STEP TWO: Build a Team

Citizen Corps Council Meetings

Citizen Corps Council meetings are a valuable tactic for recruiting volunteers and building a team. Citizen Corps Council meetings allow community members to share their concerns and join together to work for progress. Within the room, you already have all the tools you need to enact change on a local level. Every attendee can contribute time or resources or leadership abilities.

Your council meeting will help you identify your leadership team. The people that are committed enough to come to your council meeting should be considered potential leaders of the initiatives being implemented in their communities.

As a council meeting host, invite people from your social network to participate in a discussion about your community, pressing needs, and potential solutions. Council meetings often engage people new to service and unclear about next steps. Serving with the support of a team will increase the ease and comfort of many new volunteers.

Building community through council meetings is a critical step toward improving individual and community preparedness.

Meeting Basics

Goals

Choose and plan a service project.
Set measurable group and personal goals for your project.
Identify 5 attendees to be leaders.
Plan the next meeting of the leadership team and identify next steps for each leader.
Obtain commitments from all attendees to volunteer on a regular basis in the days and weeks leading up to your service project.

Host Duties

Before

To have 20 people attend, you will need to invite 50. Brainstorm a list of 50 people to invite. Include your friends, family, members of your faith group, colleagues, book club attendees, etc.
Make calls to the 50 people on your list to invite them to your house meeting. Remember that phone calls are much more effective than a mass email.
Post your house meeting on CitizenCorps.gov or Serve.gov and invite local residents interested in volunteering to attend.
Browse CitizenCorps.gov or Serve.gov to see what needs in your community aren’t being met and which organizations you might be able to partner with. Take some preliminary steps to identify local partners already working in the community.
Prepare necessary materials.

During

Be prepared to give a short explanation of why you became involved/what inspired you to serve.
Consider how you most want to serve your community. President Obama has identified four target areas for summer service: health, education, community renewal, and energy and environment. What does your community most need?

After

Thank attendees and get their pledge to serve.
Organize a follow-up volunteer leadership meeting with your new team to take next steps.

Resources

Continue to STEP THREE: Set Goals

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