Recruiting & Engaging Participants Through Events

Hosting in-person events is a top strategy for boosting participant recruitment and engagement, leading to increased sense of belonging. Below we’ll share some specific advice for what kind of events can be most helpful, and how to make the most out of any event you decide to do.

Making Your Event a Success

There are some general best practices we recommend to make your event a success. Here are our top tips:

• Utilize institutional promotion to get the word out.
• Consider offering incentives, especially if you have budget room.
• Provide food. Especially if working with a young adult population, spending a little money on pizza or basic catering can be a big draw.
• Leverage student voices by including testimonials and participant stories.
• Ask previous participants to help with recruitment events; they’ll have a valuable perspective to share.
• Make the most of social media - see how one of our partner institutions did this successfully by using student employees.
• Make it easy to sign up by having a QR code for flyers and images that can link to an RSVP form.
• Consider paying mentors to attend as resources for recruitment to answer questions and provide guidance to potential recruits.
• Follow up with attendees for feedback and/or recruitment next steps. See the Resources section below for templates you can use.

Event Types

Your event could have various goals, depending on your type of program, what stage you are currently in, and what your top need or focus is. Here are some of the most common event types that partners have found helpful, along with specific tips for each:

Orientation Recruitment Events

Orientation is a great opportunity to recruit mentees and mentors and give interested participants the chance to ask questions! Learn how to recruit in a participant-centered, strategic, and visible way in our webinar, Boost Mentorship Recruitment Through Orientation.

• Set up a virtual or in-person session to provide information about the program.
• Market the event on campus, using newsletters, faculty/staff groups, student groups, etc. and by including the event details in your initial program invitations.
• Ensure incoming students are aware of the value of mentorship. Learn how the University of California, Davis, College of Biological Sciences successfully did this as part of their institution-wide mentorship strategy.
• If relevant, invite past participants to share about their experience. Use your Partner Dashboard to find past participants who were actively engaged, and ask them to speak to the ways their mentor/mentee impacted them.
• Create a slide deck for the event.
• If RSVPs were collected, follow up with attendees and non-attendees after the event, using these email templates. 
• Send incoming students information about mentorship along with their new student materials, or add a mentorship opt-in to new student enrollment checklists. Hear how Augusta University successfully did this.
• Check out how the University of Rhode Island uses a combination of the above strategies to connect with students at their orientation events.

Learn more about a student-centered approach to Orientation and resources here! 

Commuter Student Recruitment Breakfast

Give commuter students the opportunity to sign up for the program by inviting them to stop by when they arrive on campus, or pop in between classes.

• Offer a quick grab-and-go pastries for commuters for a couple of hours in the morning. 
• Hand out flyers and/or have QR codes available to inform commuters about the mentorship program.
• Meet students where they are - table in commuter parking lots during peak traffic times.

Mid-Program Engagement Events

Mentors and mentees love the opportunity to meet participants in the program outside of their counterparts. Consider inviting program participants to engage with one another through a networking event, meet-and-greet, or game night!

• Target dates towards the beginning of the semester to help kick things off, re-engage students in the program after summer/winter break, and launch additional recruitment if relevant.
• Invite participants, using these invite templates and/or post fliers around campus to advertise the event.
• If relevant, use the event as an opportunity to remind participants to take their start or mid-program assessment.
• If RSVPs were collected, follow up with attendees and non-attendees after the event, using these email templates.
• Send out a form to collect feedback on the event.

End-of-Program Celebrations

Celebrating active mentors and mentees, at the end of the program, is a great way to make participants feel appreciated, as well as encourage them to sign up for the next program!

• Use your Partner Dashboard to find participants who were actively engaged in their mentorships.
• Consider hosting an event to thank highly engaged participants or all program participants. 
• Asking highly engaged pairs to speak on a panel is a great way to spotlight their hard work and provide information to prospective mentors and mentees for the next year’s program.
• See more ideas for recognizing program participants in our guide on Mentorship Program Incentives & Rewards.
• Send your participants a thank you gift! A little gift can go a long way. 
  • And if participants share the gift they received on their social media accounts, this can have the welcome side effect of increasing interest for your next program.
  • See this in action here or in the image below.

Event Resources

Review our Recruitment Materials Library for templates and inspiration for your events!