Ideas to Raise numbers

[deephergirl]

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get more girls to pledge for us? I was named the VP of recruitment for my sorority this past week and we've been having alot of problems with numbers lately so I really want to do a good job.

We have around 10 sororities on campus, most of which have gotten in trouble for hazing in the past so I think girls are scared to rush on our campus because there were only 23 girls do rush at all last semester (the lowest ever). We never have hazed and never will so we try to tell girls that we will not haze them, but obviously it's not a big selling point because sadly we only got one girl to pledge for us last semester.

Today we had a pre-rush event thing (opens) and I'm pretty sure we did a great job because I heard all the other sororities just gave tours but we played a game and talked about why we joined the sorority so I'm hoping that went well. I just want to make sure that I do everything humanly possible to get girls to pledge my sorority because I love my sorority and I know if we could meet tons of girls they'd love us too.

So if anyone has any ideas or tips please let me know! Thanks!

[PhoenixAzul]

Before I get into it, how big is the campus? and what percentage of that is female? How many chapters are NPC, how many local? and what sort of "competitive" groups do you have (i.e. service orgs, is music chorale particularly popular, engineering society, LARPers, etc)?

I think that, even though you may have some disagreements with the other orgs, it's going to take a group effort to raise awareness of rush and sorority life. Getting them to clean up their acts is...sticky.

[texas*princess]

Wow. For a campus with around 10 sororities, 23 is a very low number of pnms. I think cleaning up the image of the sororities should be a panhellenic-wide effort... cause... wow.

As a sort of piggyback to PhoenixAzul's questions, around what is the percentage of greek students at your school?

If you haven't already, encourage your active sisters to bring unaffilliated women to your events. Whether they are friends from classes, or members of other orgs that your sisters are in, they should all be bringing at least a couple girls to the events.

[deephergirl]

To answer your questions there's (around) 8-10,000 students, it's not a big campus, but I'm pretty sure in the past most people were greek because numbers for every sorority were huge. So that means around half of the population is girls, if not a little more than half.

There are alot of other groups on campus but most of my sisters and I are in several other clubs so it isn't a big issue that there's alot of other organizations on campus.

We try to invite ppl we meet and our friends but they are either already our sisters, really don't want to pledge (believe me everyone in my sorority talkes to my 2 roomates about pledging 24/7 lol), or they are a nursing major (it's a very hard major at our school and that's the only thing they can do pretty much is study and go to class so they dont have time for a sorority), or my sisters are just shy, but don't worry I'm working on getting them out of their shell to talk to girls

I do agree that greek life on our campus needs to work on their image and it's unfortunate that other girl's bad actions have harmed recruitment for all other sororities, but I'll have my president talk to our NPC about raising our image.

This semester we even tried to have an icecream social to have non-greeks come to meet us and have free icecream but only one girl came until it was announced in dorms and the girls that did come wouldn't talk to us, they got icecream and left and when I tried talking to them about our sorority they were really rude.

Also, my sorority unfortunately has a bad rap for not being the prettiest girls on campus, I think we're all beautiful, but unfortunately other ppl think some of our girls arent. This shouldn't be the deciding factor for potentials, this shows that sisterhood is the most important thing to us and we never judge books by their covers. But we're working on that, Once I got my position I imediately started telling girls to look very nice and wear heals and makup and all that to recruitment events (which should be a given) and so far they have. But there's just something else missing that I just cant think of to get girls to come to rush events.

If you have any more questions just let me know. Thanks for your quick responses!

[33girl]

Just for everyone's info - this campus has 5 local chapters (which are older than the nationals) and 5 NPC chapters.

Deephergirl - I'm a Clarion alum and I think they're having the same problem with getting prospective members to come to "events." You all (as in all of the chapters on campus) need to learn how to open rush. Open rush does NOT need to consist of elaborate parties with themes that take forever to plan - open rush should be laid back things like inviting girls over to the house, inviting them to go to Applebee's or something like that with you, inviting them to go w/ you to see a campus speaker - things like that. It should be "hey, I like you and want to hang out with you whether you pledge or not" rather than "OMG PLEASE PLEDGE US NOW." Rushees can tell when they're just being used to get numbers up. If all you talk about every time you see someone is pledging, she's going to be annoyed with you and even if she DID have the thought in her mind, she's going to say forget it. The key is getting her so comfy that SHE asks YOU how she can join.

I know you've probably heard the 5 step model of rushing - it is valid, but it takes more than 5 minutes. Sometimes it can take a year for a girl to decide she wants to do it.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by 33girl

The key is getting her so comfy that SHE asks YOU how she can join.

I know you've probably heard the 5 step model of rushing - it is valid, but it takes more than 5 minutes. Sometimes it can take a year for a girl to decide she wants to do it.

I agree.

I found a list of the steps from Beta Theta Pi's national website:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us:

Note: Since the Model was developed originally for fraternities, the steps use the terms "pledge" and "rush" iinstead of "new member" and "recruitment."

The 5 Step Model of Recruitment


Step 1. Meet Them:

Most of the people that we should be recruiting, we already know. We meet people naturally through class, friends, sports and other campus involvements. We don’t meet people through posters and fliers, so why do we depend on them for Rush?


Step 2. Make Them Your Friends:

Fraternities are based on friendship. Our founders were friends with similar ideals who created the organization to be a vehicle to improve our lives. Instead of choosing people we don’t know to share our values, ritual and secrets, why not choose our friends? Don’t take chances with people who could ruin your organization when they become members. Create brotherhood and sisterhood among friends. It is what’s worked for over 100 years!!


Step 3. Introduce Them to Your Friends:

The key to recruitment is going from Step 2. to Step 3. We need to turn our friends into members. People join people. Helping your friends in the chapter to befriend the prospective member is what makes recruitment work.


Step 4. Introduce Them to Your Organization:

Rush can fit very well into Step 4. This means we need to recruit people BEFORE they come to Rush events. When they are already our friends the events aren’t fake and superficial they are…fun!


Step 5. Ask Them to Join:

If you sold cars for a living you wouldn’t limit the days you worked to two per year! So why do so many groups limit the number of times that they give bids?! Continuously invite great people to join the next pledge program scheduled. Change system-wide rules that are too limiting and unrealistic. They are based on fear and the end result is less Greek unity and lower membership totals.

[bekillian]

That's my sister!!

Even if you didn't know it. Gotta love those Deephers

I'm a new member at my school as of this fall. I never would have thought I'd join a sorority but here I am! Plus I have taken on the position of Recruitment Coordinator for this spring. We've just decided to have formal recruitment in the spring as well as the fall, our numbers are down as well. After the experience I went through with my formal recruitment I'm eager to continue on. I wanted to be a Rho Chi this year but no one wanted to take on the coordinator position so I stepped up to the plate. Any advice would be hot since I only just became a member this semester.

DPhiE