`Face-to-face' recruiting is the key to signing up active-duty members: a recent recruiting school and several visits to military installations in Germany netted some 200 new members for the Department of Europe

VFW Magazine, Jan, 2003

The secret to signing up active-duty members is no different than the secret for recruiting any other member: You have to be visible and willing to talk with them. This is the opinion of a Department of Europe official who accompanied VFW's Assistant Membership Director Dan Pestinger on a 10-day October recruiting blitz in Germany.

"Dan ran us through the techniques of setting up a recruiting drive starting with planning, organizing and then executing," said Europe's Senior Vice Commander Dean White. "The strongest theme was it takes face-to-face contact to really get the new recruit."

Pestinger says Europe's recruiting team was a willing and able group that had already practiced some of the techniques he taught in his "membership school."

"They are very, very good recruiters" he said. "I believe [Erlangen, Germany, Post 3885 member] Wayne Mertz signed up more than 100 himself. They already apply a lot of the positive recruiting techniques that I teach."

White said the Department of Europe holds recruiting drives continually, with some Posts conducting them weekly and others monthly.

Pestinger and Department of Europe officials visited four Army posts--Darmstadt, Hanau, Weisbaden and Wuerzburg--and Schweinfurt Air Base in Germany. The Department collected some 200 members--all of whom paid their annual membership dues to join VFW. Nearly all of those recruited were active-duty troops, though none signed up via VFW's Military Initiative Program (MIP), which offers free, one-year at-large memberships. Only a few of the new members were military retirees.

The visits to military installations gave Pestinger the opportunity to do more than just help the Department of Europe sign up members. He also promoted VFW's support of active-duty troops.

"I called VFW National Headquarters when I was in Germany and by chance was able to speak with Commander-in-Chief Ray Sisk," he said. "When I told him I needed some Operation Uplink cards, he asked me how many I needed. The next day we had 1,500 cards to pass out."

Pestinger also spoke with an Army captain who was about to deploy with his unit to Bosnia. Pestinger says he spoke at length with the young officer, who "studied VFW intently" and vowed to speak with his troops about why they should join the nation's oldest major veterans organization.

Pestinger says there are tentative plans by the Membership Department to send him back to the Department of Europe in the near future to help other Posts with their recruiting techniques.

For more information on VFW membership, contact:

Jim Rowoldt
VFW Membership Department
406 W. 34th Street
Kansas City, MO 64111
(816) 756-3390, ext. 208