Club Fair Guide

Big Idea: Club fairs are a HUGE opportunity for any chapter to recruit involved members along with potential pledges. They provide you an opportunity to interact with hundreds of students who are literally searching for opportunities to get involved with new organizations on campus. At the very least, they can help expand brand recognition and plant ideas in heads for future engagement.

The Main Pitch: It’s important to remember who you are pitching to when you do so. At Club Fairs, you are talking to students who are interested in finding a valuable space for their time.

Best Practices:

If possible, find the most high traffic table available. The difference between a table in at the entrance of the Club Fair vs. the back corner can be huge!
Have laptops to sign people up for a mailing list - collecting emails is very important
- It can be nice to have long conversations, but this will likely limit your reach if done too often. Try to reach as many people as possible and follow up in meaningful ways!
- Afterwards, you can have more individualized discussions - note down the names of people who seemed particularly engaged, so that you can follow up with them for a one-on-one chat afterwards, or personally invite them to a meeting or event.
  - Also, it might be a good idea to take down someone’s phone number if they seem especially interested.
Have 2-3 people at the table at all times - ideally you should have at least one person in front of the table to interact more directly with people. The more outgoing and extroverted the people are the better!
Be prepared with marketing materials (see below) and create an inviting and intriguing set-up
Have an easy way to get people to the table
- Candy bars, a mini-Giving Game where people are given a dollar to give to one of two charities, etc. If you'd like to run a giving game, we can try to get a donor to 'sponsor' one of these, so please reach out to Evan (evan@1fortheworld.org ) if interested!
Be energetic, positive, and don’t be afraid to approach people!
- The name of the game is interacting with as many people as possible and getting our message across clearly
- Prepare simple phrases beforehand that are easy for you to remember and use
- Visitors to the club fair are looking to be interacted with: be friendly and you can make a great impression
- Enjoy yourself! Some people will ignore you (which is fine!), but everyone is there to find out about new clubs, so have fun telling them about OFTW!
Take lots of pictures
- This makes for great social media content!

The two types of people you’re likely to encounter:

Future Active Chapter Members:

Students looking for a club to spend their weekly time on and gain experience
Main deliverable pitch is opportunity to be a student ambassador or future board member
Many students have ideas of wanting to ‘do good’ or ‘help others’, but don’t know how...
- Use this opportunity to pitch how OFTW is very likely the best opportunity for them to do the most good they can with their time
  - They’d be helping some of the most vulnerable people in the world (767 million live on less than $1.90/day - people helped by our charities)
Have deeper conversations, share experiences, and remember details for later engagement!

Potential Pledgers:

Think of this aspect as a mini - pledge week at the beginning of the semester
You’re likely to interact with students who might not have the time for full involvement, but still have a desire to do good
Emphasize how much good they can do and how many people they can meaningfully help without taking up any amount of their time
- Very simple, easy ask with huge positive outcomes caused by donors
At the very least, try to get their emails to invite them to later events and ideas in their head so when later appeals occur (i.e. Pledge Week) they’ve already been thinking about OFTW
This is a great opportunity to get our brand out there - become known as the place where you can cause the greatest impact possible

Materials:

The main source for our existing marketing materials is here, but these are some of the most relevant marketing items for a successful Club Fair: