Trying to rebuild my fraternity - techzbt @ Georgia Tech

[techzbt]

Well, here's the story. I was a founding father of my colony of Zeta Beta Tau when I was a freshman. We were installed with 13 men but haven't had more than that since. My fraternity alumni corporation has a house on campus, but it is in poor condition, we lived in it my sophomore year but they decided to kick us out to put another fraternity in who they thought could pay the bills better. Since being off campus we've had a really tough time. There are 32 fraternities on my campus and only 2 off-campus. We are recognized by both our IFC and our national fraternity. The average fraternity size on campus is around 60, with the largest around 100. We are the smallest currently with 9 brothers. This fall rush we got 0 new members even though our alumni spent several thousand dollars on food, events, and publicity. We had less than 10 people by our house the entire night of rush (we were allowed to use our on-campus house for that week). We are hoping to return to our on campus house next year but we need about 15 people to live in the house to make it work (they don't have to be brothers). We are having an "info session"/rush event in the student center tonight. We ran giant ads in the newspaper the last 2 weeks and put up as many fliers on campus as we could without getting aux services mad at us.

I'll update you with how it goes.

[RACooper]

If I can may I offer some advice... coming from a very difficult recruiting enivroment.

I know some are going to give you some pretty empty advice like "think positive"... pretty useless when it comes to the recruitment process. Now here in Toronto we've gotten away from the term Rush - because with such small recruitment returns you don't have the PNM come to you, you go after them - ie. Recruiting... once you've settled on some potentials thats when the Rush or weeding-out process begins.

Now as for advice on actual techniques:
- postes, flyers, advertising is fine... but it doesn't really take advantage of your strengths - think of it like an commerical advertising campaign: blanket advertising is so-so, but trageted marketing has a much higher pay-off. So if you have Actives, Alumni, or friends involved in anything on campus figure out a way to exploit that in -whether it means getting involved yourselves in the same groups, or holding tie-in events with sympathetic groups around campus.
- honesty is the best approach; people can pretty much tell when you are blowing sunshine up their ass... so talk about the rebuilding, talk about the oppurtunity to build something great, talk about the chance to be something more than just another Brother.
- like I mentioned at in the beginning, traget your recruitment; pursue the best that you can get. Have your recruiters act as talent scouts not advertisers - identify those people you would like to have as part of your GLO and recruit them. You need to build a star team or strong foundation to ensure future growth... so plan your recruiting accordingly...

Remember sitting back and hoping they come to you hasn't produced satisfactory results - so change it up a little and be more pro-active in the recruitment process.

[techzbt]

certainly the same feelings we've had. We're doing this basically because we've run out of contacts and don't know anybody anymore who we think is a good potential, everyone has either already joined (not many) or doesn't pick up the phone when we call anymore. We're trying to locate the people on campus who are interested in this sort of thing.

We definitely know "build it and they will NOT come"

[PenguinTrax]

Can you/have set up an information table at the union during busy times?

Have you worked with dorm assistants to meet with unaffiliated men in the dorms?

Have you asked to speak at a meeting for another organization/club on campus? For example, journalism club, a business fraternity, etc. Likely joiners rarely join just one organization.

Have you worked with your campus Hillel, area synagogues, etc. to meet potiential members and introduce them to ZBT?

The old adage of "Make a new friend, introduce him to your fraternity, invite him to be a brother" does still work.

[SoCalGirl]

RACooper and PenguinTrax have excellent advice.

Definitely have some brainstormig sessions:

Why did the existing brothers chose ZBT? Why do men chose to go elsewhere? What do you have to offer that other groups can't? What are other groups offering that you're not? If your chapter focuses on ZBT's Jewish history, is that helping you or hurting in attracting new members? Do you effectively use Hillel connections?

What kind of members do you want? I mentioned in another thread that a chapter should write an image statement defining what the chapter is and what the chapter wants to be. If you want a chapter that can dominate in sports, your image statement should reflect that. If you want a chapter that is filled with campus leaders, say so. Then use the statement to remind yourself of your target audience and go after those men!

our alumni spent several thousand dollars on food, events, and publicity

Is this normal on your campus? Either for alumni to be paying for recruitment, or for it to be several thousand dollars?

Like PenguinTrax suggested, if you can set up an information table staffed by brothers at the union during busy times you should do it. Nothing's better than having a brother asking a man to attend an event. You need a "call to action". Avoid passive advertising.

Finally, I'm going to be honest and tell you that men, especially young college men, respond to pretty girls. Every attractive woman you know should be selling every man she meets on ZBT. When she's got him hanging on her every word, she sends him to you to close the deal. I know it's sexist but I will always understand why fraternity men use women during rush. Besides, we usually have more practice on our recruitment skills.

[washrinserepeat]

Can you use housing as an incentive? If you have a nice house and can offer a better deal than a dorm or apartment, maybe you could get some people to live there and then work on getting them to join.

[techzbt]

men choose other fraternities because they are established and offer them a more traditional fraternity experience, at this point, we do not. Those who have chosen us have done so because of the challenge and because they liked the brothers we have.

We currently have no Jewish brothers, so its difficult to play on any Jewish heritage.

Tables at our student center are heavily ignored and a good way to stigmatize your group as the only organizations who put tables in the student center are evangelical religious groups or people trying to sell junk. We've tried tables before, they were a colossal failure and waste of time. When our national advisor asks us "what hasn't worked?", "a table" is our first answer.

