Burning Question: Is a Co-Op Campaign Right for You?

Has your fire department ever considered conducting a co-op advertising and marketing program for recruiting new volunteers, promoting fire and life safety or just generally good public relations?

Maybe you should. Think of the benefits of partnering with a local business, corporation or even another community group or non-profit organization. Cost sharing is the most obvious outcome but there are several underlying themes that could benefit both parties in the partnership.

A recent article in Fast Company Magazine got me thinking once again about what the fire service can learn from other industries and disciplines — both good and bad.

While the article titled “3 Ways to Win in a Brutal Economy” focused on retail businesses, it certainly offered great suggestions that we can apply to our service-driven business.

Time to get SAFER!

The application period for the US DHS SAFER grant program for the recruitment, retention and hiring of firefighters opened today: July 16, 2012.

Applications are due by August 10. “SAFER grants provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations in order to help them increase the number of trained, front-line firefighters in their communities,” according to this article on the National Volunteer Fire Council’s website.

The FireRECRUITER has been extremely successful in assisting fire departments and county-based fire service organizations in securing significant SAFER funding when acting as a clearinghouse on behalf of the volunteer fire service in their region.

NVFC Launches new Junior Firefighter Recruitment Video

The National Volunteer Fire Council has launched a new recruitment video aimed at attracting young people to the volunteer fire service. Funded by a grant from Tyco, the video shares testimonials from several existing junior firefighters, leveraging the power of referral from these young adults.

The NVFC page that introduces the new resource also includes insight for marketing your local junior firefighter program: http://juniors.nvfc.org//itemDetails.php?itemid=24

FEMA Provides Youth-Based Workshops

Leading educators and scholars in the field of preparedness education consider our nation’s youth to be the best envoy for taking preparedness messages home to their families. In order to better prepare our nation’s youth to bring preparedness home, FEMA is providing technical assistance workshops to state and local practitioners who support youth-based programs and who are interested in integrating preparedness education into their offerings.

Digital Recruitment and Retention

Burlington Township (NJ) Firefighter Matt Stahlnecker checks his mobile device while returning from a run on Rescue 30. Photo by: Tiger Schmittendorf

The world is changing rapidly and the fire service is getting caught up in the tornado effect of technology on our society.

More and more fire departments are smartly using web sites, e-mail and social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter to recruit new firefighters, share life safety information and to stay connected to their community. There isn’t much you can’t do with a mobile device today that took a super-computer to do less than 30 years ago.

And while we’re making strides in keeping our folks safer on the incident scene, there’s probably few bigger challenges today than to keep your folks out of trouble on social networks and the Internet. Sometimes ‘retention’ in the fire service devolves to preventing our people from doing stupid stuff.

I recently had the opportunity to facilitate a conversation titled: “From the Xbox to the Box Alarm” with a large group of fire instructors  for the University of Kansas Fire and Rescue Institute wherein we discussed today’s and tomorrow’s generation of firefighters. The conversation focused not only on the challenges in understanding, motivating, training and leading this unique cadre of individuals, but also enlightened the participants as to the tremendous potential they possess for moving our fire service forward.

And, naturally, you can’t have a conversation about today’s generation of firefighters without discussing the importance of technology and the impact of social networking.

I had the daunting task of following a presentation by Curt Varone, an accomplished

Funk or Junk? Rockland’s Bravest

The FireRECRUITER’s helmet is off to my good friend and fellow recruiter Frank Hutton and Rockland County’s Creative Approach to the Fire Service Committee for putting forth a great effort in addressing recruitment and retention in their region.

With the help of a SAFER grant from the US Department of Homeland Security, they’ve produced a web site with cool videos for all age groups. B1O1.org features a music video and lots of great content in focusing on challenging prospective volunteers to “Be One of the Ones.”

And they’ve integrated collateral materials to support the web campaign including tent cards, brochures, kiosk, radio and outdoor advertising; and a complete package approach with a program folder wrapper.

A Touch of Gray

This article from Long Island NY talks about an often-overlooked audience in the volunteer fire service today: 40+.

Age is Nothing But a Number at Syosset Fire Dept.

Joining later in life is becoming more the norm

I love the fact that Syosset allows each company in the department to have its own identity. I took this photo when I visited all three of their stations about a year ago with my good friend Rob Leonard.

Don’t discount or write-off the value of people coming to the fire service with some life-experience under their belt. That maturity can turn out to be a huge advantage to your fire department, especially when teamed with the free spirits of Generation Y.

As I wrote in “From the X-Box to the Box Alarm” — This demo includes settled homeowners; their kids are growing to an age of independence; focused on giving back; perhaps even looking for an outlet – or just an excuse to get out of the house.

The Art of Speed-Recruiting

Doyle Hose Co. 1 Fire-Recruiters Brian Sas, Colton Marinelli and Don Keuck engage students during career day at their local high school.

If you had just 30 seconds to convince someone why they should join your volunteer fire department, what would you say? 

What would your message be? Do you have a standard sales pitch that you use for just such occasions? Can you even say hello in 30 seconds? 

I recently had the opportunity to coach and practice some speed-recruiting exercises with the Doyle Hose Co. 1 in Cheektowaga NY. They had been invited to be a part of career day at the local high school in their response area and they invited me to join them. 

Venturing down a new path to the Volunteer Fire Service

There’s an interesting conversation started at FirefighterNation.com that suggests the BSA Venturing program as an alternative path for young people to get involved in the volunteer fire service.

The discussion host offers what he feels is a broader opportunity to get more young people involved in their volunteer fire department by not pidgeon-holing them into just being Fire Explorers and Junior Firefighters.

Here’s what I think. What do you think?

Discuss it here or discuss it there.

CCVFA Publishes Report on Firefighters Behaving Badly

The fire service has a long-standing reputation as pillars of the community; the social epicenter of the community and as a vocation that citizens trust the most. 

However, reckless and inappropriate conduct by a small minority of the nation’s fire service is eroding the high moral ground occupied by firefighters says a White Paper sponsored by the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Firemen’s Association, (CVVFA).