A chapter recruitment story.

[raleigh stclair]

I've been a lurker here for the past few months, and have been compelled by your post to come out of hiding because your chapter seems almost exactly like my chapter (I graduated in May), right down to campus size, percentage of Greeks, and status as a lower-recruiting chapter, including women not accepting their bids through formal recruitment/dropping right after formal recruitment. The only differing details are that my campus now has six sororities and their formal recruitment is still a few weeks away. Be warned, this will be a long post.

We've always been a lower-recruiting chapter and have more-or-less constantly recruited women year-round (every time we get close to total, it gets raised), but two years ago, we had a poorer-than-usual year when it came to formal recruitment, COB, and new member retention. Our headquarters offered additional help last year, and I am proud to say that we had a much more successful year last year when it came to COB and new member retention--in spring 2012, we recruited something like 12 girls, and several dropped, while this spring, we recruited 18 girls with none dropping. (We also did slightly better in formal recruitment, but I won't go into the details about that here).

Here are some things we did; maybe you will find them useful for your chapter:
-General COB strategy: I can't stress enough the importance of personal connections when it comes to getting women to come to your events. All of us were asked to take at least one PNM (a classmate, a roommate, etc.) on an informal coffee date where the subject of sorority membership is casually mentioned ("What are your weekend plans? Cool! Me? I'll be going to dinner with my sorority family") at least a couple of weeks before COB events started, and if they went well, to invite said PNMs to come over for lunch/dinner some time to hang out ("I had a great time at our coffee date! Would you be interested in coming over for lunch on Friday? I'd love to introduce you to some of my sisters"). Utilize the women you just recruited through formal recruitment, as they will most likely know the most non-affiliated women. In addition to hanging up posters around campus, we printed up nice-looking calendars of COB events on nice card stock to personally hand out to women. We also made up cute Facebook banner photos/profile pictures for everyone to adopt. Make sure to follow up right before the events with PNMs via text/Facebook message ("Hey, I had a great time at lunch last week! We're having an ice cream party on Monday--you should come!"). This year our COB events were more planned out than in years past--we made sure to have the venue decorated (not over the top, but with colorful tablecloths and flowers) and to wear matching letters/philanthropy shirts. Our final event was an invite-only dinner and had a formal dress code, which helped to give a feeling of exclusivity and make the PNMs feel special.

-Fall COB: As someone mentioned above, it may be a good idea to have two fall pledge classes: one for women pledged through formal recruitment, and one for women who came through COB. When we had the bad formal recruitment two years ago, we rushed to try to find women immediately and just add them into the pledge class. This had a couple of drawbacks. One, many women were exhausted after formal recruitment (not to mention had low morale), and were just not enthusiastic about going out straight away to find new members. Secondly, we did a poor job of making the women who went through COB that semester feel at home in the chapter because we rushed to get them in before initiation--they didn't get to participate in retreat, and their big-little week was subdued compared to the one for women who went through formal recruitment. Of the three women we pledged that semester, two later resigned from membership, and I can't help but wonder if their rushed introduction to the chapter had something to do with it. Last fall, we took a breather from recruiting for a few weeks before diving into COB, and made sure to set a second-big little week and second initiation for COB women. We recruited five women last fall, and all of them have stuck around.

-Retention: It's important to try to start making new members feel at home right away; we invited new members to come over to the house for lunch the day after bid day as well as to a special event later in the week. In the past, there have been times when the first interaction a new member has with the chapter is at their first new member meeting/chapter meeting, which is often a week after bid day--that can be overwhelming and give the new member time to doubt their decision, especially if other chapters on campus are visibly giving their new members swag and having events. We also made sure that each new member had a sister schedule a coffee date with her at least once a week for the first few weeks. Out of the fall and spring pledge classes combined, we only had one member drop.

Best of luck, and sorry for the long post!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by raleigh stclair

-Fall COB: As someone mentioned above, it may be a good idea to have two fall pledge classes: one for women pledged through formal recruitment, and one for women who came through COB. When we had the bad formal recruitment two years ago, we rushed to try to find women immediately and just add them into the pledge class. This had a couple of drawbacks. One, many women were exhausted after formal recruitment (not to mention had low morale), and were just not enthusiastic about going out straight away to find new members. Secondly, we did a poor job of making the women who went through COB that semester feel at home in the chapter because we rushed to get them in before initiation--they didn't get to participate in retreat, and their big-little week was subdued compared to the one for women who went through formal recruitment. Of the three women we pledged that semester, two later resigned from membership, and I can't help but wonder if their rushed introduction to the chapter had something to do with it. Last fall, we took a breather from recruiting for a few weeks before diving into COB, and made sure to set a second-big little week and second initiation for COB women. We recruited five women last fall, and all of them have stuck around.

This is a great idea, and definitely doable (tm Seinfeld) with the shorter pledge programs that many groups have. If your group isn't one of them, contact your national pledging specialist or whatever she is called to see if you can tweak it. It's all about thinking outside the box.

It's one thing if you have a COB party 3 days after bid day with people the majority of the sorority already know quite well. They usually can fit seamlessly into the pledge class. It's another if the people at the party are women with whom you are not as well acquainted.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by 33girl

This is a great idea, and definitely doable (tm Seinfeld) with the shorter pledge programs that many groups have. If your group isn't one of them, contact your national pledging specialist or whatever she is called to see if you can tweak it. It's all about thinking outside the box.

It's one thing if you have a COB party 3 days after bid day with people the majority of the sorority already know quite well. They usually can fit seamlessly into the pledge class. It's another if the people at the party are women with whom you are not as well acquainted.

My chapter did this as well. Obviously, the week or two after FR, we picked up friends/roommates of our new PNM's, where we could, but then there was a second wave a couple of weeks later.