Starting a local sorority!
 

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QFP

So you have at least 4 (if not more) sororities and none of them were a good fit. Why is that? What are you looking for?

You just said you don't want to be national and then you say "are there any national organizations we can be under?" That sounds like you want some national group to just take you on as a technicality and then do whatever you want. NO.

Get the group going and keep it going. You may have to be a club for a while. If you keep it together, the school will be much more amenable toward recognizing you as a sorority.

To the part in red, why does your campus require (inter)national affiliation?

To the part in blue, besides not being national what is the purpose of starting your own sorority? Why not a club instead? What activities and awards are so important to you and your fellow founders that you must be a sorority?

Start a club, heck you can even name it with Greek letters. That way you can still buy tons of sorority swag with your letters on it.

Probably so they will have oversight by an adult population and liability insurance....just to name 2 things on the first part. As for the second part, I would assume they have a Greek Awards event of some sort along with maybe Greek Week, Homecoming, etc.

The question about what was it that you didn't like about the panhellenic sororities is valid. The school is not going to allow you a work-around on that rule. They are under way too much legal liability and this is their way of ensuring oversight. So your choice is 1-stop worrying about starting an organization and just continue being friends or 2-find something that IS a good fit.

If you can explain what it is you're trying to get out of your new sorority, some people here might be able to help you narrow down your choices or redirect your approach.

This. There are two huge items that will influence your school to work with you about recognition.
1. There needs to be an unmet need across a BIG subsection of students at your school. How big is your interest group? If it's just you and a smallish group of friends, that's not very compelling.
2. You also have to prove through your actions that this new fledgling group is beneficial to the university community. How will the campus be a better place if your group is recognized? If you get recognized as a club, start doing highly visible projects on your campus like hosting speakers and seminars on domestic violence, voter registration drives, trick or treat for canned goods for a local food pantry, etc. They are less likely to recognize a group just because they've selected insignia and designed a secret handshake. They want to to see their students drive some positive change!

Having been through this exact situation, then starting a club as your school is requesting that you do, here's my advice.

A club that was started because you and your group of friends didn't fit into any existing group isn't going to have longevity. A club that fits an unmet niche that a large number of other students could identify with would.

The club that I put a lot of time and energy into trying to get my alma mater to recognize as a local coed sorority is about to fold. I've just graduated, and it hurts to see all that hard work result in something that hasn't stood the test of time. There wasn't a large enough niche to be served on my campus that the organization could thrive and attract and bring in new members. We were only able to recruit a total of *one* new member in the course of a year. The same kinds of things that our group did, people did with their friends, including socializing, parties, girls only time and volunteer work and raising funds for good causes. The only difference between us and any other student club was that we had ritual, handshakes and a Greek letter name.

In the end, it was a hard lesson to learn that there wasn't a lasting place for the local organization.