[valpogal99]

"What we all need to say is ‘this organization over here has an OVERALL greater percentage of active alum in their organization. Let's see what they are doing that we aren't so that we can make our organization better.’” Zchi2, what NATIONAL statistics do you have to back up your comment?

How do any of us know that Nationally any organization has a greater overall percentage of active alums than any other? Beyond that, how does one classify active? Do you count the Alums that are posting to this board? Or do you have to attend a function in person? If so, how many functions do you have to attend. I am sure we all have different answers to these questions.

I belong to 2 Alumnae Associations in the KC area (we have 3). Both the groups are VERY active with a minimum of 1 function a month. I also serve on a corp board for a local chapter. Does that mean I am more involved than many of my sisters who send letters and care packages to the chapter at which we were initiated. I wouldn’t. I would still say they were just as involved as I am. Involvement is hard to measure and hard to track. I don't think it is fair for any of us to say that an organization has a greater percentage of active alum. There is no real way to measure this.

I can tell you that Chi Omega and Kappa Delta have very active online Alumnae groups (with both of them well over 500 members). Does this mean that those members are involved with the sorority? What if they posts once a year? What if that post is to say Happy Holidays to everyone? Are they involved? Who makes that call? Are they involved if they wear letters or their badge once a year? I can also tell you that Alpha Delta Pi has strong Alumnae support as well. Again, there is no way to measure the percentage of members involved because there is no firm definition of the word "involvement".

I know that one of my local ADPi Alumnae organizations has 148 dues paying members. But do you have to pay dues to be involved as an Alum? Not according to our Nationals, although to some you do. Because of this, involvement can't be based on paying members. This illustrates several of my points. No one can make a fair judgement on who is and who is not involved.

The other problem is that there is now way to compare apples to apples in this scenario. The purpose and group size of the organization make it impossible to compare all the GLO's on equal ground. For example, a local organization that has 45 member and has been around for 5 years and still has 42 members active cannot be compared to an International organization with over 100,000 members that has been around for 150 years.

I agree with Zchi2 that we should look at other organization’s strong points and ask if we can improve our group. However, I think we also need to look at all the facts and ask if a fair comparison of the groups can be made and if we have all the facts before we start changing because someone said they were better in some area. In this case, I haven't seen any undeniable facts that say any one organization has a higher percentage than any other organization. Instead, I have read a lot of posts with people who PERCEIVE their organizations have more involvement. Show me FACTS if you want to change my mind.