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I agree that on the individual chapter level that money doesn't mean much . . . of course you can have great sisterhood even in a tiny chapter. And you can have great sisterhood even if your nationals is one of the weaker ones -- that's not what's being debated.
The fact is, money can do a lot. The larger chapters can afford to have paid, full-time workers . . . some of the smaller chapters can't. The larger chapters can afford to have more paid travelling consultants, thus having a better chance of catching risk management violations or just having a better chance to work hands-on, in-depth with problems a chapter may be facing. Groups with more money can have more elaborate programming. (You know, the national HQ who hires a nutritionist to flesh out their "healthy living" program, etc.) And I'm sure there are lots of examples I'm forgetting.
I'm not saying that money is the ONLY thing you need to be a successful national sorority -- as pointed out above, if you have innovative programming and are offering something that the larger sororities don't, you can definitely compete with them. But money definitely helps. And as long as the bigger sororities are the only ones at schools with large or prestigious Greek systems . . . the bigger sororities are getting more members. More members = more dues, more alumnae dues and more alumnae donations. And the gap between the biggest and smallest sororities will only continue to grow. That's why I think some of the smaller groups will start to "die off."
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