Recruitment Methods
 

Hello brothers,

Our chapter is in a dire need of a good recruitment. Half of our chapter graduates this year and we are in need of recruitment advertising ideas. We have our events planned (we're doing a good mix of fellowship, service and info meetings), we are just struggling on getting our name out there.

Any suggestions on how to reach out to our students or even other social GLOs would be greatly appreciated!

Brother,

I am the recruitment advisor for my APO chapter. The chapter is a smaller chapter. I use a modified version of IFC Recruitment. Being a member of an IFC organization, I know IFC recruitment.

Remember the three core values,BE A LEADER (show the chapter you want new members in your chapter) BE a FRIEND, (Make friends and invite your friends to events. Introduce your new friends to your brothers.) BE OF SERVICE (Introduce your new friends to APO, Service project is a good way. Ask the pnm if he/she wants a bid.) I encourage my chapter to wear letters on campus, and be an active member of at least two or more organizations on campus.

I know that members of the national board like the Phired Up books.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for your suggestions!

Come up with a values-based table tent design that puts LFS at the front and center instead of the name. Having a values-driven advertisement instead of the usual "Rush APhiO" advertisements that chapters usually do tends to attract people who are genuinely looking for something like us, whereas greek-lettered driven advertisement tends to attract those who don't understand how we are different than the socials or want a set of cheap letters. Come up with that design and hit every possible location you can on campus with those table tents and posters.

My then-PG came up with this design in Fall 2009 to use as everybody's facebook picture during recruitment, and it started spreading across facebook as other chapters liked it. This works well for them because it is in the same style, font, and vein as their table tents. I've provided a link to the full-sized master iimage:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net..._5251136_n.jpg

Another one of my chapters redesigned it like this:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net..._6022361_n.jpg

I'm a big proponent of not using the greek letters in our advertising and using the torch logo or spelling out the name instead. It looks less "fratty" and appeals to those who are not looking for an IFC/NPC/NPHC/NAFLO experience because they're either a member of one of those groups already or they are turned off by social greek life. Prospective members don't know how or why we are not like those groups, and it is up to us to sell them as to why. If you're wanting to differentiate yourself from the herd of GLOs, why recruit in the exact same manner as them?

I know there are those here who disagree with not using the greek letters and that we should be able to sell our fraternity by the letters alone. Frankly, if APO was a household name on campus and everybody knew who we are, what we do and why we're different than the socials, we wouldn't need to recruit because they would be beating down the doors of the chapter office to pledge.

I don't think we should downplay them - i.e. I don't think it would have hurt for those posters to have them on there somewhere - BUT you can't just put up a poster that says "Rush APO" (pretend those are Greek letters) with no explanation of what APO is. There is a happy medium. We're not a social fraternity, but we're not a club you can take lightly, either. Taking the Greek letters out of the equation completely can further that sort of lightmindedness towards APO.

I would NOT rush in a manner that attempts to attract these people. You end up with a chapter full of bitter anti-Greeks, and that's the last thing you want. Not just in APO, but any organization with a social component. It all depends what you mean by "turned off." "It's ok for others, it's just not my cup of tea" is one thing, "they are a bunch of stuck up a-holes and should all be disbanded" is another.

I agree with my APO brother. Remember we are a Service Fraternity and our letters have meaning. APO are Latin letters that are used as a nick name for the Greek letters.

Then you're not recruiting with open membership in mind. Someone who thinks all greeks are stuck-up assholes wouldn't come to APO anyway, but a student who has no interest in the trappings of the social greek system for whatever reason (that's their business, not mine) deserves the right to be recruited in a manner that makes them comfortable. It is *our* job as brothers to bring them into the fold and make them comfortable, not expect they will match our ideal vision of a potential new member because they're down with greek life.

Using the torch logo is the fraternity's preferred way to market itself to outside entities (http://www.apo.org/site/site_files/style_guide.pdf) and to appeal to the largest cross-section of students. Nothing about it deters those who are seeking a Greek experience like ours, and it aids in attracting those who would normally never want anything to do with a social and don't know how we're different. Finding a way to appeal to all students is a best practice of chapters, and values-based recruitment is what we teach in the Membership Academy program. If your chapter has not been, then it is missing out on what is new and hot in growing and retaining chapters. I suggest you get to the nearest one next summer.

This fraternity has a very lofty membership goal to obtain by our 100th anniversary (something like 30k actives in 500 chapters by 2025). Chapters need to look at their programs and see how they can help contribute to meeting this.

Nowhere is it being discounted that spelling out the Greek name of our fraternity means that we are taking away the meaning of our letters.

Ho, ho, ho. You are either extraordinarily naive, or extraordinarily lucky, is all I can say.

And my point is that anyone who is a Bitter Betty or Bob is NOT a desirable member for ANY organization. They usually join to further their own agenda, not to become a happy member or improve the group.

I'm sure if you hung around a student center on sorority Bid Day, you could get lots and lots of pledges. They'd all be crying their guts out and hating themselves and ready to join any group who offered them a kind word, whether they gave a rat's rump what it was about or not, but hey, that would certainly help membership goals.

Could membership in APO help people like that? Yes. But their presence and vitriol could also drive away other prospective members. This isn't about selective membership, but it also isn't about marketing ourselves so we appeal to people for the wrong reasons.

The fact that you're using words like "fratty" as a pejorative just shows me that you don't get it.

