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.

Can you rise to the challenge?

An article posted to FirefighterNation.com today outlines the challenges faced by volunteer fire departments in Pennsylvania in recruiting and retaining their members. Although these types of articles are becoming all too frequent, this one in particular is better than most in that it focuses on the positives of being a volunteer firefighter — not all the negatives. I’ve cited many examples of what not to say if you’re actually looking to solve your R&R challenges in a previous post titled “Is this our best approach?” Too often, we hand a prospective candidate all of the reasons and excuses why they wouldn’t join on a silver platter.

FireRECRUITER Goes to Indy

Tiger Schmittendorf, aka the “FireRECRUITER” will be going back to Indianapolis later this month to present at FDIC – the Fire Department Instructors Conference – the largest gathering of firefighters in the world.

He’ll be presenting “Understanding and Motivating Today’s Firefighters” as a repeat performance of “From the X-Box to the Box Alarm” presented at FDIC 2010.

Here’s all the details from http://tigerschmittendorf.com/2011/03/07/x-box-live/.

See you in Indy. Look me up.

Make the Right Investments

A Texas city is threatening to stop collecting donations that pay for critical equipment like this hydraulic-lift stretcher.

I typically reserve my commentary type articles for my flagship site but I think it’s appropriate to divest from that practice for the purpose of this post. 

The following article tells of a small city that is threatening to stop collecting a voluntary public donation that has brought thousands and thousands of dollars in mission-critical equipment to their combination (paid/volunteer) fire department. 

Apparently, the threat is in response to a dwindling number of volunteer firefighters in their department, between 5 and 10, as the article points out. Without a lot of volunteers, they apparently don’t feel it’s appropriate to collect a donation on behalf of the volunteer side of their fire department. This situation seems to be causing quite a riff in the department.

Roll With It!

 

In honor of EMS Week-2010, I thought I’d promote the (dare I say) sexiest video I’ve ever seen come to volunteer recruitment and retention.

Created in 2005 by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, “Roll With It!” was designed to capture the excitement of prospective EMS personnel as a pre-emptive strike against a growing manpower shortage in their state.

It worked, as “Roll With It!” brought in thousands of new EMTs statewide.

“Roll With It!” is a part music video, part movie trailer — full-on high energy – high impact web site for the recruitment of fire and EMS personnel.

Congratulations and thanks to all EMS personnel around the world for what you do every day.

Celebrate EMS Week in style: “Roll With It!”

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). 

Live Netcast: Recruitment Challenges and Solutions

Join the FireRECRUITER live via the Internet on Wednesday-March 10, 2010 at 8pm ET at FirefighterNetcast.com for a conversation discussing the challenges of today’s fire service in recruiting and retaining volunteers.

Click www.tigerschmittendorf.com for all the details.