Executive Summary

The Scouting America Units in Brownsburg, IN, are working to improve communication with parents to increase their responses and involvement. To help with this challenge, the IUI Team has researched several communication strategies that may improve parent engagement.

This report includes our recommendations for approaching the communication challenge: creating weekly newsletters, adopting new messaging strategies, and implementing incentives. We organized the report by strategies, progressing from least direct (contact by email) to most direct (incentivizing decision-making). To explain this process chronologically, the report is divided into sections consisting of our introduction, research methodology, analysis, list of recommendations, review of literature, and appendices.

Key findings:

Most survey participants lose event information in their emails and/or forget to RSVP
Survey participants are open to new communication strategies and methods
68% of survey participants would like to receive a newsletter via email
96% of survey participants indicated they would view an open communication channel
- 44% of those would interact with it in some way (by commenting or reacting)
An early bird discount would encourage 36% of survey participants to RSVP sooner
Many survey participants (57%) prefer to receive direct text messages for important events/activities

Brief Recommendations:

Create weekly newsletters to increase conversation about events
Provide newsletters on paper because it can make the information more memorable
Share stories and pictures from events on open channels of communication to encourage uninvolved parents to participate/become involved
Use direct text messages to quickly update parents with important information
Set communication goals that merit rewards
Adopt an opt-out approach to increase the likelihood of parents seeing updates
Implement group incentives to capture parents’ attention and increase RSVPs
Implement individual incentives to increase personal motivation