Top 25 National Groups (The Daily Beast)
 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...es-photos.html

Strange methodology. I'm not sure I buy 501(c)(3) donations and especially the number of congressmen/Presidents in the alumni ranks as solid criteria.

There is also one for sororities that's been passed around a bunch of my friends: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...ororities.html

It's...interesting to say the least. I don't think it's possible to quantify or truly rank sororities or fraternities, so I don't exactly see what they're getting at here. Also, the fraternity criteria of "congressional members/presidents" versus the "twitter/facebook followers" sorority criteria is just silly.

I do think it's interesting about the money donated though. It does say something when people continue to insist that all sorority and fraternity members do is party, but they raise and donate such significant amounts of money. Any member of any greek organization should be proud of how much good work we all do.

Right, but they are hugely mis-representing the amounts donated, because (I think for all groups) some of each group's foundation funds go directly to their own projects. So, like, if the Tri-Lambda Foundation spends 50K planting trees, instead of giving 50K to the Nature Conservancy to plant trees, that money wouldn't be counted.

Some of those groups donate $0 to 501(c)(3) entities according to this list. That can't possibly be true. I know that TKE, for example, has MDA as its big fundraiser and the local chapter has on occasion held fundraisers.

Now, they're either stealing that money or they're donating it and their HQ has no reporting mechanism. I'm guessing the later is true.

True, but these are still large amounts of money. However, they should certainly state more clearly that it does neglect locally donated funds. That is definitely misleading on their part.

I can speak for Sigma Nu in that in recent years, we have developed a very highly detailed annual reporting system of which donations to philanthropy is a major component.

Also, alumni donate a lot of money annually to the various 501(c)(3) foundations which award scholarships and assist with educational expenses for members, so there's that also.

As to this list, I think I'd be more interested in total $ invested in physical plants, the size and fiscal health of the foundation, etc. You'd see size and quality going right along with those aspects. A good foundation = a good organization.

I really don't have a problem with the list. 

^ of course not.

(congrats)

I understand what they tried to do, but the methodology was flawed, especially for those NIC fraternities which are also NPHC fraternities. APhiA, for example, has more than one associated foundation, and as stated above, the foundation(s) often donate to the fraternity's charitable causes. (And sometimes the fraternity itself will spend operating funds on charitable purposes, rather than using the foundation as a pass-through.) It just all depends.

This is why I feel 501(c)(10) orgs are a better designation for GLOs, as they can be both fraternal and charitable, and donations made to them can be tax deductible as long as it's for a charitable purpose. But as far as my research can tell, those (c)(7) orgs which maintain housing can't get (c)(10) status.

I can't believe that they ranked the top 25 of 26 NPC sororities.

And some of their facts are off...number of ACTIVE chapters, etc. Just unusually unusual criteria/stats. :(

That's correct about C 10's. And they are C 7's because they are social in nature and have separate Foundations for the C 3 side. Many didn't have C 3's until the late 1900's - after 1950 - so that the C 7 was already up and running for several decades. Also, some have ancillary orgs such as national housing corps which are C 7's except for one that I know for sure is a C 2 - ZTA.

I think their number one choice on the sorority list is spot on! ;)

I don't. :p

That is very strange. The missing NPC is DPhiE, and although I don't know any DPhiEs IRL, I fail to see why this one sorority out of 26 should be excluded - if you're making a top 25 list and there are 26 candidates, why not just rank-order all 26? And what are the criteria?

The sorority methodology is just bizarre... Twitter followers and Facebook fans as a means to rank?? I guess that's probably better than counting Congressmen.

It is bizarre and pretty worthless. Wow, I wanna join the sorority with the most Facebook fans and twitter followers! AOII has ~112 active chapters not 191, btw.

I'm not in a good spot to compare lists...who got left off?

Delta Phi Epsilon.

Kappa Sigma was apparently left off of the fraternity list. Maybe because they left the NIC?

But there are many more fraternities than sororities. It's pretty shitty to rank them to begin with, but even more so to make a list of the top 25 out of 26. Also, the fraternity list included NPHC, but not the sorority list.

Since Kappa Sigma was expanded, I can only assume the first list was taken from NIC groups only, of which some NPHC groups belong to, e.g., Alpha Phi Alpha and Kappa Alpha Psi (not sure about the rest).

I don't think it's shitty to rank at all. Ranking tells us where we are with respect to the competition and helps us to know what parts of the organization should be looked at for improvement, etc.

That's only, of course, if the rankings are based on facts which the organizations care about. I can't imagine an NIC convention where national officers and delegates are bragging about the number of brothers in Congress. For that matter, I can't imagine bragging about any association with anyone in Congress right now, but I digress.

These are clearly just-for-fun rankings, not meant to be taken seriously. I did enjoy the fact that Sigma Nu came in at #5, which is just about where we come in when ranking things like # of chapters and average chapter size.

I'd really like to see someone compile a ranking using meaningful criteria and can definitely see the use in such an exercise.

That's because, with the exception of Omega Psi Phi, the NPHC fraternities are also members of the NIC.

That sidesteps the underlying assumption of the lists -- that "fraternity" means NIC and "sorority" means NPC.

