same call.
  • Just be sure to include next steps, be sure to give them the job description and set up next call.
  • Set up time to do goal setting, planning, and clear timeline for outreach and logistics of campaign.
  • Another next step would be to identify other leaders.

 

            We should try to work to make sure they have ownership in the campaign and the goal. A campaign is no fun if there is no ownership!

 

 

 

How to join:

All calls are open to anyone who wants to join, however we are asking for individuals who can make a COMMITMENT to

regular

participation.  If you can participate regularly in the call time listed below for the sub-committee you are interested in contributing to,

please complete this QUICK form.

 

 

SUB-COMMITTEE CALL TIMES & CONTACT INFO.:

(NOTE: Call times may vary or be postponed during the week of the election.  Contact the co-chairs directly for call information, or they will be in touch with you if you complete the above form).

Agenda & Program Sub-Committee:

Co-Chairs

: 

 

Kari Fulton (Staff), 202-210-1766,

karifulton85@gmail.com

Rachel Guillory (Student), 985-768-8997,

rachelleighguillory@gmail.com

Call Time

: Sunday, 8pm Eastern

Outreach & Recruitment Sub-Committee:

Co-Chairs

: 

 

Jolea Bryant (Staff), 404-312-2860,

BryantJ@nwf.org

Caroline Henderson (Student), 603-355-7039,

chenderson07@gmail.com

Call Time

: Tuesday, 2pm Eastern

Media & Communications Sub-Committee:

Co-Chairs

: 

 

Tommaso Boggia (Staff), 202-478-6322,

tboggia@americanprogress.com

James Liao (Student), 202-841-8033,

ebrealm@gmail.com

Call Time

: Tuesday, 5pm Eastern (next call, due to election Friday, Nov. 7th at noon Eastern)

March 2nd (Lobby Day, Rally, Actions, etc.) Sub-Committee:

Co-Chairs

: 

 

Christine Irvine (Staff), 704-813-3361,

christinem.irvine@gmail.com

Aaron French (Student), 402-990-4170, 

french.aaron@gmail.com

Call Time

: Tuesday, 3pm Eastern

Fundraising Sub-Committee:

Co-Chairs

: 

 

Liz Veazey (Staff), 865-637-6055 x17 (work),

liz.veazey@gmail.com

Gabrielle Arrington (Student), 404-245-1988,

garrington2@gmail.com

Call Time

: Tuesday, 2pm Eastern