TWR Takes a Village

After you've connected with us, the next priority is building a team of dedicated, passionate, and creative individuals who will help you bring the magic of TWR to your community. You’ll want to recruit folks with a range of strengths and skills! At the bottom of this page, we’ve provided an email template that you can use for team recruiting.

Below are our recommendations for how to split up responsibilities across your team:

Community Organizer

You are the Organizer in Chief, the driving force behind your community's TWR event. Here’s what that entails:

  • Serve as ambassador for TWR in your community
  • Ensure you’ve registered your community’s TWR event and connected with our team to review the resources available to you
  • Recruit a team to plan and run the TWR event in your community
  • Lead and navigate your team through the major steps of the planning process and track progress using the Planning Checklist

Communications Lead

You are the Marketing Guru, the spokesperson for your community's TWR event. You know how to spread the word about an event and get people to show up. That's your top priority for TWR. Here are examples of the kind of things you can do to make that happen:

  • Draft and send compelling emails to recruit event sponsors and participants (templates are provided in steps 4 & 6 of the Organizer’s Guide)
  • Develop and distribute promotional materials like flyers and posters to raise awareness for the event
  • Own the Name Reading Sign-Up Sheet, ensuring each Name Reading shift is filled by a community member
  • Engage your local community on social media before, during, and after the event
  • Write an op-ed about TWR in your school or local newspaper and/or a guest-post for the TWR blog
  • Send press releases to local media organizations to publicize your event
  • Train your team members to answer questions about TWR with strong, consistent messaging (e.g. What is TWR? What is genocide? Why are people reading names?)

Operations Lead  

You are the Event Producer, the lead planner and coordinator of all TWR activities in your community. You have a knack for designing engaging events and running them smoothly with a team. Here's how you can do that for TWR:

  • Lead team brainstorms to design your event, including where it will take place, how long it will last, and what kind of experience participating community members will have
  • Create and manage the budget for your TWR event
  • Make space and equipment arrangements for the event
  • Develop an Event Production Plan - a day-of schedule with all the little things that need to get done and who is in charge of each task
  • Work with the Communications Lead to ensure the Name Reading Sign-Up Sheet has been completely filled up by community members in advance of the event
  • On the day of the event, you will be the key point of contact to resolve any issues that come up

Technology Lead

You are the Technology & Multimedia Director, ensuring all the tech for the event works well on the big day. This includes the following:

  • Sound through the microphone & speakers
  • TWR Name Reading App
  • Livestream
  • Lighting
  • Video / photos of the event

Given your technical expertise, you may also have a knack at graphic design, in which case, you could help the Communications Lead design promotional flyers customized for your community.

Email Template for Recruiting Team Members

Hi [Name of Individual],

April is #TogetherWeRemember, a global month of remembrance and activism to end and prevent violent hatred. To commemorate the victims of violent hatred and celebrate the heroes who saved countless lives, [Your Community Name] is hosting an interactive vigil and live-streaming our experience on social media in solidarity with thousands of others around the world.

We are building a team to make this incredible event a reality and would love to have you on board! If you are interested in being involved please let me know, and I would be happy to sit down and chat about our plans thus far and how you can help out!

Also be sure to check out our website and watch the promo video from last year's campaign - both are really inspiring!

All the best,

[Your Name]

Final Team-building Thoughts

At the end of your recruiting effort, you may have a smaller team than the number of roles listed here. Some of your team members might not have much experience doing events such as this. But don't sweat it! Embrace the learning experience!

The first couple of years that we did TWR at Duke University, we made it up as we went. After it rains on you, you make sure to have a rain plan (e.g. tent). After your speaker stops working, you make sure to have two next time. Fortunately, we've already learned about the most common challenges so we will help you prepare for any surprises that are likely to come your way.  

Our last thought on team-building comes from one of our heroes, Margaret Mead:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Now that you have your team sorted out, let's...