How to foster an environment of service from a Panhellenic exec POV

[cianaroses]

Hello all,

This past year I have been elected Executive Vice President of my campus' College Panhellenic Association. Throughout my service, I have noticed a common theme amongst my community; a focus on fundraising within our community rather than reaching out to other organizations and performing services.

How would I begin to promote a stronger focus on service and how would I provide an example to our community to begin focusing on what we can offer, and not what we can receive?

Reaching out especially to other Panhellenic sisters who have served in a role similar to mine. What tactics have you used?

[navane]

Do you mean that organizations are generally fundraising money only and you would like to encourage more hands-on volunteer service?

[Sen's Revenge]

Mostly not my lane, but as someone who has worked in the nonprofit sector, I truly enjoy big "Days of Service."

I worked at an HIV/AIDS nonprofit about ten years ago, and each August, we'd welcome large groups of college students who were participating in some sort of Day of Service. Groups included pre-freshmen at Georgetown and American doing service and social justice initiatives, and one year we had medical and health science students from GW.

For a lot of those students, because they were so busy, they might not do any more service throughout the year. But they worked super hard for the 4-6 hours they were with us.

Now, I'm not a Panhellenic sister, but I wanted to caution you not to try to change the culture of the individual chapters. If they don't want to do ongoing service, they won't. But from my experience, everybody will come support a Day of Service if there is enough lead time and transportation.

[cianaroses]

Our organizations tend to stay within the campus to fund raise money, I would like to encourage more hands-on service throughout out city in order to promote Fraternity & Sorority life in our community. We are an urban-based campus, so there are loads of opportunities I feel like we aren't taking advantage of.

Our numbers for recruitment dropped substantially last year because of a nearly inoperable Panhellenic, so my exec board has mostly been focusing on picking up the pieces left behind by them. Now, we're finally getting to a place where we can implement new ideas - Days of Service definitely seem to be a potential way to go.

Our past exec board was awful at keeping accountability for service hour requirements, so that is one thing I have been emphasizing to our chapter presidents as something we will be focusing in on this upcoming school year. I've personally been trying to set the example, but then again there's only so much one person can do.

[navane]

I really, really like Sen's Day of Service idea. It helps get people "out there" without being overbearing or telling them they need to change their organizational culture. Changes like this take time anyway. If all of the chapters on campus are participating in the event, then that will make it more achievable for chapters which might be reluctant to do hands-on volunteering.

Also, when I worked in Greek Life, our staff were responsible for tracking the service hours of all GLOs. On your campus, it sounds like that task has fallen to the student Panhellenic exec leaders. Is that tracking in addition to the university's tracking efforts or does the university not track that?

[thetalady]

Take a look at the efforts by Arkansas State... https://www.kait8.com/2019/08/12/inc...Hw2thPV4S8N_7g

[Theta1234]

There is always the original “Big Event.” The team from A&M has traveled all across the country helping other universities create their own day of service. Almost all SEC schools do it now. Can you imagine over 20,000 students coming together to serve? I believe there is a place on the website that you can ask them to help you plan your own. https://bigeventonline.tamu.edu EDIT: here is the direct link for their planning packet for other schools. https://bigevent.tamu.edu/start-a-big-event/