Attracting Volunteers to Your Organization: Grassroots Advertising

Baby Lion

Image source: Traveler.nationalgeographic.com

I was shopping at my neighborhood co-op yesterday when I noticed a flyer pinned to the bulletin board. I don’t usually stop to read the apartment listings, tutor wanted signs, and ads for used kitchen items, but this flyer was different. It was bright yellow and it featured a picture of the cutest lion cub the world has ever seen being fed from a baby bottle. I was so taken with the cub’s expression (he was almost smiling!) it took me a minute to notice what the flyer was advertising. When I did (it was a flyer for Amanzi Travel, a wildlife and community improvement-based voluntour company) I had something of an epiphany. Why aren’t more volunteer companies using local community meeting places to advertise their programs?