Recruitment advice for a small local...
 

I'm the recruitment chair and president of my sorority. This coming semester we're facing a major numbers crisis with only 7 active sisters and 2 inactive sisters student teaching on LI. We struggled last semester and then graduated 7 women.
We're trying to step outside our old methods which included a lot of letting girls come to us, which obviously needs to be changed for the future. In addition ISC (our local governing council) is changing the style of recruitment to a COB system, which despite searching I still can't find enough information about to gauge whether this will help or hurt us. I wouldn't call our Greek system particularly competitive. Our campus has 6 other locals and 3 nationals.
Another thing we tried to do last semester was lessening our local status and emphasizing our regional ties which include 3 other chapters, one of which was just founded this February/March.
I would really appreciate any advice you ladies have and I apologize if there have been threads either extremely similar or the same to this one.

-In the past recruitment has been two weeks, the second week after a first pref including a invitation-only formal. There's some order to it, but sororities are fairly free to do what they want as long as it doesn't break ISC rules which mandate that events must be dry and end before 10.

-We have done many the past including game nights, karaoke, hookah, spa parties, concerts by our adviser (who is well known on our campus), and splatter painting. We also do more casual things like meeting up with PNMs at the dining halls for lunch or dinner and going to on campus events. We also try to do things just to get our name out there like hosting benefit concerts.

-Over the past four years we have gotten between 1 and 5 girls a semester. We usually take 2 pledge classes a semester, so though one class may only have one girl, that doesn't mean that is it for the semester. This past year we got 4 girls, which includes myself, and while this isn't terrible, it wasn't enough for us to maintain our numbers this year.

How many new members do the other groups take on average?

It varies from group to group. Some average around 5 nms and others have 14 to 20.

This is the MOST IMPORTANT realization you can make and it's good to see that you're already on the right track as far as that is concerned. Try to do a lot of "pre-recruiting" - get to know girls and introduce them to your sisters, then when rush time comes around voting and giving them a bid is just a formality.

Do the local groups use a total/quota system at all?

Get a copy of I Heart Recruitment by Coffey and Gendron. It'll make you rewrite one of your sorority's "favorite sayings". ;)

Like 33girl said, it is great that you've realized you need to stop relying (solely) on PNMs coming to you. Go to them. A COB-only recruitment system will only hurt your chapter if you rely on formal recruitment for publicity, but that doesn't sound like it's the case, since you've been takin 2 NM classes each semester.

Get your members to befriend more women on campus. Hang out like normal friends do, individually at first, then gradually introducing them to a few of your sisters, but still within the "friend" schema, not the "PNM" schema.

Your members are probably involved in other activities on campus. Leaders of other campus groups are a great place to look for quality members. When you have philanthropy events, invite members of other campus groups to come.

Is retention also a problem?

A minor note...maybe it's just really popular where you go to school, but I'd personally be VERY turned off by a sorority that had a hookah party for recruitment. I'd cross that chapter off my list for sure UNLESS I was already friends with someone in the chapter.

Regarding 33girl's question, I'm not completely familiar with the term so I can't say for sure. I know that groups don't necessarily take any girl who prefs them and there is a limit on how many members a group can have. However there's really only one organization who has enough members to run into that problem.

In regards to violetpretty's question about retention, other than members graduating it's not an issue. It's been years since we've had anyone depledge or disaffiliate.

I'm an alumna of a small local, so I definitely understand the pressure to recruit and keep numbers up.
When I was rush chair, I found the thing that worked best was a personal invitation. Calling or inviting someone to an event in person was so much more effective than fliers, bus cards, or painting the street in front of the student center. A personal connection is free and worth so much more than a ream of hot pink paper from copy services!

Your best recruiters are also outgoing girls with great personalities who are INVOLVED with different orgs on campus. They are going out to different places on campus and making friends who can turn into PNMS who can then turn into sisters. When I was an undergrad, I had sisters who were RAs in two huge freshmen dorms on campus. These two sisters had bubbly, outgoing, great personalities and made friends easily. My point? They invited girls to rush because they talked about the sorority with their residents. Are any of your current sisters active in any other clubs on campus? Do they have friends in these clubs? Invite some of these friends (if they aren't greek) to some events your sorority is sponsoring. Then, when it is time to recruit, these girls will already be familiar with your sisters and your GLO, so inviting them to a rush event will seem like a natural thing to do!

Like XiDelt, I am an alumna of a small local (from an all local campus).

When you are a small chapter, you have to be seen as being "big". You want the community to associate your chapter with activities in every aspect of campus life. One very easy way of doing this is wear letters, wear them often, and be outspoken (i.e. contributing in class, cheering on athletic teams, volunteering outside of sorority events, etc).

Basically, promote the living daylights out of your sorority. Think of it like "branding" (no! not the fire one! the one like cereal!). Your "brand" is essentially your reputation. You want people to associate XYZ with ____________ (hardwork, diversity, intelligence, blahblahblah). When people see your letters, you want them to have no doubt about your qualities and values. Leave no unfavorable impression.

Yes, this is going to require a lot of work, and in a small chapter it means that each sister is carrying a significant burden. That's the motivation to recruit...more recruits= better distribution of responsibilities and many hands make light work.

Work on strengthening your panhellenic ties. A lot of times, girls come through recruitment and have interactions during recruitment that leave chapters going, "Hmm, she's a nice girl, but perhaps she won't fit here, she'd be an awesome XYZ!" And likewise for your chapter. Being positive about the other chapters and the other options out there for PNMs not only shows that you're secure in your reputation, it shows that you care about the community as a whole. There will always be girls who are better fits for ABC than XYZ, and being positive and classy about your interactions with them will only encourage more women to go through recruitment which = more PNMs and that = more members for everyone.

What is the maximum number of members a chapter may have on your campus? Is it different for the locals and the NPCs? What are your chapter's membership goals?

Thank you everyone for your advice so far.
Re: violetpretty: I honestly have no idea what the maximum number is. I want to say it's somewhere around 55 or 60. As far as goals go, I would love to see a total of 6 or 7 new members over the course of the next year. That'll bring our numbers back up to what they were before this past years seniors graduated and replenish the women who are graduating this year. I know it may seem like a small number, but if we can get that many it'll be our highest number since the 06/07 school year.