Describes recruitment strategies that mentoring programs can adapt to meet their particular circumstances. Mentoring program administrators and staff get practical guidance on: (1) developing a recruitment plan, including identifying program characteristics that could positively or negatively affect the ability to recruit particular groups of mentors, writing a mentor job description, creating recruitment materials, using a range of strategies to get out the recruitment message, and forging links with organizations that might have access to target recruits; (2) understanding the pros and cons of recruiting college students as mentors; (3) determining when older adults would suit the mentoring program, including understanding what motivates older adults to become mentors; (4) screening all applicants to ensure that mentors will be safe and appropriate, including conducting face-to-face interviews, asking for references, and checking for any criminal record; and (5) tracking the effectiveness of the recruitment effort to determine which recruitment strategies resulted in actual applications. By evaluating their recruitment efforts, mentoring programs can build on what works.
