My chapter (Zeta Omicron at University of Florida) had, IMHO, the most fun philanthrophy ever...
The Men of UF Calendar!!!
We would give applications to all the fraternities - GDIs could try out too. The application had questions on it (everything from major, ideal date, favorite song, etc.) and they submitted a picture too.
Then we took all the pictures and had "penny voting" in the main campus square - each guy's picture had a cup by it and his name and sponsoring organization. People would come by and put $ in the cup of the guy they liked best, etc.
The top 26 guys from penny voting got to be in the Men of UF Pageant. We reserved a club/bar and had several rounds.
Round 1 - Intro, guys in khakis, white shirts, basic stuff: name, age, major, fraternity, etc.
Round 2 - formalwear, the guys answer the mushy questions: ideal girl, date, etc.
Round 3 - personality round. If a guy played a sport, he could use his uniform. we had a premed guy come out in scrubs and then say he "wanted to play doctor with some Alpha Xi's"

, a law student came out in a judge's robe, etc. One guy was the diet coke guy from the commercials - dressed like a construction worker, came out, ripped off his shirt, and popped open a can of diet coke.
Round 4 - boxers/swimsuit round. fun for obvious reasons.
In between rounds, we had music playing and all the greeks there would socialize. Lots of fun.
The judges were usually our house mom, one of the greek deans, the photographer we hired to take the pics for the actual calendar, and the Panhellenic president. THey picked 12 guys + 1 alternate and they were announced at the end as the "men of UF" for the year.
It takes a LOT of planning but it's not as hard as it seems if you split up duties.
Need to solicit free stuff!
We got free radio ads and used the club free too. Listed them as sponsors on the T shirts.
This makes a LOT of $$$ for your philanthropy too. We made $ several ways:
1. Application fee ($25/guy or $35 for two I think)
2. Penny voting money
3. Pageant admissions - everyone (except our sisters and the actual contestants and judges) was charged $5.
4. T-shirt sales
5. Selling ads - one large ad on the back of the calendar for our main sponsor and then also ads across the bottom of each month's page.
In 2000 we gave over $2000 to Boggy Creek Gang Camp (a local camp for terminally and critically ill kids), plus a $2000 grant from Nationals. So that's over $4000!!!
...plus the added bonus of having all those guys coming by the house to get or turn in applications! We also always had the winners all over for dinner at least once.
Definitely a good time!
G8Ralphaxi

Zeta Omicron
University of Florida
Spring 1997
TFJ LITBOS LWL