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Locals going National
We're in the same boat, actually. We started Epsilon Tau Pi, a fraternity of Eagle Scouts, at the University of Dayton in 1999. Since then, we have a colony at Ohio State and inquiries from other schools. When we explored the possibility of going national, we decided to form an alumni advisory board to oversee the expansion. The biggest challenge is to make sure that the core ideals and principles that caused your brother/sisterhood to form can be translated accurately from school to school. Having a national fraternity of any sort is worthless unless each and every member knows that, no matter where he was initiated, he went through the same experience as every other member.
Whatever process you do choose, it must be in writing. We used the Alpha Chapter to lay out a framework for Beta and future chapters, so that they had ready-made bylaws, scripts, materials for training, etc... and their job was simply getting to the business of operating a chapter. Alumni are also excellent resources.
Good luck, I know it's tough, but the rewards are worth it.
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