Participant Recruitment 2.0
How do you successfully recruit for your immersion program with little or no marketing funds? At Urban Adamah, a three-month urban farming/social justice/Jewish learning fellowship here in Berkeley, CA, our motto is: We don’t do career fairs. We don’t speak at college campuses or at Hillels. We don’t spend time writing long creative blog posts. We focus on leveraging the web for its massive reach and relatively low cost, and build relationship with partner organizations who have access to the kinds of folks we want to reach. This strategy has been quite successful. This summer, we received 52 applications for 14 spots. This fall we received 59 applications for 14 spots and closed the application process a month before the start date. Both applicant pools represent twice as many applicants as we had for the summer and fall of 2011.
We are happy to share the full list of websites, listerves and partner organizations who support us in getting the word out. You can access the list here. Good luck hunting!
About the author
Adam Berman
Adam Berman is the Executive Director of Urban Adamah. He served as the Executive Director of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, a retreat center and intentional community in the Connecticut Berkshires from 2002 – 2009. At Isabella Freedman, Adam founded ADAMAH: The Jewish Environmental Fellowship, a three month leadership training program for Jewish young adults that integrates Jewish learning and living with sustainable agriculture, green living skills, teaching and contemplative spiritual practice. He also served as the program’s first Director. At Isabella Freedman, Adam also co-founded the Jewish Greening Fellowship (JGF), an intensive 18-month Fellowship program for Jewish professionals from twenty different New York Jewish summer camps and community centers. The JGF, funded by a significant grant from the UJA Federation of New York, is working to reduce the carbon footprints of Jewish communal agencies and place environmental stewardship high on the agenda of every agency that participates. For three years (1996-1999), Adam served as the Director of the Teva Learning Center, the leading Jewish environmental education program in the United States. Currently, Adam serves on the Board of Directors of the David Brower Center, and on Advisory Boards for the Teva Learning Center, Wilderness Torah and Adamah. He teaches widely on issues related to Judaism, ecology and civic leadership. Adam holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. in Environmental Policy from Brown University.
