Building A Survival Team
of Like-Minded Committed and Skilled Survival Preppers

Though often overlooked, the idea of building a survival team is a smart one and in today’s unpredictable world, it may even be necessary to make such a task part of your everyday life. If you are serious about survival, you need to enlist other members, as some may be responsible for maintaining a food supply while others could be in charge of communication, clothing or first aid supplies. 

Most people do not have the skills, or the time, to take on this many tasks so it is important that you consider and start your team by choosing people with diverse strengths. Also, one person cannot farm, garden, take care of the animals and stand guard against intruders and still have time to sleep.

Obtaining Members

Starting your survival team could be the simplest or most difficult feat, depending on your personality, recruitment method and the open mindedness of those you ask to join. If you are introverted, do not know many people or live in a remote area, networking to find people with a similar interest is likely to be an obstacle. 

However, you may also have a lot of friends, live in a populated environment and be outgoing but are still unsure of the response people may give when you approach them with this idea. In either case, make use of the Internet, as modern technology can offer you the opportunity to join all kinds of groups to connect with people of similar interests.

Criteria for Building a Survival Team

Building a survival team takes more than just finding a bunch of willing participants, as each person needs to have specific qualities, such as the ability to make a long-term commitment. Other traits you might look for are survival skills unique to each member, as it probably would not benefit you to have three doctors and no carpenters in your group. Depending on your strengths, an ideal survival team is likely to include someone in the medical profession, such as a nurse, EMT or physician, as well as a couple of handy people, like a carpenter, plumber or other craftsman.

Someone with wilderness experience or training, such as a friend who likes to hike or climb mountains or even a new acquaintance that happens to be a former Boy or Girl Scout and is now a troop leader is beneficial to the group. You may also want to seek out people who have a strong knowledge of:

• Gardening
• Animal husbandry
• Mechanics
• Weapons
• Canning
• Tracking
• Hunting or Fishing
• Outdoor cooking beyond the use of a barbecue

Additionally, the criteria for your survival team could include people that possess strength, are funny, able to think quickly or simply get along well with others so that you may avoid conflict among team members. All of these traits and skills could prove useful when building a survival team because if you have to spend weeks, months or even years around each other, your mental well-being should be just as important as your ability to maintain physical strength and obtain nourishment.

Making a Choice

When building a survival team, you are going to have to make choices beyond networking and creating criteria for team members. To choose the actual members, you may want to request letters of recommendation, inquire about current employment or job history, length of time at past and present residences or even ask for a work sample. By obtaining this information, you gain insight into this person’s work ethic and can determine if they are stable, able to make a long-term commitment and if they actually have the skills to meet your team’s needs.

Like-minded Members Avoid Basic Conflict

One of the basic ways to avoid simple conflict is to ensure that the members all have the same core values. In some cases, this may extend to spiritual or religious leanings or political beliefs. Without some fundamental meeting of the minds when it comes to core values, conflicts will soon arise to create dangerous divisions. 

By limiting the group to born-again Christians, or to those with no particular religious leanings, or by determining whether your group is going to focus on more on guns, or whether you will be looking to establish a farming-type survival community will go a long way towards avoiding some conflicts.

Building a survival team may be a time consuming, challenging feat but once you compile your members and learn the best management techniques for your group, you have a life saving alliance. This idea, though primitive, still exists within the recesses of our DNA so following the lifestyle of people from ages past should come naturally to every member on your team.

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