Camphill Village volunteers with logo

Camphill Village is an intentional community on 615 acres of wooded hills, gardens, and pastures in rural upstate New York. There, adults with special needs and long- and short-term service volunteers live and work together as equals in extended family homes.

A key to the success of Camphill Village is the yearly flow of volunteers, living side by side with other young people from around the world. Finding suitable volunteers has proven challenging in the past for Camphill Village. Recently they came to Ashworth Creative with the need to increase the quantity and quality of volunteers for their Gap Year/Service Year and Biodynamic Farming programs.


Ashworth Creative researched recruitment opportunities and suggested media outreach to key European countries. The ideal target audience was deemed to be young, post high-school or post-college, both internationally and domestically, who were looking for fulfilling Gap Year/Service Year experiences.

Research indicated that:

  • Candidates are attracted by the ability to get to know people from other countries
  • Many are motivated by the desire to do something or “give back” in return for their comfortable lives
  • Most overseas candidates desire an opportunity to improve their English

Campaign Kick-Off

Camphill’s volunteer opportunities were featured in an article written for thelocal.com, driving interested candidates to curated landing pages that gave users the ability to request more information and begin the application process. Here’s the breakdown of the campaigns many moving parts:

Record Video Interviews

Ashworth’s premise is that the most attractive recruitment tool is the chance to see and hear from actual volunteers. Working alongside Camphill we conducted and recorded interviews with incoming and outgoing volunteers from Europe, Africa and the USA. These interviews were compiled to create a compelling video that covered a variety of questions a candidate might have about the lifestyle, people and experience at Camphill Village. Click here to view video.

Run Camphill Village Article in 9 European Countries

Ashworth Creative facilitated the crafting of an article about Camphill Village – an “advertorial” – in The Local. The Local is Europe’s largest English-language digital news network with five million monthly readers. It features local news in English with editions in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Austria. Read the Camphill article.

This sponsored article drove interested candidates to curated landing pages where they could request more information and begin the application process. Camphill Volunteer Recruitment staff were notified of each submission and able to follow up with personal emails and track the conversion rates from the landing pages.

iPad with website mockup

Create Landing Pages

Ashworth Creative developed two landing pages for interested candidates, one for domestic applicants and one for international candidates. The direct call to action for the user was to submit their email in return for more information on a program of their choice. Upon successful submission, they were given the ability to start their application. Bullet points containing benefits and greatest areas of interest among potential volunteers were curated specifically for domestic and international applicants and the video of current and past volunteers was accessible to give a bit more information in a fun way.

Desktop computer with landing page

Results: Volunteers from Around the World

The Camphill Village article appeared on January 2nd, 2018 and candidates began to respond immediately. Elvira Neal, who led the project for Camphill Village said, “It’s exciting, we have received a remarkable flow of candidates a day – every day – since the article and they come from a huge array of countries, both in Europe and beyond.” The article remained current for one month and is now searchable online. Eve Ashworth commented, “Ashworth has experience with all sorts of higher education recruitment marketing, but this was something different and we were delighted with the results.”


If Ashworth Creative can entice willing volunteers to spend a year in a village in Copake, New York, imagine what we can do for you. Call Eve Ashworth at 845-877-0410 ext. 102