Recruiting Ninjas

When you’re starting out, you will most likely have to actively promote your Dojo in order to attract young people to it. It’s perfectly normal to start with only a handful of Ninjas and grow from there. The best way to find your first recruits is to reach out to existing groups and networks. You could consider contacting:

Schools
Youth centres
Youth groups (e.g. local sports teams, Scouts/Guides, etc.)
Parents groups
Large organisations where many parents work

To help with this, you may wish to make use of these email templates and flyers.

You will also need to manage your Dojo's presence online, so that people can find details of your Dojo, its location and events, etc.

Keep your CoderDojo page up to date

When you register your Dojo on the CoderDojo website, a listing page will be created where you can share the Dojo’s location, its current status (planning, open, full, online, etc.), details of upcoming events, and links to its social media accounts if you set some up.

The listing page is the first place that potential Ninjas, their parents, or new volunteers will land when they find out about your Dojo, so be sure to keep it up to date!

Most Dojo champions set up accounts on the social networks popular in their area, for example, Twitter or Facebook, to help members of their community keep up with the latest news related to their Dojo, and to share achievements of the Dojo and their Ninjas. We also have some promotional materials you can use on your social channels.

Social media channels can be a great way for prospective volunteers, Ninjas, and Ninjas’ parents to become aware of your Dojo. Read these guidelines for specific social media platforms and channels.

Ticketing

It is best practice to use ticketing for your Dojo. There are several reasons you might want to do this:

To keep track of who is coming to your Dojo and how often
To limit overall capacity of the Dojo due to constraints such as physical space or mentor numbers
To monitor capacity of a specific 'stream' of your Dojo (e.g. Scratch, hardware) in order to plan your sessions more easily

Different Dojos have found different solutions to this, however, the CoderDojo Foundation has created a ticketing system specifically for the needs of Dojos. It also has the advantage of sharing the same account as the Raspberry Pi projects site. By using it, you will help the Foundation understand the needs of the CoderDojo movement as a whole, as it shows us patterns in Dojo attendance. Find out how to use our ticketing system in this article.

In what other ways might you promote your Dojo and attract Ninjas? Share your ideas in the discussion below.

Recruiting Ninjas