Step 1B: How Will You Recruit?

What are your resources?

One major factor that will affect whom and how you recruit is the financial, human/infrastructure, and social resources you have available for recruitment. Different types of recruitment require different types and amounts of resources, so you will want to consider your court’s resources before choosing recruitment methods.

What sampling approach is best for you?

A key decision point for recruiting is whether you are seeking a scientific random sample of participants, a purposive sample, or a convenience sample. This decision will be affected by the objectives your court is seeking from your engagement project, and also by available resources.

Random Sampling

Some types of community engagement formats emphasize recruiting and engaging a scientific random sample of participants. Conceptually, a scientific random sample reflects the broader society and its diversity of views and experiences about an issue of interest.

Typically, public engagement practitioners obtain random sample recruitment pools from polling firms that maintain publicly available contact information of community members, and then contact those individuals through phone or mail. For example, major national polls typically use a process in which land and cell phone numbers that are proportionately distributed across the country are randomly dialed through an automated process.¹ The process of random sampling is thus similar to jury selection processes in which members are randomly selected from driver licensing or voter registration lists.

Purposive Sampling

An alternative to scientific random sampling is purposive sampling, which generally refers to intentionally selecting participants based on their characteristics, knowledge, experiences, or some other criteria.²

In the public engagement context, the criteria for selection is typically related to the intended focus of the engagement project. For example, if a court intends to convene an engagement forum about mental health issues, it may intentionally seek representation from mental health consumers, advocates, and treatment providers. Recruitment of a purposive sample might involve reaching out to already established communities, or to professional groups, stakeholders, or others with knowledge or expertise of the issue.

Convenience Sampling

One of the most used recruitment strategies is to look for convenience samples. A convenience sample generally refers to recruiting individuals primarily because they are available, willing, or easy to access or contact on a practical level.³ The individual’s participation is primarily driven by the convenience of recruitment and willingness to participate. The resulting audience may be a mix of individuals – some with a great deal of knowledge or insight with the issue and others who may have little knowledge or insight but who are attracted to the forum because they are interested in the topic.

A variety of methods can be used to find convenience samples. For example, a court may announce the engagement or forum via, flyers, the media, or their personal connections, and encourage any court employees, officials, or members of the public who are interested to attend. Another strategy for convenience sampling that is used in community engagement effort is “snowball sampling.” This refers to a process where community members are encouraged to simply spread the word about an event among friends or colleagues on their own, such as by posting something on social media or through direct personal invitations to others.

Pilot team examples

Most of the pilot teams used a combination of purposive and convenience sampling when engaging the general public.

• To attract participants at its public engagements, Kansas City Municipal Court (KCMC) created flyers which could be emailed to groups or printed and posted in public locations such as community centers. KCMC also asked participants in their court user survey if they could be contacted for the engagements. These materials were available in both Spanish and English.
• The Nebraska Supreme Court also used flyers targeted toward inviting Native American participants. The flyers were sent to Native community leaders to help distribute.
• The Massachusetts pilot team used press releases and flyers in both English and Spanish, as well as media advisories to reach out to invite stakeholders and the public to participate in its engagements.
• The Texas team used a variety of methods of recruitment including flyers and announcements by the local media. They also used recruitment surveys which people could both give their opinion on the courts and volunteer their contact information if they were willing to participate in the engagements.
• The Texas team also worked with the Houston courts to invite those persons from the juror pool who were not chosen for jury duty to participate in their engagement activities.
• The Puerto Rico PEPP team primarily used emails or letters to reach out to leaders of youth groups (e.g., the Boys and Girls Club), and adult community groups (San Lorenzo and Alianza).