Frat decreasing in numbers...

[jakyl]

My organization was in a comparable spot two years ago. The key to being a success is to win the freshman. For the most part freshman have no clue how the greek system works so in there eyes they cannot discern between the biggest and the smallest fraternity if both can make themselves equally visible. Yes the smaller organization wont have as much exposure in terms of people wearing letters but its still possible to hide your numbers and appear bigger than you are. Since the organization had many guys graduate there should be an influx of recent alumni willing to come down and help. The next step is to throw big parties. Now this may vary in difficulty depending on where you go to school but it is the opportunity to show the freshman a good time. 10 guys can run a party but a good ammount of preparation is needed and chances are you will only break even cash wise unless you can support a massive rager which is hard with 10 guys.

If you throw a good party then the freshman will have a good opinion of you guys and with all the alumni it does not need to be known how big the organization active list is untill pledge season and at that point they are commited. The mixer scheme will probably disintigrate with only 10 guys but thats ok as long as you have a base of people which will come to all the "open parties" they can fill the void for mixers until you have more members.

Next is to put on a lot of stupid little programs that wont necessarily garner much attention (if they do then great) and thats fine because you will constantly have some sort of flyer with the organizations name on the boards of the residence halls. If you start at the beginning of the year and make some strong friends you can have a big pledge class by the spring.

Honestly now is the time when the organization has nothing to loose so it can go balls out and risk it all otherwise they are done.

Using this strategy we have been able to triple our organization size back to healthy numbers at a school which is not greek friendly and filled with giant tool box organizaitions who let anyone walk in there society.