Recruiting new local mods

Recruiting from a group's posting history

1. Glance at the posts on the group, both active and closed, to get an idea of who the active members are.
2. Choose a few active members.
3. Search posts for each member to make sure their posts are consistent with Freecycle guidelines. Broaden your search to include all groups. It's fine to recruit someone who is posting in multiple groups, but the odds are higher that person won't actually live in the group you're trying to recruit for.
4. Check the members' records to see how long they have been in the group. It should be long enough to assure you the person isn't just cleaning out a closet.
5. If there is a Lead Mod on the group, solicit feedback about the potential recruits.
6. Contact the GOA to see if they have a clean record.
7. Send an invite out to the members that made it through the screening process. Click here for sample recruiting letters, or feel free to write your own.

Recruiting from a moderated post

Whenever a post comes in for moderation, you have that member's posting history already in front of you. This gives you the opportunity to jump straight to step 4 above.

Tip: Copy the member's email address to a recruiting letter template. Save it as a draft email until you hear back from the GOA.

Sending an Admin to all members

Tip: when you set up the group to monitor, copy the link to the specific recruiting file and keep it in your records to make it easy to get to the Recruiting Admin. Here's an example of a link to a specific file: http://moderator.freecycle.org/manage/FreecycleSampleGroup/files/edit/11877

Something to consider

CC recruitment letters to a dedicated common mailbox to help track recruitment activity.