advice needed
 

I am the philanthropy chair for the alum association. I have planned 3 activities this semester. An email was sent out not only by the membership chair but the president asking sisters to volunteer and to email me by tomorrow if they wanted to. I have also contacted the chapter and told them about the volunteer oppurtunities.

I've had two sisters volunteer.

It really frustrates me because I keep hearing that sisters want to do more to help RMH but they aren't volunteering to actually help them. I hate bugging the chapter to participate in these philanthropic activities when I'm not even "working" (so to speak) for the chapter.

I am contemplating sending out an email and telling sisters that I have no volunteers for this coming Saturday's event. 2 sisters volunteered for the March event and 1 for the April event. (The reason I asked for people to volunteer now is that I know, as working adults, our calendars get full pretty quickly. I was looking for volunteers now so that I could get them all and email them when the time got closer).

I DO NOT want to stress over these events like I did in October. I don't want to sound mean but I want to tell them, "if I don't get the minimum volunteers I will cancel the events".

I don't know what to do. Advice please, because I'm at a loss. I've got so much else going on in my life and I don't want to be stressing about this, but I absolutely HATE to let RMH down! And that's what I'm going to be doing because I can't get sisters to volunteer 2-4 hours of their time.

What do I do? Do I just say screw it? Do I fight? What?

It is a simple case of getting people to put their money where their mouth is. They have expressed interest; the events are planned and you have no one to attend. I'd cancel the event if you have only 2 volunteers. Then send out a survey requesting feedback with:
* the types of events people would like
* dates that work for the majority

Don't chastise them; just tell them that "Due to response, the event has been canceled as the unfortunate result of less participation than was promised to the event. We apologize for anyone who may be disappointed, but we very much want to increase our volunteer opportunities to suit your interests! Please help us out by answering these quick survey questions so that we can better plan events around your interests and schedules to get the best turnout possible. We're very interested in serving the needs of our members and RMH; your reponses will be helpful in making this happen!"

Also, try including family, friends and children of your members in your events. This can help with your turnout and you get a larger group.

Good luck. Trust me that you are not alone; every sorority and every alumnae group faces these problems.

Abbey thank you so much for the advice!

It gets hard to take a step back when it's something you are passionate about.

You know I can't blame people for not volunteering. They have busy lives just like I do.

I just feel bad by always resorting on the chapter. They are a great group of girls. Whenever I have needed volunteers that have immediately jumped to the plate and do it. Like I said, they really are an amazing set of women. But I'm not an advisor for the chapter. It makes me feel bad because...I don't know how to really express it.

I truly love working with RMH!!!!!

Maybe I'll send out a questionarre just to get feedback. So if I do decide to continue with philanthropy next school year I know what some of the alums would like to do. And even if I don't do philanthropy, the person who does will have an idea what alums want.

I feel your pain!

I hear a lot of "I want to help the RMH", but then I get only a couple 'yes' responses when the evite goes out. It is impossible to schedule one activity that fits everyone's calendar, or that interests everyone. Based on responses, we schedule more of a particular activity (like cooking dinner on weekends, bc dinner must be served by 6pm and we've had poor turnout during the week). We had opportunity to raise $$ for RMH by "manning" a booth at tje mall, but had zero responses. The organizer and i each sat therefor 4 hours -- and wearing letters got us a new alumna member, but not a lot of cash and boring as...

Definitely encourage family & friends, where appropriate! We usually get at least one kid helping when we cook and had only 2 alums but 8 total people at the last activity at the RMH!

Don't stop trying!! As long as u get enough people too make the activity work, you are helping people - and that is what matters most.

Update....

In the end had to cancel the February event. Making the call to RMH was seriously the hardest thing I've had to do thus far. I felt utterly horrible. OMG all I could do was apologize like a gazillion times.

I'm going to email the AA president tomorrow morning (I'm about to head off to bed) and tell her that I would like to send out an email and survey (thanks again Abbey for the suggestion). The next event is 3 weeks away and I've got 3 volunteers. It's a pancake breakfast so it could be done with the 4 of us, but more would be better :D

I'm going to take the advice about families. I'll have to check with RMH first. I think families could come to the ice cream social in April. Again, check with RMH first and make sure it is okay. I wonder if we could decorate the outside and hold the social outside in their "outside area" (for lack of a better word). I'll be calling RMH tomorrow :D

Do any of your associations do anything over the summer for RMH? I kind of hate that the alum association kind of shuts down for the summer and then restarts when the chapter comes back to school. I think we should still be doing stuff for RMH over the summer. They still need us.

Ugh to much that I want to do and not enough time or volunteers to do it.

Before the OCAA unoffically disbanded (for lack of a better word), we use to do Sunday brunches once a month for the RMH and continued throughout the summer. If the AA holds summertime events and people still attend, you could probably muster up some support for an upcoming RMH event by attending yourself. I want to say we did do a 4th of July themed meal for them one summer but the details escape me. I definitely agree that helping them over the summer would be great, since you know at the very least the local adpi chapters are not around to lend a hand. Could you guys plan a baseball night and attend a game and do a silent auction to benefit the RMH? Or maybe just raffle off some good seats if there are any alumnae who hold season passes?

I'm glad to hear that other AA's try to do stuff.

I love the idea of a baseball night! I'll have to mention it to the president. Thanks for the idea!

We're holding a garage sale to benefit RMH this summer and will probably go there to cook dinner over the summer.