What Do Your Dues Look Like?

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by excelblue

We all have to pay dues. What do your dues look like, and what are they used for?

I'm really curious about how some organizations manage to pull off some ultra-expensive events such as a foam party or even reserving an entire fancy restaurant for a social.

Are my chapter's dues (total of ~$400/semester) really low, are other GLOs appearing to having more large events than they actually are, or is my chapter just not spending the money in the same places?

Discuss!

You should have an idea of how much other chapters are charging on your campus from the financial information distributed during recruitment. It will vary so much from campus to campus so it is difficult to compare between campuses. Keep in mind that some groups will include all of those kinds of things in dues and some will charge extra for larger events. The "extras" will probably not be listed in the financial information that is distributed. A certain portion of your dues goes to your inter/national headquarters to keep your sorority going on that level. That can be a fairly significant amount that comes right off the top. Therefore, if dues are increased even $10 a month, for 50 women (don't know your chapter sizes), that extra $500 a month is purely the chapter's.

The social budget is generally the most flexible. When creating a budget, the items filled in first are usually going to be the amounts that have to be paid out to your inter/national headquarters, then operating expenses like mailings, recruitment, copies, Panhel dues, website maintenance costs (like domain name/server space), supplies like handbooks, ritual paraphernalia like flowers or candles, or new member guides, etc. Whatever is left usually goes to social. So, a small dues increase can mean a big social budget increase because all the "extra" goes to social.

ETA: Just realized I wrote this from a sorority perspective but I think most of it applies to fraternities also. It may be harder to find out what other chapters on your campus charge but they may be willing to share that info at IFC.