What is the largest national sorority?

[MysticCat]

Originally posted by rushqueen44
And, let's re-examine this whole largest women's organization in the world. It's not the Girl Scouts. It's the National Panhellenic Conference.

Actually, the NPC has only 26 members -- the 26 inter/national sororities/fraternities that belong to it. They, not the individual members of those sororities/fraternities, are the NPC's members.

Numbers can be so hard to pin down, can't they? Chi O's website says: "Today, Chi Omega is the largest women's fraternal organization in the world with 240,000 initiates." When they say "initiates," I'm not sure if they mean living initiates or total-since-founding initiates. Anyway...

The website of P.E.O. Sisterhood, a fraternal organization for adult women says that P.E.O "has grown from that tiny membership of seven to more than a quarter of a million members in chapters throughout the U.S. and Canada." P.E.O.'s "more than a quarter of a million [i.e., 250,000] members" would seem to be more than Chi O's 240,000.

As for the oft-repeated claim that Chi Omega is the largest women's organization (sometimes the claim is largest "non-profit" women's organization) except for the Girl Scouts, again numbers can be tricky. According to the website of the Woman’s Missionary Union, a women's organization connected to the Southern Baptist Convention, that group has "a membership of approximately 1 million." The website of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs reports that that group "currently has members in 6,500 clubs around the United States, and more than one million members worldwide." Granted, the US membership is not clear, but just an average membership of 40 would take the US membership over 260,000, and I'm guessing (I know I shouldn't do that) that most of the GFWC's members are in the US.

Please don't get me wrong -- I'm not slamming Chi Omega. Chi Omega is an outstanding organization, and its sisters have much to be proud of -- so much, in fact, that it seems to me that they don't need to keep repeating a questionable claim.

[DGMarie]

http://womensissues.about.com/cs/pro...pwomensorg.htm


The Top Women's Orgs:
1) NOW
The National Organization for Women is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Since its founding in 1966, NOW's goal has been "to take action" to bring about equality for all women.
More: visit their site


They also state:
NOW is a non-profit organization which receives all its operating funds from private donations and membership dues.


And the rest....

2) YWCA
There are 300 YWCAs united under the umbrella of the YWCA of the U.S.A. They are the largest provider of shelter services for women and their families in the country; a leader in violence prevention, offering programs and services to more than 700,000 women and children annually; a comprehensive employment training and placement services agency, enrolling some 100,000 women annually and more!
More: visit their site


3) League of Women Voters
The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.
More: visit their site


4) NWSA
NWSA supports and promotes feminist/womanist teaching, learning, research, and professional and community service at the pre-K through post-secondary levels and serves as a locus of information about the inter-disciplinary field of Women's Studies for those outside the profession.
More: visit their site


5) NCRW
The National Council for Research on Women, founded in 1981, is a working alliance of 92 women's research and policy centers, more than 3,000 affiliates and a network of over 200 international centers. NCRW's mission is to enhance the connections among research, policy analysis, advocacy, and innovative programming on behalf of women and girls.
More: visit their site


6) National Partnership for Women and Families
The National Partnership for Women & Families is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses public education and advocacy to promote fairness in the workplace, quality health care, and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work and family.
More: visit their site


7) AWHONN
The Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses is a leader among the nation's nursing associations, serving more than 22,000 health care professionals in the U.S., and abroad. Members are committed to delivering superior health care to women and newborns in hospitals, home health and ambulatory care settings, making AWHONN the voice for women's health and neonatal nursing.
More: visit their site


8) Feminist Majority Foundation
The Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), which was founded in 1987, is a cutting edge organization dedicated to women's equality, reproductive health, and non-violence. In all spheres, FMF utilizes research and action to empower women economically, socially, and politically. They believes that feminists - both women and men, girls and boys - are the majority, but this majority must be empowered.
More: visit their site

[texas*princess]

*ding ding ding*

[DZHBrown]

Dude your a mod you can't encourage fights

Arya is a mod??

[SWTXBelle]

Bigger isn't better
Taller isn't braver
Stronger isn't always wise

Smaller isn't necessarily the lesser
Guts can come in any size

Lady luck can favor
Just a little shaver
Over one who's 6-foot-3

Brains in any tussle
Mop the floor with muscle
Bet your life I'm glad I'm me

(Chorus
Bigger isn't keener
Larger isn't bolder
Higher might be low inside
When you need to lean upon a friendly shoulder
Narrow's just as good as wide
See the mighty lion sittin there and crying bitten by a tiny flea
Mammoth was colossal what's he now? A fossil!
Bet your life I'm glad I'm me

What strong and hope they lag along
Get brains and heart
That handsome hunk might be a Lilliputian medley,
Proven consequently...
Though he shows his shoulders twice as big as boulders
If his brain's a tiny pea
When your in a pickle
He ain't worth a nickel
Bet your life I'm...Bet your life I'm glad I'm me

(Spoken)
Ladies and Gentlemen together for the first time
Mister PT Barnum's two star attractions
General Top Dog and Jumbo!

