Pitching Relay On Campus
Get comfortable explaining Relay For Life, the American Cancer Society, and why people should join you! Use this elevator speech guide and worksheet to plan your pitch for recruiting on
Whether an event needs event leadership volunteers or team captains, these basic recruitment steps will help a community get started with putting a successful recruitment strategy in place.
Assess your current volunteer situation (teams and ELT) and determine who is coming back so you know the current needs. Also assess, the event experience, what exactly are you recruiting volunteers to?
a. Bring your existing volunteers together and dive into defining the way you speak about Relay in the community. How do you recruit to something if you are all talking about it differently and what the experience is? Check out this tool to guide your and your team in this discussion.
b. Call or meet individually with all past team captains and ELT. This is important and the sooner it is done the better. As soon as you know where you currently are, you can determine how far you need to go to get to where you need to be. Plus, individuals who commit can help in the rest of the recruiting process!
c. During your assessment spend time reviewing the needs of your event. What characteristics are needed on the planning team to help the event grow? Check out all of the possible ELT/Committee Functions here.
Identify potential areas of the community for recruitment opportunities.
a. Look at all areas of the community to make the event as diverse and successful as possible.
i. Tools to help: The Recruitment Wheel, RFL Community Assessment Tool, and Circle of Influence
Put a plan in place, set goals and get everyone involved.
a. Be sure to document the plan and hold people accountable.
i. Tools to help: Recruitment Blitz Planning Guide, Social Media Assets
Take Action
a. Put the plan in place and make the ask.
i. Tools to help: Monthly Tracker
Follow-up, continue to go back to the plan, adding new opportunities and discussing/celebrating win
Get comfortable explaining Relay For Life, the American Cancer Society, and why people should join you! Use this elevator speech guide and worksheet to plan your pitch for recruiting on
Your Relay For Life event is the one day of the year when everyone is together. Use this guide to work the track the night of your event to thank
The Relay For Life Team Captain Kit (2025 Edition) is a guide for team captains to lead successful fundraising teams. It covers fundraising strategies, team recruitment, event preparation, and digital
A Recruitment Wheel is a tool you can use to start brainstorming areas of the community to focus on for Relay For Life recruitment.
This document contains general verbiage you can use for a letter to recruit survivors to come to your events. Print on letterhead or include in an email body.
A customizable (in PowerPoint) digital luminaria bag.
cancer.org
Our vision is to end cancer as we know it, for everyone.
800.227.2345
© 2025 American Cancer Society.
All rights reserved. The American Cancer Society is a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Tax ID Number: 13-1788491.
Any links to non-ACS sites are provided as a courtesy. ACS does not endorse any products or services.