How to improve my chapter's visibility and get recognized?
 

Hope that this is in the right forum:

I'm from a rather small chapter of a national fraternity - but it is not recognized at our school. It has been around at the school off-campus for over a decade.

When we wear our letters, we get stares and comments. Some GLOs may know something of our existence, but most don't. Of those who know us, our reputation isn't necessarily a good one and there has been some bad blood between us and the school in the past.

How do we boost our recognition and get a positive image on campus? We can’t advertise on campus.

How do we get better relations with the other GLOs and would they be receptive and helpful to us, given our situation?

The school may be doing Greek xpansion soon, so we would love to finally come on to campus. How do we better our chances of being picked? We have attempted in the past to no avail.

When you say bad blood between you and the campus - what exactly do you mean? Did your org get into trouble for failing to follow campus rules or guidelines? Cause that's gonna be tougher than merely improving your presence on campus. I would concentrate on being visible being involved in other glo's philanthrophies, maybe conducting some of your own.

Are your members involved in other campus activities? There's nothing that says you can't wear your letters while involved in other campus groups. If they see your members making a positive contribution to other campus groups, your group will start to have a more positive image overall.

We've never been recognized by the school, unfortunately, in our over a decade existence so far. We were another fraternity before that, which was recognized, but lost our charter due to not meeting that nationals goals, although trying very hard to. They found a new national fraternity and we have been going ever since - the school just never recognized us.

Most of the "bad blood" has just resulted from the school mad to have non-approved fraternity running around. There were two specific events that the school was mad about that happened 3-4 years ago, but these were before my time - and before a majority of the current members' time. Recently, school officials have claimed not to even remember these things in the past.

We have approx 10 members and a few pledges right now. Only about 3-4 of us active members are involved in anything other than the fraternity right now.

i would like some info on that. please!

I'm making these post independent of my chapter. I'd like to keep the chapter name, fraternity, and school anonymous.

Any advice you could give on the forums or better yet, in PMs would be greatly appreciated. I can give more details over PM - but I don't think that I'll reveal the school or fraternity.

Have you met with the dean of student activities? Make an appointment and discuss the situation. Perhaps she will have some information on why the fraternity has not been recognized, and steps you can take to secure provisional and eventually official recognition. Go to the source-- find out what you need to do.

Also, speak to your nationals about this situation. They may have recommendations and can send out a field consultant to train you on recruitment and promotion.

To improve visibility, set one day a week where all members dress in letters and meet on campus in the student union for lunch. Invite the members to bring friends.

Next, plan a signature event involving the other students on campus. Maybe it can be a flag football tournament. Groups can sign up in teams. The proceeds can benefit your national philanthropy. Promote this to the student body by distributing fliers, hanging signs, taking out ads in the school paper, and getting area sponsors to donate food and prizes.


Also, make sure each of your members are involved in non-fraternity organizations on campus. They should wear their letters to meetings of those groups. This is a great way to increase visibility, know what is going on around campus, and to network with potential new members.

Get good grades. Honor professors with awards. Join honor societies. Make a big deal about your members good grades by sending press releases to the school newspaper, the dean, the Greek adviser, the campus IFC, your nationals, etc.

See about attending an IFC meeting as a group to observe how the fraternity council operates.

Visit the sororities on campus and serenade them. Leave flowers or candy. Support the sororities by attending their intramural activities and making posters. Sororities probably can't plan socials with you because of your unofficial status, but you can arrange with local hot spots to have a special "XYZ night." Invite people through word of mouth, Facebook groups, etc. This will be a great way to attract potential new members and meet other members of the Greek System who come out to your social events.

Lastly, keep your noses clean on campus. No hazing, no fighting, no public drunkeness.

Also, recruit like hell - for a small fraternity, gaining size cures many ills. Putting your group into a full-time recruitment mode should also make every brother more aware of the image they project for the fraternity.