Recruiting Participants for a

Short-Term Travel Seminar

Congratulations on making the decision to sponsor a trip through the Center for Global Education at Augsburg College!  Along with the excitement of planning the program, it may also be important to start now with making sure that you can recruit a sufficient number of participants in order to make the trip successful.  Following are some guidelines and tips to help make you more successful in your efforts.

Our experience over 25-years indicates that most sponsors over-estimate the number of people who will actually sign-up for a travel seminar. Even if you have a lot of initial interest, this may not automatically result in registered participants.   If this is your first time sponsoring a program or your group doesn’t have a history of doing trips like this, then you may need to work extra hard to achieve your budgeted enrollment.

Develop a Promotional Plan with a Timeline.  Think through the options and develop a promotional plan with a timeline for your recruiting tasks. Check your timeline often and make sure you stick to it! Here are two samples of check lists that sponsors can use to stay on track, College Trip and Community Organization Trip.

• Start Early!  A one-year lead time is best; six months is too little.

• Form a Recruitment Committee.  This spreads out the work, can generate more ideas, offers access to more personal networks of contacts, and gives ownership of the trip to several people.  Brainstorm with others ways to get the word out:  events, organizations, key leadership people, newsletters, churches (announcements and church bulletins), and speaking opportunities.

• Repeated Exposure.  With each group you identify, use several means of promotion: put articles in newsletters or newspapers, make announcements at gatherings, put-up posters, have a literature table at events, etc. 

• Know Your Audience.  They need the time and resources to make the trip.  Are there scholarships available for those with limited resources?

• Timing/Deadlines.  Give people deadlines. The earlier the deadline, the sooner you’ll have committed participants. Plan ahead for busy times when you won’t be able to devote as much time to promotion.

• Sample press release. A  press release can be submitted to community newspaper, travel section of a larger local newspaper, newsletter or newspaper affiliated with the organization.

• Poster. Create your own simple poster to promote your trip on college campuses, in churches and other community organizations, at coffee shops, book stores, and anywhere else you think there may be an interested audience!

Make One-To-One Contact.  Personal contact is far more effective than mass appeal; avoid relying solely on mailings. This may be your most important strategy.

• Call or Write.  Contact a number of friends, constituents, colleagues, and/or students well in advance to offer them the first chance to participate.  Then ask them to help spread the word.  Ask each registering participant to invite others to join them.

• Invite Participation.  Rather than just announcing the trip, invite participation from representatives of special committees, task groups and organizations working toward the goals of your trip (e.g. your church's hunger task group or social justice committee).  This can encourage a larger group to take interest in the trip and support continued work after the travel seminar is over

• Talk, talk, talk! Wherever people are gathered, whenever possible, talk about the travel seminar. Be enthusiastic and confident.

• Track All People Who Have Expressed Interest.  If you don’t hear from someone after an initial discussion, follow-up. If they live in your area, set up a meeting to discuss and answer questions in-person.

• Follow-Up with All Contacts Promptly!  In addition to keeping in touch with interested individuals, follow-up phone calls and letters can make an important difference in recruiting, especially if done quickly! If someone has a question about the trip that you are unable to answer, refer her/him to the Center for Global Education (612/330-1159 or 800/299-8889) and someone will be happy to address her/his concerns.

Free Publicity.

• Newspapers may offer free publicity for your trip. A simple announcement could be included in a calendar listing, travel section, community news, etc.  You can also think about a longer article with a more newsworthy aspect (i.e., how the leader was affected by a previous trip so now is sponsoring his/her own).  You will need to call them or provide a press release in order for them to run the story/announcement.  You may want to provide a photo taken in the country that the trip will visit. 

• Electronic marketing – are you or members of your recruitment committee part of an online community that may have interest in the theme or location of the trip?  If so, consider posting a message about it and including a link to the brochure from your website or the CGE website.  Are there websites that may be willing to list the trip and link to a copy of the brochure?

Information Session – Information sessions can give people a chance to meet with you to learn more about the trip and ask you questions.  You may want to put together a simple presentation for the information session.  Power Point presentations can be easily done and can especially be effective if you include pictures from a previous trip.  Feel free to copy anything from the Center for Global Education’s website that you think may be of interest to your group, such as photos, sample activities, educational philosophy, mission statement, etc.  You may also request a copy of “Lessons From a Distant Road,”   the Center’s 16-minute promotional video tape about international travel seminars. Feel free to refer any questions you can’t answer to the Center’s staff.  Serving refreshments can always be a draw.

