Sorority Recruitment Help
 

I belong to a small, local sorority on my campus. We have been around for 20 years now. Total at my campus is 45 and we are usually between 18-25. We are a member of Panhellenic Council and therefore go through Spring Formal Recruitment. We have no problem getting girls to hang out with us, however, at some point during recruitment we lose their interest.

This Spring Recruitment we had a bunch of girls we thought were going our way because we were friends with them and they all went to a different chapter. We ended up getting 0 girls through formal recruitment while every other chapter got 15. We did get some through c.o.b but not anywhere need 15.

What can we do during recruitment to keep a PNMs interest?

Are the other chapters locals or nationals?

The other 3 chapters are all nationals. We're a small campus, so there are only 4 sororities in total making the competition pretty high.

First off, you don't have to worry about pressure from your HQ to make quota or total so stop worrying about it too much.

I seem to be saying this a heck of a lot lately - but never ever ever assume that ANYONE is a "lock" to pledge. That includes your best friend since kindergarten, the girl who spends every single day eating lunch with half the sorority, and your biological sister!! It's possible you neglected other PNMs that might have been a good fit because you were so focused on this group of so-called "sure things." (Did they all go to one group, or different groups?)

There are always going to be people who would rather belong to national groups than locals even if the locals are more popular on campus. Unless you decide to go national (are you thinking about it?) you can't do anything about that. Mention that your dues are lower, but don't make it TOO much of a selling point - you don't want people pledging you just because you're a "bargain." Concentrate on things like:

-You make all the decisions (within school rules) about the way the sorority is run.

-Every cent of dues that they pay goes to THIS chapter - not to support chapters several states away or a national office.

-Your strong alumnae connections (if that's true).

-Your strong ties to the school (if that's true).

We're worried about hitting quota and such because while we don't have pressure from HQ to make these numbers, our school is giving us pressure. We do not have houses on our campus, we are given a floor in the residence halls as a sorority floor. If we don't have the numbers to fill our floor we lose it and will have no place to have recruitment or to have our new member nights/ceremonies. In our campus losing your floor can easily lose you your chapter if you don't have a HQ backing you up. This is why we are concerned about our numbers.

During our parties we generally play up the following facts:
1- Our dues are lower.
2- We run ourselves.
3- Our alumni and founders are still supportive.
4- We have won "Best Sisterhood" (an award given by Greek Life) 12 yrs in a row.
5- We have won the Community Service Award.
6- We have Sisters involved in theater, sports, and many other clubs.
7- Our sisters are President of Panhellenic Council and Greek Senate.
8- We are small, but our bonds between each other are big.

I don't think we ignore any PNMs just because we may think a girl is a lock. We try to keep it at least one sister to 2 PNMs...if our numbers allow it. We notice that girls we may see as locks always tend to go to one chapter.

I feel like maybe PNMs get bored at our parties because they might not have a lot of structure. There is only so much time you can spend talking to a girl before you get bored. But, we don't know how to get that structure.

I was going to ask/mention if there was a school housing issue but I figured you would bring it up if there was, which you did. :)

Here's a thread on how to run bump groups - to make sure the max # of PNMs get to talk to the max amount of sisters.

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ht=bump+groups

The best thing to do is to just think about what the other groups did when you all went through rush. For example, if they all had beautiful, emotional pref ceremonies and you didn't, that might be a problem. If things like that have gotten lost over the years, ask your alums for help. (You would be surprised at the things that stick in your head even 20 years out. LOL)

Hope this helps!!

Do you HAVE to do recruitment with the other chapters?

If you're not getting enough members out of recruitment to make it worth it, and you don't HAVE to per Panhel bylaws, then don't. Focus your effort/money/resources on COB. That could end up lowering your dues MORE and making that an even more appealing factor.

Bump groups sounds like an amazing idea! We usually only meet a couple of girls per party so making sure more of the chapter meets more PNMs is a great idea.

We are required by our college to remain a part of the Panhellenic Council and follow all their bylaws and participate in their formal recruitment process.

Do some research into how the other chapters are recruiting. Clearly something is working for them that is not working for you- and they have access to all kinds of national resources to help with recruitment. Bump groups, pref ceremonies, conversation practice, etc- these exist for a reason and will help you in recruiting. There are bump groups specifically designed for smaller chapters that will help both PNMs and sisters meet a maximum number of women, as well as help you emphasize your strong recruiters and train the weaker ones. Do you do a preference ceremony? This is generally what makes or breaks a recruitment- if the PNMs are chit-chatting with your chapter on the last night and attending a personal, tear-jerking ceremony with another group, they're going to feel more connected to the other group while they go to fill out their pref card. It sounds like you have your bases well covered in terms of sisterhood and benefits, but are lacking in basic formal recruitment skills- which may be alienating to PNMs. Check out the book I Heart Recruitment, it will likely be a big help to you.

Thanks so much! One of the other sororities has been really helpful and is going to show us what their recruitment workshops are like and are going to give us materials that we could really use. We do have a ceremony for pref that involves both actives and alumni sisters. I will look into the bump groups for smaller chapters.

TinyDancer, you stole my advice! I Heart Recruitment is an invaluable resource for ANYONE who has questions about improving recruitment strategies!