That's some elephant!

Aw, isn't the little guy cute?

Let me see, let me see!

BRANDON, get back here!

I'm OK Mom!

(Back to Singing)
The dinosaur's no more, the dear old dodo's dead,
But right there on that floor some ants will still be treadin after Armageddon
Bet there isn't a hero, weight is less than zero
Height ain't worth a hoot in hell
Show me any hunk of man to match the spunk of
Tiny Tim or Little Nell
Giants look so awesome folks are scared to cross em'
None the less I guarantee
Small as Yankee Doodle if he's in the moodle beat the whole
Caboodle using just his noodle...
Bet your life I'm glad I'm ME!!!

[EmorySarah]

Let's hear it for the smallest sorority! Of course, we are also the youngest. Like DPhiE, SDT is also huge in the Northeast. Yay SDT!

[fingerbang]

i just got the most recent issue of our fraternal magazine and it says SAE has the most total initiates w/ sigmachi hot on our tales, while tke and sig ep have the most chapters

[rushqueen44]

Actually, the NPC has only 26 members -- the 26 inter/national sororities/fraternities that belong to it. They, not the individual members of those sororities/fraternities, are the NPC's members.

Gee, someone better give the NPC Chair the heads up on that one.

[MysticCat]

Originally posted by DGMarie
http://womensissues.about.com/cs/pro...pwomensorg.htm


The Top Women's Orgs:
1) NOW
The National Organization for Women is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States....

Let's not muddy the waters more. The question was which is the largest women's organization, not which is the top organization. It's objective versus subjective. The list you provided, while interesting, was clearly a list of which orgs the "womenissues.about.com" website thinks are the "best" orgs for women's issues. (Notice a fairly uniform perspective reflected among the groups?) Note that some of the orgs listed, including NOW and the YWCA have female and male members. And according the website of the League of Women Voters, that group has about 130,000 members -- quite a few less than the numbers posted here for many sororities.

Yet another reason why this thread is a dead-end road.

[AOII*Azra-elle]

Originally posted by ladybug1116
Here are the sororities ranked roughly by size (number of chapters currently active, not initiated women or number of chapters ever installed)

176 chapters - Chi Omega
More than 150 chapters - Delta Zeta, Zeta Tau Alpha
More than 130 chapters - Delta Gamma, Alpha Phi, Delta Delta Delta, Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Chi Omega
More than 115 chapters - Alpha Omicron Pi, Pi Beta Phi, Kappa Delta, Phi Mu, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Kappa Alpha Theta
More than 100 chapters - Gamma Phi Beta, Sigma Kappa, Alpha Gamma Delta, Sigma Sigma Sigma, Alpha Xi Delta, Phi Sigma Sigma
More than 50 chapters - Alpha Sigma Tau, Alpha Sigma Alpha, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Phi Sigma Sigma, Delta Phi Epsilon
50 or fewer - Sigma Delta Tau, Theta Phi Alpha


This is an old post by Fuzzie Alum from a thread back in February. While there ARE going to be slight changes in numbers and categorical shifts, this is the approximate break down.

PMMama---I believe Phi Mu is around 121 or so active chapters at last check. I'm not sure on the number of initiates though. I will admit we are much larger in the south, but I generally wouldn't say that we are a "small" group. (Not that there's anything wrong with that though)

Hope this info helps!

AOII has 2 more to add! *jumps up and down* <--- sorry, I'm just a little excited!

[bruinaphi]

Originally posted by rushqueen44
Gee, someone better give the NPC Chair the heads up on that one.

I believe Sally Grant is fairly well versed on the structure of NPC.

[meridionaleDG]

Here are some nice stats!

NPC consists of 3.5 millions of the women in sororities.

To me I don't care if my sorority has 300 chapters. It might give good bragging rights, but 1 or 300, I am proud of my sorority. This elitest attitude coming out of some posts are slightly disappointing. We are all one big greek family, and instead of finding out which crazy uncle has the most kids, we should be happy that all of us make up a huge community.

DG isn't one of the sororities with the smallest number of chapters, and it also isn't one of those with the most - but it is my home and it is my family. So hooray for whoever has the most after the cookie peddling 5 years old, and hooray for whoever has the least number of chapters! We all found a home and a family - and I think that is the best bragging right.

<3

(God, I am so hokie sometimes!)

[HotDamnImAPhiMu]

Hokie but oh so right.

I've gotten to be good friends with an ASA, who had her DZ friend come in from out of town. The three of us and an unaffiliated friend went out and got to talking about sororities -- and the unaffiliated one was going on about how, well, ALL the sororities want her, but she's really not INTO sororities, etc....

so I launched into a little lecture about how sorority life is all about the SISTERHOOD and golly, let the system have a chance to work (re: rush), and it came to me.....

wow am I a greekchat girl.