If you are trying to find residents to go in with you on a new settlement, you might do an event around the theme and recruit whoever shows up. It could be as simple as a trivia contest using questions from your theme. (and you can get get Linden bucks for the event - check out: /3/9b/1083/1.html
Also, all your settlers don't need to be builders. Hopefully non-builders can join up and buy land and hire one of the builders in the group to create a cool themed structure for them, then reap the payoff of the voting station.