The Death of Greek Life... You're Next
 

While sitting in my office at work, I felt a draft though no windows were open. I didn't think much of it and continued my work. Upon feeling the draft again, I got up and checked out what it was. When I wrapped my head around the corner, I saw something so terrifying, so devastating, so mortifying that I could not bear to watch. What was it I saw you ask? It was the death of Greek life…

Dramatic? Possibly

True? Definitely

Chapters across the nation are stressed because of their finances, struggling with recruitment, and scared about the future of their organization. Though there may be thousands of chapters across the USA – all of these struggling chapters have one thing in common… little alumni involvement!

Now what the hell does alumni involvement have to do with finances, recruitment, and the future of the organization? Short answer is everything. Longer answer will be easier if we attack it by parts.

The first is finances: this one should be obvious. You’re probably really happy when a few alumni donate $50 to your chapter right? Well stop it. Don’t be happy about mediocrity! You have a database of 1000 living alumni and you’re thrilled about raising a couple hundred bucks from about 5 guys? You should be getting AT LEAST 100 of those guys to donate $100 a piece – that’s an extra $10,000 for your chapter. Now the couple hundred dollars that your raised doesn't seem so great does it? The first thing you have to realize is that you shouldn't fundraise yourself because it’s going to be way too much work for not a lot of results.

There two phases to this whole fundraising thing: the annual fund and the campaign. The annual fund gets your alumni involved (I suggest a company like *** because they have a “risk-free” option that doesn't make you pay a dime out of your pocket for the program). This first step is vital if you plan on ever having a campaign. The second, as I said, is the campaign (I suggest ***; they have been in the business for many years and are definitely the masters of Greek fundraising campaigns in my opinion). These campaigns can raise you anywhere from $500,000 - $10 million depending on how many alumni you have, how long you build alumni relations through your annual fund, and how good of a job *** does for you during your campaign.

All of this finances talk takes me to the next part – recruitment. If your chapter had a couple million dollars laying around for renovations, could you do a lot of work to improve your house? Of course you could! Recruits love a nice house and these campaigns can help you do that. Along with that, the annual fund will make the alumni closer to the chapter. A closer alumni base means better networking which means more job opportunities for undergrads! Which, especially in this job market, undergrads want to see if they’re going to join your organization.

Both of these things tie into the future of your organization. Without money and a good recruitment, your house will be next… Your house will be the next victim in this trend of dying organizations. Don’t be another statistic. Grow your alumni relations program and build your organization so it can reach its full potential!

Together, we can stop the death of Greek life

Are you the same guy who's shilling on g r e e k r a n n k?

Oh, and

ewww. Mark of someone completely unfamiliar with the Greek system - using the word "recruits." This isn't the military.

How I can tell you aren't a Greek Alumni Specialist...If you were, you'd be pushing for support in much more ways than just getting money. Many alumni donate to their organizations, not their chapters. But could easily build a strong chapter by supporting through advising first. Money follows later.

This is a very unusual thread. Kind of strikes me as fear-based click bait.... who are you and why are you here? Are you selling something?

Greek life is actually growing on most campuses. This is very strange.

For starters this is the only forum I belong to and this is my first post. Second of all, I'm a Greek alumni, I was on the IFC exec board of one of the largest greek systems in the nation, and I have a military family. So I'm definitely familiar with Greek life and I do have a military background, thanks for noticing :) Also, when I was a new recruit, our house just went under a $2.5 million renovation and that (other than the brother's themselves) was the biggest selling point to me

That's money isn't the point, it's just a huge plus! The reconnecting with your alumni is the point!! How are your alumni going to come back and advise if they aren't connected with your organization in the first place? The answer is: they cant! You guys have to wake up and see the importance of alumni relations in your chapters!

You are correct sir - it IS a fear based click because you SHOULD be scared! Greek life may be growing at your campus but overall greek numbers are declining (I've done a lot of research on this so I know). My purpose here is to get a discussion going on why people need alumni relations;what your org is doing for alumni relations? Is it working? Are your undergrads getting in touch with the majority of alumni? Are you raising the money that you need to run your house? If you don't have an alumni relations program the answer is probably no!

Glad you chose your organization in part because they had a nice house. I think you know nothing about alumni relations, at least on the sorority front.

I don't need you for this. My national organization handles all of this. I dare you to tell me my sorority knows less about alumni relations than you do.

This article was aimed towards fraternity men but can definitely be applicable to sororities as well - so tell me... what is your organization doing for alumni relations? Is it working? If you have at least 500-1000 alumni, are at least 20% of them coming back for events like alumni homecoming and founders day?

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I've used the Internet's quota of exclamation points for the day, so maybe he will stop posting now.

Enlighten me on what your chapter does to keep your alumni in touch.... does it work? Are you getting at least 20% to come back? I believe the reason you are upset is because you're not getting the results that you would've hoped for - everyone fails many times throughout their life, there's no problem with that. The real problem comes when you don't try to fix it! (it looks like the internet let me have an extra exclamation point today :)

QFP.

I am a woman. Knowing somebody's gender is probably a good idea when trying to market to them; you posted this in Greek Life, not Fraternity Life.

No doubt that having a good facility can give an organization a competitive advantage, but the idea that Greek Life is dying is just plain false from everything I've read. I would LOVE to read any data collected that indicates Greek Life is dying.