There are few pretty young girls on our campus (75% men) and with only 8 sororities to 32 fraternities, they aren't overly anxious to help us out.

The average rush budget on our campus is $10000, we spent $3000. Usually alumni don't pay for recruitment, but with our current brotherhood size, we'd have trouble scraping together $500 for recruitment.

[techzbt]

Also, I'd like to update you on how it went tonight

Nobody came because of our advertisements, so that was a waste of $450 of our alumni's money. But 4 guys that we already knew came and one brought a friend, 3 of them already have bids and haven't accepted because they can't afford it yet and 1 has a bid and hasn't accepted because he's worried about his grades (we've gone over how the fraternity can only help his grades but he doesn't buy it). The one who doesn't have a bid yet also brought a friend. We invited all of them to dinner on Thursday and will bid the two who don't have bids yet (we liked them) and reaffirm the bids of those who already have them and try to address their concerns.

We were expecting a better turnout considering how much effort we put into this, but this is a different campus than most, and hey, 5 is better than 0.

[USCTKE]

seriously get your brothers to bring non-affiliated friends out with yall sometime...hang out with them...get to know them...then invite them to join...talk to people in class...dont rely soley on rush...as one of my brothers said at a recent meeting "rush is a 365 day a year job"...maybe try and do some philanthropy projects on campus in visible areas to get your name out there some more as well.

[techzbt]

I agree that rush is 365 days and thats what we've been trying to do, thus the rushing in November/December (our formal rush is in August). The problem with the classes is that our youngest guy is currently a 3rd year, so we don't have classes with many guys who would be really excited about joining a fledgling fraternity.

[USCTKE]

with all of yall being older that could be a problem...if yall have a pretty good relationship with any sorority on campus yall could ask some of their younger members for recomendations of guys you should contact. If any of your members have younger brothers or younger friends from high school that would just be entering college then that might work...but Im sure yall have probably thought of and tried all these. Good luck in getting your chapter back on track

[MikeBFiji]

Have you ever thought about offering a scholarship to incoming freshmen? Our chapter has done it for the past three years and it has worked wonders for recruitment. The first year we got 35 applications, the second and third year we got 75. Out of the 75 applicants 60 came out to the house to be interviewed. That gave us an instant 60 guys to recruit. Setting up a single day and inviting graduates to the event is great. The gentlemen applying for the scholarship are usually pretty impressed to hear what the fraternity has done for the graduates. Since you have a smaller chapter you may want to consider breaking the interview process into a few days with only 2 or 3 of you interviewing. From there we usually get 15 accepted bids, plus we still have the "Rush" period. Though we're moving to recruit 365.

Also, one recruitment event that got us a couple of great guys was holding an event at a successful local graduate's house. We had an event at a graduate brother's house that is a lawyer and again invited all the graduates. We even got the President of the University to come for an hour. The graduate brother hosting the event also made some calls to successful graduates in the area that do not come around often. This really impressed not only the potential members but the President to see that kind of graduate support.

Get involved in everything. When you enter a philanthropic event or IM, enter to win. Our Alpha class won a lot of things while still a colony, even though they didn't have the most athleticly talented guys. They did so well even other fraternities would come up and tell them how well they were doing for a new fraternity.

One last thing to consider, make shirts that are clean and anyone would feel comfortable wearing in front of there grandmother. List your values and display a recognition symbol. Also choose one color for all your shirts so when someone sees, in my case, a purple shirt they think "FIJI."

[SoCalGirl]

Originally posted by techzbt
There are few pretty young girls on our campus (75% men) and with only 8 sororities to 32 fraternities, they aren't overly anxious to help us out.

The women don't have to be sorority women. Any woman on campus that is familiar with your chapter can help recruit.

Originally posted by USCTKE
with all of yall being older that could be a problem...if yall have a pretty good relationship with any sorority on campus yall could ask some of their younger members for recomendations of guys you should contact. If any of your members have younger brothers or younger friends from high school that would just be entering college then that might work...but Im sure yall have probably thought of and tried all these. Good luck in getting your chapter back on track

USCTKE has a good idea. I remember fraternities coming to our meeting and openly asking us to send them a list of men that would be open to learning more about their chapter.

[_Opi_]

Originally posted by MikeBFiji




Get involved in everything. When you enter a philanthropic event or IM, enter to win.

Why stop there? Do SERVICE for your campus and community. By that I mean, co-sponsor events with other orgs (Greeks and non-Greeks) to show presence on campus.

Service to the community. Go out there and make a name for yourself. You can tell all the recruits that you are doing something positive for your surrounding community, not just for yourselves.


Our colony is fairly new to campus. We had to start from scratch. We do alot of co-sponsorship with Student Council committees and other fraternities/sororities while we are getting on our feet. We don't have a name yet, so we have to do alot of these co-sponsorships to unite with other orgs to gain their support as well get our NAME out there. Eventually, that will start affecting your our numbers in a positive way.


Another way of getting your name out there that has worked for another fraternity this year is, PUBLICITY. Create an image that you are the BEST fraternity on campus through your flyers, banners, etc Get a brother who is good at graphics to do this.

I hope this helps..

[techzbt]

we've made about 6 shirts for our brothers. We wear them a lot but they haven't seemed to do much, considering every other fraternity has nice shirts too.

We offered a scholarship to incoming freshmen this year, we got 1 applicant.