I live in Orlando, home of the largest public university in the state of Florida, UCF. There are approximately 50K students enrolled, and last year we had 2 of them in our YL leadership program. 2!
The previous year we had a large class of students go through new leader training, and that class has become the backbone of our current club leadership teams. So what happened this year?
We met to discuss that and decided that we just did a poor job of getting out to the UCF campus. We had very little presence, especially during the crucial summer session & the first week of school in August. But, why focus on the past? We’ve got our work cut out for us this year and we’re heading into it the the goal of not so much recruiting leaders, but getting out to the campus and meeting college kids, building relationships with them, and discipling them. Hopefully some of those friendships result in more leaders coming on board.
We are wasting no time getting to know some of them. In fact, we started our efforts by using Facebook to connect with Seniors across the state who are interested in having a connection to Young Life when they get to their colleges. I created a group in Facebook called “I’m going to college in Florida & want to do Young Life.” As of this morning, we have 118 students (and current YL staff) who are members of the group. Several things have happened as a result.
- The leaders & staff in our state have a common place to go & send kids to when it comes to recruiting.
- We’ve gone where they are. The group hit about 80 within the first 3 days, because kids are on Facebook all the time.
- We’ve been able to become “friends” with the kids who are coming to schools in our area. Though it’s just a virtual connection right now, most of those kids have had person communication with a staff member, who expresses excitement about getting to know them when they get to school.
- Excitement is contagious. I’ve heard my seniors talking about the group. They get to see that Young Life is not just in our area and that there’s a potential for community when they get to their school.
- Momentum has already begun to build.
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1 user commented in " Facebook As A Tool For Leader Recruitment "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI don’t want to be that guy that just comments on everything, and is the only one commenting. If that was the case, then I should probably just start my own blog. Anyway, I think thats great that you are reaching college students that way. One of the biggest reasons I got involved immediatly in college, was because I happened to meet our area director before I went to college and was able to establish that connection and relationship before hand. If area directors can somehow start establishing this connection I think it can only benefit the size of leadership. An interesting trend on college campuses is how many people and ministries and groups and organizations, etc want a piece of the students time. The day you step onto a college campus for orientation you can see how many groups are actively campaigning for one students time. In our culture of what can I get for myself, leadership is something that doesn’t seem to fit that mold. If facebook can help people establish that relationship early, then I feel like that student has more of an opportunity to feel free to do leadership. However, Facebook can not replace the work of the are directors and staff to reach out to that particular college student. Just my thoughts.
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