By Steve Good, Senior Vice President of Growth, Engagement & Philanthropy
Recruitment season is once again in full swing as chapters seek to find the best men on campus to welcome into our Fraternity. Recruitment sparks great energy within a chapter, and a successful new member class always seems to propel a chapter to further progress.
We all know how important recruitment is to our success.
The importance of recruitment leads our chapters to many tactics that they believe will contribute to success. These may include electing the most promising leaders for the recruitment chairman position, developing a calendar of events, generating potential new member leads, designing branded clothing, sharing promos on social media, and motivating brothers to play an active role in the plan.
But what if I told you there is one underlying strategy that is always the grease to successful recruitment? A baseline strategy that is the foundation for chapters that recruit well time after time.
Here it is.
The chapters that consistently recruit well are filled with members who are highly involved on campus throughout the year.
Campus ambassadorship and involvement are expected of all chapter members, not just something that a few standout leaders do. Upon joining, initiated brothers lead their newest members to get involved with campus opportunities that benefit the individual’s future and the state of the chapter’s operations.
From a recruitment lens, a chapter with highly involved members on campus opens pipelines to other great students hoping to get more out of their college experience. Generating leads becomes easy as members constantly interact with students on campus.
Not only do chapters with involved members succeed with recruitment, but they also thrive in many other facets. The Fraternity’s top award-winning chapters always reflect this.
If you’re reading this and feel like campus involvement is low within your chapter, here are a few tactics that can help create this culture:
- Find a leader within the chapter who can spearhead the effort. For example, many Phi Delta Theta chapters have activities or campus involvement chairmen positions.
- As a baseline, create a way to track your members’ involvement on campus to assess the present status and measure its future progress. Do this by looking at the percentage of members involved in a campus organization outside of Phi Delta Theta and the number of campus organizations per member.
- At chapter meetings, campus involvement should be a consistent topic discussed. The leader of the effort should come prepared to share current opportunities on campus. Visit the student involvement or activities office to identify what is available. Allow brothers involved in specific organizations to share their experience with the chapter.
- For those brothers not involved on campus, sit down with them one by one and present them with opportunities that align with their passions or major. Many brothers will need to have something presented to them versus seeking opportunities on their own.
- Identify organizations on campus that can introduce your members to other men who could be great Phis. If there aren’t Phi Delts involved in those organizations, recruit someone with the chapter to join that organization.
- Welcome someone from the student activities office to a meeting to share opportunities and the benefits of being involved on campus.
- Aim for 100 percent on-campus participation with any new Phikeia class before initiation.
- Brainstorm chapter incentives that can be offered to those who commit to being involved on campus.
As I reflect on my own college experience and watch my Phi Delt peers navigate their lives, it’s clear that those who were well-rounded and very involved on campus are having great success in their current pursuits.
Focus on campus involvement within your chapter and watch your recruitment efforts shine, along with so much more.