Absolutely. For KD, foundation funds are separate from other funds raised by the chapter. All of the money raised by the Shamrock Project is sent to a local children's charity (80%) and to Prevent Child Abuse America (20%). Those funds don't pass through the foundation, as far as I know.

That ignores a lot of money coming from our efforts. Every chapter is required to do a Shamrock Project event and most of them raise thousands of dollars.

I'm sure it's the same for other GLOs.

They pulled those numbers from the public 990 tax returns for the foundations (C 3's)of the GLOs. So any donations that don't go thru their foundations would be on another return. The C 7 returns are not that easy to get. And they would have to search thru each chapter as in most cases they are sub sets of the national C 7.
It's complicated.

I still maintain that ranking sororities by twitter and Facebook is shitty. FWIW, my sorority was 3rd.

And mine was second and I also agree that twitter and FB are not reasonable measures of most anything!

Ugh. This schlock is starting to trickle down the newswire.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/31337091/detail.html

People Read Rankings
 

A very good response from the NIC:

http://www.nicindy.org/blog/why-the-...-fraternities/

There are many things in life that can be ranked, but I don't believe that Greek organizations should be. What's the point? Not everyone is meant to join every organization. It's not like sports, where everyone's goal is to win games. Different organizations have different goals and appeal to different types of people.

And with these types of rankings, I just think it creates, in some cases, unrealistic goals for young men and women, and can point them in the wrong direction.

Really? What good do you see this doing?

Let's face it - for the most part, the groups that "win" have the most members and donate the most to charity. How else do you compare them?

"Oh, but you don't understand.. our symbol is the crown, and kings wear crowns! Lowly fisherman use anchors," or, "Well, you see, in a fight, I think a panda bear would CLEARLY take down a giraffe or a turtle. And don't even get me started on those damn squirrels. What do they even DO anyway?"

LOL...if you can get it to stop eating bamboo for two seconds!

Maybe Kevin doesn't mean "ranking" literally, because I agree with him.

I think all GLOs could stand to view each other's progress in a neutral, meaningful way. Maybe not in a strict ranking, but maybe a chart. We all know that all the smillions of NIC organizations are not true "peer" organizations, but I think it's wiser to compare organizations against each other rather than internal metrics all the time.

Or look at it this way:

Executive leadership and volunteers could make use of GOOD data.

And they do (in NPC anyway). They know the sizes, philanthropy donation information, scholarship statistics (which is what I would like to see instead of FB and Twitter followers), and recruitment statistics (% of Quota and Total as a whole, not just by chapter). NPC groups share a lot of information with each other.

I'm most bothered by men being ranked by presidents and congress members and women getting ranked by social media followers. Surely college education women can be evaluated on something other than their social media involvement, right? What an insult.

I think tracking social media is actually more important than the numbers of Congresspeople. I acknowledge that you feel insulted, though.

Let me be a little more clear. Overall rankings are probably a waste of time. However, a ranking as to amount invested in real estate would possibly be very helpful. If my group had a very low ranking and Lambda Chi Alpha had a very high ranking and I wanted to improve, I'd know immediately who I'm going to look at for ideas.

But maybe that's not your cup of tea and you're more interested in community service. If your group was #25 in community service hours and that was your main goal, wouldn't you like to know what #1 is doing differently?

Yes, a lot of groups are different, but within the 70 or so members of the NIC, we're probably a lot more similar overall than different. Most of us want the numbers, want to give money to charity, want to set up effective organizations. Knowing who those effective organizations are so that they may be observed is going to help everyone.

Ok, this makes more sense.

What I'd actually like to see is the (relevant) data broken down even further. In addition to reporting that ABC raised $500,000 in philanthropic endeavors last year, provide information like:
Which charitable organiztions they're involved with
Average dollar amount raised per member/chapter
Average number of volunteer hours per member/chapter
Etc.

Because, for example, let's say (on a much smaller scale) there are 2 organizations that both raise $1,000, and one has 100 members, and the other has 10 members. If philanthropy was important to you, which would you be more drawn to?

And while this would definitely be helpful, it's still tricky when it comes to the NPC especially, with the way they run recruitment. And it still isn't perfect overall, as every campus/chapter of every organization is different.

Either way, get rid of the numbered rankings.

I have no comment on NPC groups. I'd like to see something for NIC groups though.

Why do you say this? It's been my experience that NPC groups are very open with one another, even in areas where they are "competing".

I don't mean that the information wouldn't be beneficial, or that it shouldn't be available to the public.

Generally speaking though, with fraternity and non-NPC sorority recruitment, potential members "pick and choose" which groups' recruitment events to attend. In the NPC, potential members attend every chapters' recruitment events, are encouraged to "keep an open mind" and stick with it even when they don't get their first choice. There are quotas, and total, and silence rules, and other things that factor in, and not everyone can get their first choice.

That's not to say that everyone gets their first choice outside of the NPC, but hopefully you understand where I'm coming from :)

IMO...

Benchmarking/comparison = good
"Ranking" = not good

I would like to know how my organization stacks up against our peers, but the fact that ODPhi raised $XX while ABC fraternity raised $X for a charity does not mean that we're inherently better.

This!