Local Sorority Rush Ideas?
 

I'm in a local sorority, one of 2 on campus. We only have 12 active sisters, while the other local has as many as 40+.
We are trying to recruit more girls on a very low population greek campus (less then 3% of the campus is greek).
Does anyone have any ideas, not necessarily for "recruitment", but rush events that have worked in your favor? What do people at bigger universities look for in rush events? How are you getting people out? (And please keep in mind we don't have national funding, so events need to be financially apt).

Do the nationals all have higher numbers? Do you have to rush at the same time as them (i.e. Panhel rush w/ quota & total)?

You need to have enough women to keep the group running, and you need them to be a range of ages (i.e. you don't want to have 11 juniors and 1 sophomore) but no one says you HAVE to be big, if you don't want to. That's one of the nice things about being local.

yeah, the only sorority that is close to us in #'s is delta zeta. & we are included in panhell. our problem is, is that we have girls graduating, & only pledge classes of a few getting in (in fall 06 we had 3, & this past spring, only 1). we don't mind being small, but all the sisters that have been arond for awhile are graduating, and we arn't getting enough flow in.

if it's gotten to the point where a lot of sisters are older, here are some things to do and ways to meet people:

-Go eat at the caf or the on campus restaurant on a regular basis. Wear letters!! Make sure the underclassmen know you exist.

-If possible - take some of those classes that are usually freshman heavy that you might have blown off till now because you couldn't get in them (fundamentals of speech was our big one). Again, wear letters frequently!

-Go to a fraternity party once in a while - even if you're 21- don't just hit the bars.

I completely understand what it's like once you get to be a junior/senior and the whole way into your major - you see the same people all the time. Our house was (just) off campus and most of my jr & sr classes were at the business building, which was on the edge of campus. If I hadn't gone to the bookstore once in a while or had some of those "freshman" classes I would never have been on campus proper.

Good luck!!!

Promote, promote, promote. The best way is to get your letters out there. So girls see them and they wonder what it is and so forth. Flyer, Chalk, table, go to places freshmen and other younger students frequent (caf, etc.), facebook mass mailers, myspace groups, and have sisters wear their letters as much as possible. If you want girls to come out, you have to let them know you're there. Anything you can do to advertise is a great starting point. Once you get girls out there be yourselves and have fun with them and keep them coming back.

As for ideas for programs. I'm in a local and was recruitment chair.

Info nights are good, just to inform girls who you are, we've done that. Pizza Party, Casino nights, Luau, meet and greet (like speed dating), formal type night(usually like a pref party but where everyone dresses up, and pres interviews girls), and so many more. Get creative.

One year we themed our whole rush around recruiting through the decades and had decade themed nights.

If you want more in depth info PM me I can send you flyer examples, more ideas and more detailed information. Good luck!

recruit who you know!
 

Although PR and getting your name out there are all great things, one of the best sources of new members and finding other great women to join your organization is by recruiting who you already know. Compile a list of friends and people already in your sorority's network - take time to get to know them, bring them around the house and invite them to community service/philanthropy events and/or sisterhood events (not just the social side). Many women would be interested in joining a sorority but just have never been asked - when working with a campus with a small Greek life population, it can be easy to be lost in the crowd - imagine if you had just 12 of your current women each bring one friend in to the sorority? You would double your size - make it a priority for your members to each find just one person to join next semester.

Do an assessment of the chapter with your fellow chapter members. Look at areas of strength and weakness and set goals for how you want to grow.

If a lot of seniors will be graduating, you may want this new member class to be heavily made up of underclassmen, whereas next year you may not be as concerned with how many years a member will be able to contribute.

Wear letters all the time so people start to recognize your name!

Outside of formal recruitment, you need to work extra hard. Hold open house events and workshops for women on your campus as a way to get to know them-- IE: Self defense, resume writing, cooking 101, etc. Partner with other campus groups where you may find quality members and hold events together. Offer bids to women after informal meetings (discuss this policy as a chapter).

You can still be selective in whom you invite to membership-- you just need to be more aggressive about meeting new people and getting to know them.

Invite your campus's Greek Adviser to assist you with your goals and have him/her assist you in getting your numbers up.

this is an excellent suggestion. i'm not a greek, but the way i got to learn about the various greek groups that do exist on campus were by the fact that they sponsored a ton of events, flyered heavily for them, and put their name on the bottom. do you have campus-wide email? use it. use facebook! be obnoxious, invite all the women you know, write notes about it, post the information in relevant groups, etc. if you have some sort of college blog/events calendar that goes out to the whole school, use that too.

the key is to have a broad range of events that show people that you're both fun to be with and interesting enough to investigate further. workshops, talks, open mic nites, baking for a bake sale for charity, doing a workshop on food you can cook in a microwave (great way to attract freshmen!), organize an event to raise money for charity, or anything involving free food.

also, your webpage. brag about yourselves (in a tasteful way!) one of my friends is a DG and i'm so impressed by the variety of activities she and her sisters are involved with at on their campus, but i only know because it's on their website. instead of linking your photos to webshots, create albums on the site that show off your sisterhood and the fun you guys have together (you may want to invest in a site other than geocities). have your contact information readily available. get your chapter website linked to your school's Greek Life webpage (not being linked puts you at an automatic disadvantage to a PNM wanting to learn more about you - extra effort is not always invested). keep the site updated. my brother's chapter does not do this and i've pointed out to him that it makes them look like they don't care, because that's how it comes across to a PNM over the internet.

good luck :)