Yep. You got me curious & I went back to read the linked over conversation about going co-ed. I would have agreed with yall at the time & felt the told you so aspect now.

But still, whatever the history, there's still only one realistic strategy to fix the problem. And again, telling them to give up & play in traffic isn't acceptable to me. Even if they're in trouble, I'm going to give them an optimistic answer.

I'd only add a couple things knowing the history. Un-co-ed the thing, for a myriad of reasons. It's not helping you. And, quit talking about your alumni. It's possible for them to step in, but you are unlikely to have strong support from them. Your chapter is only 20-something years old. When it's 35-40 years old - when you have a decade of alumni (250+) that are 50-60/kids out of college/independently wealthy/etc then your alumni will start having greater capacity to help you, both financially and in time/attention. Don't look to them to save you. What you can get from them at this point is bonus.

I agree with the piece about making the organization single-sex again, but I don't think "you shouldn't be relying on your alumni" is good advice, especially for an organization as young as this one.

And I agree about going back to single-sex as well. As for alumnae/i, she said in her earlier post they are not involved, so I don't think they should be relying on them now either. Realistically, they can't -- they have to rebuild alumnae relationships, which may be hard while they try to refocus on rebuilding an active membership.

dnall, I think you've given some good advice. My only quibble was with the goal of 20 in a semester. Given what she said here, and looking at a few websites of other sororities on her campus, I'm just not sure that's realistic. 20-30 members looks like it may be the norm for a healthy group (assuming the other groups are healthy.) I'd advocate a slower rebuilding, recruiting freshmen now who will help with a multi-year rebuilding process.

For an organization that young and that small, the alumnae (whoops, forgot it was a sorority) involvement is necessary. They obviously need some advising, and the "OMG we're in danger of dying out" spiel is often more eye-opening than "Hey we want you to come around for a BBQ"

Right, but alumnae support currently isn't there. As great as it would be to have alumnae involved, my guess is that bulk of them don't really care. If there are alumnae who want to be involved, great. But they can't make the alumnae be involved, so they need to plan without them.

And she said that we helped her a lot, yet she ended up doing the exact opposite of what we suggested. So some of us found it odd she was looking for advice here.

Any national GLO that goes on a campus will start by building an interest group around 20. It seems daunting, but it's not that hard the way they do it. I'm not saying all 20 of them will stick around long-term, but they create a foundation to move through that re-building phase. They have a lot of work ahead of them and they need help to share the load.

As far as alumni... I don't really know what to say. It's not a national GLO, so there's no power structure that gives a theoretical alumni board authority over the chapter. If there was, then sure they could step in & forcibly throw people out &/or order changes. If they had no alumni involvement, but a national HQ then national would step in to do that stuff. As it is, all they could get from alumni is a glorified pep talk.

I'm not saying that's bad, but it seems unrealistic to get the people to even do that. With a 22yo org, those alumni have kids, jobs, mortgages, etc consuming the majority of their lives. Finding a group of people that can be deeply involved would be difficult, and I don't see that their powerless involvement could necessarily turn the tide.

So, I wouldn't count on alumni. I wouldn't waste time with the stupid interpersonal issues. I'd just clean house to get back on message. Then go find a bunch more people to get this thing back on its feet.

A national expansion team would be down there looking at non-greek folks in student govt, other orgs, RAs, intramural teams... you can string a lot of people together that bring different strengths to the equation. And watch all these videos: http://www.ato.org/Undergraduates/re...cruitment.aspx

Right, but she's in a local at a campus with around 3000 students, no national GLOs, and sororities that seem to be 20-30 members max. In her campus culture, going from 2 or 3 to 20 people in one semester just may not be realistic, and it could bring its own problems.

I'd advocate more for a goal of doubling membership every semester for the next 2 years, and making sure that the new members will be hard-working assets, not just warm bodies.

Apples and oranges...

I just don't think doubling to 4-6-8 people would matter. It's still not viable. There's no synergy, you can't accomplish much, the work load is overwhelming, and it's not sustainable.

Most of us are used to a traditional growth paradigm that works over the long-term in an established org, but not at all in an expansion-like situation. I shared that link to the phired-up stuff. That's more the view an expansion team would take coming onto a campus. Within that paradigm, it certainly is possible to pull together 20 people in almost any circumstance, including I think this one. I didn't say it's easy, and they do have to go way out of the box. But, I mean this is a group that went co-ed at one point. I don't see that unconventional is beyond them.

They went co-ed around 2.5 seconds ago (read her other posts). And in case you didn't get it...

You are thinking in a paradigm that is not applicable to the situation presented. A national's expansion is not comparable to a local's continued existence, just as a "traditional growth paradigm" is not applicable here.

A handful of people is more realistic than reaching 20.

No they don't. Time to get back in your lane.

I know it's not the same as a national expansion model. But, there's a lot that can be learned from it. In particular, I'm trying to highlight some of the recruiting blitz tactics and goals they use to grab a foundation group real fast. I do think that's applicable.

Of course any number less than 20 is more realistic than 20. It also doesn't matter.

As counter-intuitive as it may at first seem, you can't set the goal on how hard it is to accomplish. The objective is survival, what's it take to achieve that, therefore the goal is X and we have to do whatever it takes to reach it or we fail.

From my experience, that's 20ish. Without an established org and a significant training pgm (new member process) to build strong dedication under a functional leadership hierarchy, you're going to lose 30-50% of whatever you recruit, especially with summer in the way. Anything less than around 20 & they're probably DOA when Fall semester starts. Even at 20, they have a fight to stay alive through Christmas. Until they can reestablish a sustainable base, which is probably above 20, than it'll always be a survival struggle.

I know at a 3000 campus that seems daunting. Just blind guessing, say it's 1k girls not otherwise affiliated, that's still a whole lot. If they move beyond traditional methods, treat it like they're restarting a new group from scratch, and cast a wide net... I really do think it's doable.

What's the worst that can happen by aiming too high anyway? They end up with less? Fine. Some of yall think that's adequate anyway. So, what's the problem? I'd rather aim high and settle for a little less than aim low and only try hard enough to get my goal.

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