The Summary
The RecruitNY campaign began in the fall of 2010. ABC’s goal was to launch a statewide volunteer firefighter recruitment effort during National Volunteer Week in April 2011.

In the months leading up to RecruitNY weekend, April 9 & 10, ABC worked closely with members of FASNY leadership and appropriate committees to create an abundance of recruitment resources from scratch including communication tools, tip sheets, checklists and promotional posters and signage. To house all of these resources, ABC designed and developed a custom site, www.recruitny.org, to be accessed by fire departments to help them conduct their own open house during this recruitment weekend. It took a strong collaborative effort to get the word out about the campaign. Overall, the event was very successful in most parts of the state – with 53 out of the 62 counties having participated. More than 150 media outlets were reached and stories of this event were all over the web and in the news.

The Story
In September of 2010, ABC along with members of the FASNY leadership and committees sat around the conference table in a brainstorming meeting to hash out the initial concept development plan and discuss the logistics of this first-ever statewide recruitment campaign as a whole during the annual committee workshop meeting. This initial meeting was followed up by several others to refine the chosen design and look of the campaign, as well as to discuss and review the necessary deliverables and custom microsite. With less than six months of turnaround time for this event, ABC knew the timeline was an aggressive one, but we were up for the challenge. By mid-December, ABC had the message and design of the campaign nailed down as well as the resources that would be most useful for departments. These included media checklists, tips, press releases, large and small signage and rack cards. We had all of these created and ready to go by early January.

By mid-January, ABC had created and fully developed a microsite to house all of the resources – media checklists, press releases, signage, etc. – for fire departments, www.recruitny.org. In addition, we compiled a 13-page promotional aid to explain how to use the resources on the microsite to further aid departments in planning their own open house. This aid was widely distributed to participating fire service organizations. ABC also created RecruitNY easel boards and a slide show and made them available for presentations.

Once the site was up and running, ABC began posting event information to FASNY’s Facebook page. We posted weekly event updates and monitored and responded to comments daily regarding the event. Fans were encouraged to invite their friends, comment about the details of their department’s plans and RSVP on the RecruitNY Event page. ABC sent out various Facebook emails to all FASNY fans’ inboxes urging their participation.

ABC created a feature banner ad at the top of the January edition of the FASNY monthly E-Communications to introduce the event. For February, the messaging of the banner ad we designed highlighted the abundance of resources available, showing images of the signage. In March, we designed a side graphic to change the look of the e-blast and link directly to the resources. April’s e-blast served as a last reminder of the event, as it went out only two days before the event, and connected people with a slideshow link ABC created to upload photos to from the event. Clearly, ABC covered a lot of ground via e-blasts for this FASNY event.

ABC assisted FASNY President David Jacobowitz with preparing a letter to be mailed with a promotional event poster we designed for fire departments across the state. Additionally, ABC drew up a few catchy promotional event postcards that were sent out in January, February and March to serve as a constant flow of reminders.

ABC worked with FASNY, the Recruitment and Retention Committee, the Public Relations Committee and DKC News to draft articles for The Volunteer Firefighter magazine. The recruitment event was introduced in the January/February edition and further promoted in the March/April edition. The success of the event was summarized in the May/June issue. ABC created an ad to run in the magazine to familiarize departments with the new microsite and resources available on it.

ABC made sure the News and Media sections of the FASNY site were consistently updated with the latest event coverage, and in March, we designed a large banner ad with a countdown clock to be placed on the homepage to emphasize the timeliness of departments’ preparation for the event. Leading up to the countdown clock, ABC designed a large graphic banner on the FASNY homepage to direct people to the RecruitNY microsite.

As part of their community outreach, FASNY was able to establish a partnership with Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes and Stewart’s Shops across the state. As part of this partnership, Nice N Easy and Stewart’s printed out and hung up banners from ABC in their store windows to spread the message and encourage people to attend the event and volunteer at their local department. This certainly boosted public awareness as Nice N Easy has 80 stores in upstate New York and Stewart’s Shops has over 300 locations in 30 counties across New York and southern Vermont.

In the days leading up to the event, ABC, the FASNY Board of Directors and members of the Recruitment and Retention and Public Relations committees attended many a RecruitNY press conference. On the actual event, ABC visited several open houses at departments across Central New York. FASNY’s event was very successful with media coverage across the state. Stories of the RecruitNY event were all over the web and in the news in the weeks leading up to and directly following the event.

During the entirety of the campaign, both before and after the event, ABC fielded inquiries about the event and volunteer firefighting in New York State with direction from FASNY using the contact address info@recruitny.org. After the event, we strove to follow up with fans about the turnout at their local fire department and responded to their feedback through Facebook. ABC promoted the slideshow and media pages after the event with much success to push people to continue to upload their photos and check out coverage in the news. In addition, we worked on a RecruitNY After Action Report with FASNY and DKC News to provide accurate details and feedback on the event to help plan for next year.

Going forward, ABC plans to use the site, www.recruitny.org, to its fullest capacity by turning it into a year-round resource for recruitment events and initiatives for FASNY.

ABC is thrilled with the success of this event. We look forward to assisting FASNY with more recruitment endeavors in the future.