At Indiana University, each IFC fraternity MUST:
1. Do X amount of community service hours per member
2. Attend other greek sponsored philanthropy events for a total of X amount of hours per member
3. Sponsor one Philanthropic event per year
It is part of our IFC "Minimum Standards" which requires each chapter to perform certain things (i.e. community service, philanthropy, risk management, campus involvement) at a certain satisfactory level.
No events are mandatory, but you have to go to some event to meet your hours.
Of course, now because each fraternity is forced to do a philanthropy, there are a million of them. One week this semester there were 6! Because there are so many, they are less effective ($$ and participation is being spread too thin). IFC and Panhel are now limiting the number per week.
Go to
http://www.indiana.edu/~ifc and check out the minimum standards for our fraternities.
As for your sitiuation Josh80, we encountered a situation very similar to that this year. A philanthropy that we had worked on for years to make the biggest on campus, was stolen from us by a certain sorority.
They worked VERY hard to work us out of the picture but I personally saw to it that we were maintained as a sponsor and that we will continue to do so in the future. If you work hard to create an outstanding philanthropy, the organization that you are benefitting should at least be courteous enough to give you some sort of "job security".
XP2K