Step 4: Unite Active Citizens

Once you have identified the five young community leaders who are the foundation for a strong FL Community, it is time to promote the opportunity to the community. Empower the young leaders to build on that foundation by going five-for-five, each bringing other young active citizens who can contribute unique skills, knowledge and passion that can be applied toward creating positive change. It will be your responsibility to work with the young leaders to organize an event where each of their five active citizens can unite through an inspirational presentation and motivating discussion on what a FL Community can do to better their community.

Actions to Engage Young Community Leaders:

1. Organize a meeting with all five young community leaders to plan an event to unite active citizens. At the meeting discuss the following and assign responsibilities for each task.

• Finalize event logistics including a date, time and location.

• Identify potential vendors that can support the event by providing space, refreshments and/or food for free or at a discounted cost.

• Determine the format of the event.

Inspire Active Citizenship: When planning your event to unite active citizens, think of creative ways to engage and empower attendees to get involved with FL. This can include delivering the FL: Opportunity to Impact informational presentation, hearing from prominent local stakeholders about the importance of such an Community and brainstorming potential projects that the Local Community can initiate once established to address local needs.

• Develop a plan to promote the event.

Market the New FL Community: Once you have all the logistics finalized for the event, work with the young leaders to promote. Provide resources such as stickers, flyers and posters to post and distribute around town. Work with them to create a press release to announce the event and the new FL Community to the community. Develop a list of potential attendees to send invitations to. Let the whole community know about FL!

• Prepare a follow-up meeting date, time and location to invite everyone who attended the event to, in order to keep them engaged and on track to establish a FL Community. (This meeting will bring you one step closer to officially establishing and affiliating the FL Community).

2. Challenge the young leaders to go five-for-five. If each individual brought at least five active citizens to the event, total attendance would be 30 young people who want to learn more about FL. While these 30 individuals may not become potential members, some of them might and they can again connect and refer you to individuals who might want to join.

Being a FL Spokesperson: It is important that the young leaders understand that as they go out and promote the event, they are also promoting FL and the importance of having such an community exist in the local community. It is important that the community leaders serve as the FL spokespeople, recruiting individuals to participate, because they are the ones the community knows, is familiar with and trusts. They will be able to get a lot farther in recruiting members than any outsider will be. If your community leaders have done a good job, often times, everyone in attendance at your event is there to join the FL Community.

3. Prepare a flyer with information about the follow-up meeting to give to all attendees at the event. Try to determine which attendees will join the community and which will not, so you can better determine the next steps.

Next Step: The next step all depends on the results of the event to unite active citizens. If you had 30 young active citizens attend the event committed to join the Community, then the next step is plan the first Local Community meeting to finalize the establishment and affiliation of the Community. If your event went differently, only offering a dozen or so potential members, continue to conduct meetings, empowering those who have committed to bring their friends and colleagues until you have reached the needed number of members to officially establish the FL Community in the community.