In order to find more diverse camp staff applications, the Project Real Job Staff Recruitment and Retention Committee conducted research on how to find qualified staff. This project involved a college and university website search to find organizations specifically for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) students. This project was done to help camp professionals find organizations at colleges and universities where BIPOC students can be recruited.

Often when recruiting at colleges and universities, camp professionals go to the same career fairs, fraternities and sororities, and student organizations where previous staff have been members and where relationship already exist. This often creates a cycle of homogeneity within camp staffs. There are so many benefits to hiring a diverse staff, especially for summer camps, and this project was designed to aid in these efforts. By expanding awareness of BIPOC organizations and educating recruiters on where to find these students, camp professionals can intentionally recruit a more diverse staff, create new and sustainable relationships with university students, and break the cycle of homogeneity at their camps.

I expected this project to be somewhat tedious but after searching just a few university websites, I began to notice some obvious patterns. By my fifth and six university searches, I knew exactly where to find the organizations that I was looking for. If camp recruiters search college and university websites by using my simple steps, they should be able to find several organizations for BIPOC students in just a few clicks!

There were several findings from this project, including how to navigate university websites, steps to finding BIPOC organizations, and how to identify BIPOC organizations. All of these findings are shared, along with some pro tips, on Project Real Job’s free resources page and on the latest podcast episode of CampWire entitled, Episode 37: Camp Staff Recruiting — Finding Diverse Organizations on Campus. Tune in to find out what your camp can be doing to diversify your staff recruiting and create a culture of inclusion!