Sorority Recruitment Help

[33girl]

First off, you don't have to worry about pressure from your HQ to make quota or total so stop worrying about it too much.

I seem to be saying this a heck of a lot lately - but never ever ever assume that ANYONE is a "lock" to pledge. That includes your best friend since kindergarten, the girl who spends every single day eating lunch with half the sorority, and your biological sister!! It's possible you neglected other PNMs that might have been a good fit because you were so focused on this group of so-called "sure things." (Did they all go to one group, or different groups?)

There are always going to be people who would rather belong to national groups than locals even if the locals are more popular on campus. Unless you decide to go national (are you thinking about it?) you can't do anything about that. Mention that your dues are lower, but don't make it TOO much of a selling point - you don't want people pledging you just because you're a "bargain." Concentrate on things like:

-You make all the decisions (within school rules) about the way the sorority is run.

-Every cent of dues that they pay goes to THIS chapter - not to support chapters several states away or a national office.

-Your strong alumnae connections (if that's true).

-Your strong ties to the school (if that's true).

[sftbll17]

We're worried about hitting quota and such because while we don't have pressure from HQ to make these numbers, our school is giving us pressure. We do not have houses on our campus, we are given a floor in the residence halls as a sorority floor. If we don't have the numbers to fill our floor we lose it and will have no place to have recruitment or to have our new member nights/ceremonies. In our campus losing your floor can easily lose you your chapter if you don't have a HQ backing you up. This is why we are concerned about our numbers.

During our parties we generally play up the following facts:
1- Our dues are lower.
2- We run ourselves.
3- Our alumni and founders are still supportive.
4- We have won "Best Sisterhood" (an award given by Greek Life) 12 yrs in a row.
5- We have won the Community Service Award.
6- We have Sisters involved in theater, sports, and many other clubs.
7- Our sisters are President of Panhellenic Council and Greek Senate.
8- We are small, but our bonds between each other are big.

I don't think we ignore any PNMs just because we may think a girl is a lock. We try to keep it at least one sister to 2 PNMs...if our numbers allow it. We notice that girls we may see as locks always tend to go to one chapter.

I feel like maybe PNMs get bored at our parties because they might not have a lot of structure. There is only so much time you can spend talking to a girl before you get bored. But, we don't know how to get that structure.

[33girl]

I was going to ask/mention if there was a school housing issue but I figured you would bring it up if there was, which you did.

Here's a thread on how to run bump groups - to make sure the max # of PNMs get to talk to the max amount of sisters.

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ht=bump+groups

The best thing to do is to just think about what the other groups did when you all went through rush. For example, if they all had beautiful, emotional pref ceremonies and you didn't, that might be a problem. If things like that have gotten lost over the years, ask your alums for help. (You would be surprised at the things that stick in your head even 20 years out. LOL)

Hope this helps!!

[AlphaFrog]

Do you HAVE to do recruitment with the other chapters?

If you're not getting enough members out of recruitment to make it worth it, and you don't HAVE to per Panhel bylaws, then don't. Focus your effort/money/resources on COB. That could end up lowering your dues MORE and making that an even more appealing factor.