Chapter Recruitment Profile
The men of Gamma Delta, celebrating with their almost 30 pledges!
School Name:
Florida Southern College
Chapter Designation:
Gamma Delta
School Size: Small (1,900 undergraduate students)
Current Chapter Membership: 34 initiated brothers
3 Secrets for a successful recruitment : At Gamma Delta, we have held successful recruitments for the last two years, with new member class sizes of around 30. This also means graduation hits us pretty hard, so a good recruitment is necessary to keep the chapter alive.
1. Hit the ground running and encourage brothers to take part in Orientation staff, Residence life and move in teams so that your fraternity is the first one prospective new members see when they get to campus. This early presence can jumpstart your chapter’s names list even before classes begin. It also allows your brothers to provide a new circle of friends to freshman who are far from home and looking for a place to belong.
2. Utilize campus events to add to your names list. Take part in intramurals and invite prospective new members to play on your team. Pick-up sports games are great too. Be sure to employ a broad range of tactics. Not every worthwhile prospective new member plays sports and not every sports player is a worthwhile prospective new member. Having cookouts, water-balloon fights, leisure games in the middle of campus, or whatever your chapter enjoys can draw out additional demographics that you might miss otherwise. And be sure to hold events in which brothers can actually talk to the prospective new members whom they’ve previously just been throwing footballs to.
3. Set your number goals high and orchestrate a plan of attack to achieve them. If you think you want to pick up 25 new brothers, set your goal at 35. And be sure that your names list vastly outnumbers your goal number of men. A greater number of prospective new members allows the chapter to be more selective and ultimately end up with higher quality membership.
Traps to Avoid:
1. Do not have a small group of brothers recruit men, such as Resident Assistants or Orientation Leaders. These groups are valuable but the entire chapter must get involved. Prospective New Members need to know most of the Brothers, so that they feel they belong.
2. Do not rely on mudslinging the other houses on your campus to pick up prospective new members who might have numerous interests. The Mudslinger always looks like the bigger jerk than the one who is on the receiving end; this can be a huge turn off.
3. Do not do a slap-dash recruitment. Have all of your events for the semester planned out well in advance. This planning can remove a great deal of stress for your Recruitment chair, treasurer and the chapter in general.