Contacting your Sphere of Influence

Think about everyone who may have an interest in your program and think about ways to reach them. Some ideas:

• Family – let your family members know what you’re doing and ask them to tell people they know who they think would be interested

• Community – let your local community know via the newspaper (calendar announcements or feature stories), radio interviews or public service announcements, leaving brochures or posting posters in community gathering areas (coffeeshops, recreational/community centers)

• Institution – make sure that you contact as many people as you can in your own institution.  Think about newsletters, email announcements, listing it on the web site, information sessions, etc.  See specific ideas for colleges/universities/seminaries and churches.

• Denomination – if you or your institution is part of a particular religious denomination, consider letting others know through a newsletter, bulletin announcements, and contacting others on the city, regional, and national level

• Theme – think about what other kinds of groups may be interested in the themes you’ll be studying (ie, women’s groups, indigenous communities, Latino/a organizations) and how you can reach out to them through letters, emails, personal contacts, etc.

Diversity within group

The Center for Global Education strives to create for its participants an intentionally diverse community of co-learners in which a variety of cultures and backgrounds is represented. Students, faculty, and staff help each other form responses to issues of oppression such as: racism, sexism, homophobia, economic inequality, xenophobia, and classism, in an environment where diversity expands the range of understanding.

An important aspect of your travel seminar will be the reflections on what you are experiencing and the living/learning community that you are creating.  We have found that the learning is enriched with the more diverse group you have.  We encourage you to think about ways in which you can try to recruit a group that better reflects the community/nation from which you are sponsoring the trip.  You may want to think of ways that your group can fundraise to help lower income people participate or partner with organizations/groups that will help provide more diversity from your group.  The Center for Global Education does have several small scholarship funds to assist the participation of diverse participants; however, you should not rely on these funds as a sole source of support.  Students may be surprised to learn that financial aid is available to them for programs. You may be able to get support for participants from churches, community organizations such as the Rotary or Lions Clubs, and tribal members may be able to get support from their tribe/band.    

For Colleges, Universities, Seminaries

If you are offering a travel seminar as a course don’t limit your promotion to students.  Staff and faculty at the school may be interested and may have access to staff development funds. Alumni may also be interested, as well as community members from your surrounding area. Some faculty have used student workers to help with recruitment efforts.

• Majors/minors - if the program is for credit choose a course that fulfills a major or minor requirement and thus will draw from a large pool of students or select a program that meets a core requirement.  Send emails to students in those majors/minors.

• Affiliated schools - advertise to students at other member schools in your consortium.

• Study Abroad - coordinate with your college/universities Study Abroad or International Programs Office.

• Articles/announcements - write articles and place announcements in the campus newspaper, departmental newsletters, and on web pages

• Set-up an information table in the student center

• Host information sessions showing photos of the area your group will visit

• Conduct class visits and announcements – go yourself and ask colleagues to make announcements

• Consider non-traditional departments - students in areas of study that don’t traditionally participate in study abroad (hard sciences, etc.) can be a great audience for short-term programs.  Stress that this is an opportunity to go abroad that doesn’t require a whole semester

• Student organizations - contact and coordinate with appropriate student organizations and clubs, going to their meetings and making presentations.

• Student advisors - contact departments that serve special student populations, such as minority, GLBT, learning-disabled, and encourage them to consider your program.

See sample poster .

For Religious Organizations

If your group is religiously affiliated, seek out clergy to assist you. Urge them to consider joining the travel seminar themselves. Many churches and synagogues have funds allotted for the professional development of their clergy and staff. Ask them to encourage members of their congregations to join as well.

If you are arranging a trip for a specific church district, synod, presbytery, etc., contact the church leadership for that region (the bishop, presiding minister, etc.) to get approval and support. Ask this person to mention it at annual conventions and other events. Try to get a trip brochure into a direct mailing to all clergy in your region, and ask that they promote it among their parishioners.  Include posters, sample newsletter announcements, a schedule for information sessions, and other things that can make it easier for them to help you.

Contact offices at your church headquarters about the trip (hunger programs, women’s organizations, offices for social ministry of world mission, etc.). Ask them what vehicles are available to help publicize the travel seminar.

Sample promotional plan

Audience:_______________________

 

Look here for more detailed information about each region in which we work:
	Customize a travel seminar to Bolivia
	Customize a travel seminar to Mexico
	Customize a travel seminar to Central America
	Customize a travel seminar to Southern Africa
	Customize a travel seminar to Vietnam