[ASTalumna06]

First, search the recruitment threads. There are a ridiculous number of them on this site. Many of them concern small, struggling chapters looking for recruitment ideas.

Secondly, visit PhiredUp.com. Read the blog and resources. Find out what a Names List is.. and use it. Focus on doing smaller, NORMAL activities with a few members and PNMs (movies, dinner, studying, etc.). And remember: people don’t join organizations.. people join people. Try to meet as many as you can.

Lastly, regarding your new members dropping.. Why are they leaving? Are they concerned about the time commitment? Are they in trouble academically? Do their parents not approve? Can they not afford it? Are you hazing, and your new members don’t want to be a part of that? There are a lot of reasons why someone would choose to leave a sorority. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t know what the problem is. Maybe all of the new members who are dropping have the same concerns. If this is the case, it’s most likely a “problem” being caused by the actions of your chapter, and you need to change them. It could be something as simple as offering academic help, or setting up payment plans for financial responsibilities. But there’s also a very good possibility that these girls are leaving for different reasons, and you might have to work with them on an individual basis (i.e. one girl’s grades are dropping and she needs help studying, and another girl is worried about how much time she will have to invest in the sorority).

In the 5 years that I have been a member of my sorority, I have known 2 girls who have dropped. One girl simply decided that sorority life wasn’t for her. She was surrounded by it for 2 months and just felt that she didn’t want to do it. It happens. With those cases, there’s really nothing you can do about it. The second girl was concerned about how much time she would have to spend on sorority activities, and she thought that they would completely interfere with everything else she was doing. Our president and advisor talked to her, worked out a schedule with her, discussed what exactly would be involved with being an active member, and she reconsidered her decision to leave.

At the same time, these two girls completed at least 4 weeks of the new member process before they said anything to the chapter about the possibility of them dropping. You said your new members are doing so after only a few days. Why do you think that is?

If you want to keep members around, you have to be honest with yourselves about why they’re dropping. Then you can work out a strategy from there. If you already know why, and you want to reveal the reason(s) here so that you can gain some more specific advice, go for it. If not, try to figure out why they’re leaving and work with your chapter in order to do something about it.