I'm really proud of this other group for showing Panhellenic spirit by reaching out to your chapter to help you improve. I didn't expect this, but that is great. I hope their assistance will be a big help to your chapter. I will give a third endorsement of "I Heart Recruitment." This book was tailor made for smaller chapters looking to recruit outside of the traditional formal style.

I will definitely get this book. I had never heard about it until now. Thank you all so much. We are incredibly grateful to the other chapter helping us, especially because as the only local sorority our relationship with the NPCs has been slightly rocky. However, these girls have been amazing to us and we will definitely have a stronger bond with them from now on.

In the midst of our disappointment of getting 0 girls through recruitment, the Greek Life office did give us information that lifted our spirits. The acceptance rate to our parties was up almost 20% from last year. This is only our second year using RFM on our campus, so I'm not sure if that's because the PNMs were made to maximize their options more. However, we are looking at that as a positive because we have more PNMs coming through the door.

It might also be a good time to reach out to your alumnae. They may be able to advise you on how they were successful in the past. They may also have some constructive criticism on how to better portray yourselves as a chapter.

I also recommend trying to host some events for campus women, whether it is a dinner, a meditation class, how to do some fun craft, go roller skating, etc. Advertise heavily in the dorms, Facebook, etc. Have a sign up sheet and capture people's contact info. You can use this as a way to reach out to prospective members you connected with at the event as an informal means to present bids.

One of the sororities on my campus used to stage a week just for public relations. They did surveys, gave out lollipops, etc., just to get a feel for how the campus perceived them and to boost their image on campus. They were a popular chapter at that time, too; it was just market research for them. And the free lollies (just dum dums with a label on them) weren't bad either, and helped people connect the letters who ordinarily would not have associated with them.

I am also going to suggest getting ‘I Heart Recruitment.’ I come from a small chapter, and the ideas and concepts make so much sense.. and they helped my chapter immensely. Also, visit phiredup.com (you can order the book, along with other helpful recruitment materials right from this site). And read the blog! .. there are so many different recruitment strategies and ideas posted there, you won’t know what to do first.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

Honestly, our alumnae weren't much better than us at recruiting. Our largest new member class was around 12/13 girls. Many of them were recruited through partying and drinking, we're trying to move away from that because usually the girls recruited in that manner were much more interested in partying than being a good leader in the chapter. The past couple of years we have been trying to recruit better. We've help welcome back pizza parties each semester, we've held sign ups for girls to join us on our philanthropy events, we've held movie nights and Glee parties. We're really trying to get our name out there.

We're up to 4 new members for this semester. We have two more COB events next week. We're hoping to get at least 6 new members, but 8 is really the number we need so we aren't in trouble with housing.

I would like to add that the other chapter that has been helping us sent us flowers before our first two COB events and their president has been texting our president almost daily for updates. We have never felt so much love from a NPC chapter on campus. It's nice to feel like someone has our back. If anything positive has come from this formal recruitment, it is finally feeling like at least one NPC values us and knows that we deserve to be on campus because as a local we've never felt that way.

I'd suggest a recruitment retreat for your chapter. Go over conversation techniques and topics. Before you do that, make a list of what you think went wrong. Was all you talked about your sorority, rather than getting to know PNMs? Or vice versa? Did you ladies seem upbeat, or stressed (since formal recruitment is a very, VERY busy time)? Did you focus too much on decorations? Were there not enough photos and scrapbooks to show off fun activities?

My chapter is a fan of mock recruitments, where younger sisters (who have never been on the recruiting side of formal recruitment) are sisters and older sisters act as PNMs. The gives the recruitment chair and her assistant a chance to see where the weaknesses lie. Sisters who are satisfactory at recruitment, as well as recently initiated sisters, are encouraged to have a recruitment buddy at least for the first night to learn from.

One thing that my organization tries to stress is that we don't see PNMs as our future pledges, but future sisters. Try and get your sisters to relax around them, rather than worry about numbers. PNMs want real, down-to-earth sisters. Try and keep a smile on your face the whole time; not so much that it is fake, but look HAPPY to be there. I strongly stress being able to learn about PNMs as people, not as future sisters. Have they gone sky diving or scuba diving? Do they like to sing? Are they in an honors society? If you show an interest in them, they'll show one in you.

Also, I know it's been said, but I tell my sisters all the time, that no matter what kind of recruitment it is and who is attending, WE ARE NEVER GUARANTEED A NEW MEMBER. They can change their minds easily, no matter who they know!

Best of luck to you and your chapter.

Even if that's what got them in the door, it isn't necessarily why they stayed. Sometimes people who seem to be joining for the shallowest of reasons turn out to be super sisters...and vice versa. You might be surprised at what the alums have to say after having a few years out of school under their belt...and how strongly they feel about and love the sorority. So don't discount them because of what you think they were.

Update: We contacted our alum about the situation and asked them to please come to our COBs to support us in our time of need. 1 alum showed up. And, no one gave us any recruiting strategies. But, at least we reached out to them.

We have a new member class of 5, which means we will be on probation with housing next year so we will really have to recruit our little butts off. Our president just went to a Greek Leadership Conference and not only purchased "I Heart Recruitment" but attended a recruitment seminar lead by the author and was able to speak with her. Hopefully these strategies will help us in the future.

One organization has continued to be extremely helpful to us and is supporting us like crazy. They are going to give us their recruitment handbook so we can develop our own recruitment workshop.

Thanks everyone for your advice!