I wonder if this person has a new tool or app that will help chapters reach out to and connect with alums.

Here is an article that I think will enlighten you - it talks about the shrinking of Greek life around the nation and is backed by a good mix of facts and opinions http://www.smudailycampus.com/news/t...ternity-system

winner winner chicken dinner. ding. ding. ding.

I can't use any exclamation points, 33 and the OP saw to that. Thanks, guys.

Haha nope, not trying to sell you anything. No app or crazy contraption that will magically reconnect you with your alumni; I'm simply giving suggestions based on the philosophies that saved my fraternity.

Wow! A link to a nine year old article. Way to keep current with your facts.

Your entire argument up to this point has been about fraternities lacking the financial means to stay afloat mainly due to minimal alumni involvement, and then you post an article that says chapters are closing due to risk management issues.

So which is it?

Low money is due to a lack of alumni involvement

Low alumni involvement leads to unaccountable undergraduates

Unaccountable undergraduates lead to risk management issues...


It all comes back to alumni relations!!

You think now Greek life is magically getting better all of the sudden with more and more strict laws?! You're sadly mistaken my friend...

You're annoying.

And your logic is faulty.

And when that is your response, I know I've done my job right :)

Swat.

Got it. Dead bug.

But, how much you wanna bet he has to have the last word. BGITY?

Wait for it.

I'd put money on that

So, your job is to annoy Greek alumni with faulty logic? Does that even pay?

It really is.

And he's too smug for me to want to listen to him, especially because he has no realistic solutions to the problems he claims exist.

Read the original post! All of the "realistic solutions" are right in there for you!

I intended for this article to be controversial, if you read the title you can see that was the angle I was going for. Whether you agree with my tactics or not, you all thought about your chapters alumni relations programs and how effective they're being. That was the point! You don't have to agree with me, that's not the reason for this. I wanted you all to evaluate alumni relations and so far over 200 people have done just that by reading this blog post and reading all of your comments.

I really do appreciate the dialogue, it's great to see people's passion for Greek life, even if their opinions differ from mine.

Props to you guys :)

Oh, woe is me, if only we could solve the problem of declining pnms going through sorority recruitment, of chapters' numbers decreasing, of sorority membership numbers going down - WAIT! I almost forgot! There are record numbers of pnms, chapters are bursting at the seams, expansion(for both collegiate AND alumnae chapters) is occurring at an amazing rate . . . whew, I was worried there for a moment.

For your chapter that's great! But you cannot be so naive to think that every other chapter is booming with prosperity

GrkAlmSpclist;You are correct sir - it IS a fear based click because you SHOULD be scared! Greek life may be growing at your campus but overall greek numbers are declining (I've done a lot of research on this so I know). My purpose here is to get a discussion going on why people need alumni relations;what your org is doing for alumni relations? Is it working? Are your undergrads getting in touch with the majority of alumni? Are you raising the money that you need to run your house? If you don't have an alumni relations program the answer is probably no!

When you say that the recruitment numbers overall are decreasing, you are referring to just NIC Orgs.? or both NIC & NPC Orgs.? Also, the decrease in recruitnment number is it similar to that of the "Rush Recession" of the 1990's, which did in fact many GLO's (mostly fraterntities) experienced a large decline in recruitment numbers. You need to be more specific in your theory.

I'm not talking about just my chapter - I am talking about NPC sororities OVERALL. Yes, there are struggling chapters, but "Greek Life" as represented by the NPC is doing better than ever, thankyouverymuch.

The article you posted is from 2005. That's almost ten years ago, dude. It's not a good indication of what is happening today. The mid-'90s through the mid-2000s saw a decline in the size of the Greek system; since then it's been growing exponentially. Not only is it growing, but on most campuses, it's either at an all-time high or at a close second to the all-time membership high (the '80s being our last big upswing). If anybody's sources are telling them that Greek life is waning, they need new sources.

Membership on my campus now is close to twice what it was when I attended (around 2005). You can see that trend on campuses around the nation. And if we survived that downswing (not to mention the 1970s where membership at a lot of schools was 10-20 percent of what it is now!), I'm sure we can survive another, whenever it comes.

You keep saying "It's nice that Greek life on your campus is growing, but you can't assume that's happening on every campus." Actually, we can:

"Nationwide, membership is up, growing a bit more than 15 percent from 2008 to 2011, to 285,543 undergraduates, according to the National Panhellenic Conference." - the New York Times

Not sure how it gets more complicated than that.

If the OP had spent even 5 minutes on Greekchat over the last week, he would have seen that NPC numbers across the country are booming. But apparently he's only interested in reading articles from 10 years ago.

OP, the folks who are responding to you are all alumni who are involved with and support their organizations, so you are preaching to the choir. Just stop. Church is over.

The OP either listened to NPR this week (or last week?) or was one of the guests on the NPR show. It was an interesting show.

I listened to it (Diane Rehm show). Here's the link to the transcript.

Thanks. :)

It was an interesting discussion and I adore Diane Rehm. It was apparent they were speaking primarily based on NPC and NIC. It was a narrow perception of Greek Life and of the impact on people's lives and communities.

NPR also discussed Masons this week:
http://www.npr.org/2014/08/27/342209...ockettsnprfeed