No, I would say that I work around chapters that look to more than just who wants to pledge a frat or sorority as potential members. Not all campuses are the same and most students could give two shits about greek life. APO is not a facet of campus greek life, we are a completely different animal. We are supposed to have broad appeal across all campus demographics. I could give a rat's ass about Bid Day in general or what any of the social GLOs are doing because they're not in the same league as us.

Avoiding your mentioned problem of the Bitter Betty/Bob goes back to values-based marketing and a quality values-driven pledge program. If you have those, then these people quickly weed themselves out when they see what we're really about, that their bitterness just doesn't fit in and the chapter has procedures in place to minimize it. If they are able to make it through and fake their way to a set of letters, then maybe it is time for the chapter to look at why they weren't able to get the values across. One pledge causing that kind of drama in a class is a textbook example of a bad pledge program and one that needs help from the alumni volunteers in that area ASAP because they're just perpetuating their own problems.

Again, programs like Membership Academy are actively working with our students to develop these Pledge Programs of Excellence to have both high quality and high quantity members. I highly advise you take some time to get current on what is going on with APO's membership education programs, because frankly I think the fraternity has developed some great programs to aid the actives in addressing all of this and more.

The fact that you don't understand that a large majority of students these days either see Greek life as a bad thing or actively have no interest in social GLOs for a myriad of reasons shows that *you* are the one who doesn't get it. When students see greek letters, stereotypes come to mind and preconceptions are made. The average college freshmen has little to no understanding of what Greek life is like outside of Animal House, Old School, and Stomp the Yard. Many of them don't want that and would never seek a bid for a fraternity or sorority. Others simply just have no interest in what Social Greeks have to offer.

Some of the best brothers I have ever known who truly get what Brotherhood is all about would not have pledged their chapters had it been marketed with the greek letters as the front-and-center thing, because they were not looking for or interested in Greek life. The students use the term "fratty" in a pejorative manner because they see so much wrong with it, and to market ourselves in a way that mentally lumps us in with that is completely stupid.

Then again, what do I know? I've only been an alumni volunteer directly working with hundreds of APO students on multiple campuses for 8 years, watching as attitudes evolve and shift over time as the landscape of college changes. When a chapter markets themselves just like a social GLO, they do not reap success and lose out on recruiting the best possible students into the brotherhood. When they reach across and cast a wide net followed by a consistent values-based message, they are beyond successful both in quality and quantity of members, which leads to better service being done, which begets more quality and quantity of members, and so on. We're seeing this on a more consistent basis now that we have 3 years of data confirming the success of Membership Academy. I'll take that success any day over a chapter that thinks it's too good to recruit a variety of pledges.

I don't particularly think that this argument is helping the Original Poster, but I think to give more complete advice, we need a better feeling for the campus. What will help at Auburn may not help at Stanford or vice versa

Even general descriptions will help (If you don't feel comfortable indicating the school, indicating what sports conference that your school plays in will tell us 90% of what we need to know)

IMO, this discussion is part of the ongoing balance for both individual chapters and the National Fraternity between being the "Social Circle K" and being the "Service Sigma Nu"....

You didn't understand my bid day comment at all. You seem to think that making social Greeks feel equally welcome as prospective members means that we are recruiting from the same pool. It doesn't mean that at all. I would also say that rush events shouldn't be held on the same day as college football games. That doesn't mean we're focusing on recruiting football players, cheerleaders or the band. It's simply common sense. As is marketing positively, not negatively. If you are purposely omitting use of our Greek letters (no matter how small or incidental) because you're scared to death that some Greek-hating student might not come to a rush function if he/she sees them on a poster, that is anything but positive.

I would hope that they are weeded out through pledging. The problem is when too many people in the same mindset get together and drive any other potential members (and sometimes current members) away.

Please check out the "expansions" thread. Many colleges are adding social Greek organizations on a near-yearly basis because the interest in joining them keeps going up.

No, we should NOT market ourselves in the same way as a social fraternity. Never, ever did I say that. We should not put up posters that say RUSH AP0 national coed service fraternity. We should not have tables at IFC fraternity or NPC sorority rush info sessions. We should not participate competitively in Greek Week. We should not be part of the Greek council/IFC/Panhel, and if the school tries to force us to do so, we should be able to explain why this is inappropriate. All of these have been done by chapters and discussed here on GC. BUT if it's gotten to the point that we're so much the other way that we're ashamed to put Greek letters on a poster, why are we still using them at all? Why don't we just become the LFS Club?

As far as the bolded...whew, pot, meet kettle. For a volunteer to reinforce asinine stereotypes on here is just really messed up and drives away social Greeks who could be great members. A less "values based" (ugh, can we stop with the buzzwords) action I cannot think of.

As a person who is not a member of a service fraternity, I am more drawn to the bottom of the two posters. Without the "National Co-ed Service Fraternity" part, it sounds a little religion'y. Or stated another way, it doesn't tell the reader who you are or what you do. I really think I would be compelled to ask for more information from the bottom poster.

I truly think a happy medium can be had, and the smaller the school/chapter, the more important it is that it exist.

I want to note that this entire thread started because the Original Poster asked about how to get their name out there. I provided a couple examples of what has worked extremely well for several chapters and what is being taught at Membership Academy. Clearly you don't agree with what is being considered best practice in the fraternity. If you prefer to mock "values based" as buzzwords, what would you suggest then that a chapter use to market itself and what the fraternity is about, and how would you reconcile that with what is being taught as best practice these days?

I'm not going to continue arguing your strawmen and won't fall for your slippery slope fallacy. We're talking past each other, so I'm just going to agree to disagree and move on.

Threads like this are why we can't have nice things.