Help with Recruitment Ideas

[alw82687]

Hello! I am new to GC and have been reading up on some of the recruiment threads! I am an Alum to my sorority, as well as an old President. I just recently graduated and got contacted by my fellow sisters last night about how recruitment went for them....not good!
They called me for advice and ideas on how to improve our recruitment stratedgy. Our school, in Illinois, has a slowly diminishing Greek life and all of the Fraternities and Sorority are trying to stop the downward slope occuring at our school! We have 12 IFC Fraternities and 6 PHC Sororities. My house, when I pledged in Fall of 2005, was the biggest house on campus known for having the "strongest sisterhood". We are now number 5 out of 6 and cannot seem to have a good recruitment year!
I am wondering if anyone has any other ideas that have not yet been mentioned on any of the threads! We just finished our Formal Recruitment and are hoping to increase our Pledge class through COBs. We wear our letters to class, eat in the cafe, post fliers, do charity events, participate in intramurals, and do everything I can think of to get our Letters out there!
My Chapter turned for me for some fresh ideas and help and I refuse to let them down. So, if anyone can help me out with ideas that work/worked for them...that would be great!!
Thanks

[AnchorAlumna]

Are you an NPC sorority? The first place to turn would be your regional officers and (inter)national HQ. Start now, and keep hollering until you get help! That's what they're there for.
Good luck, sweetie!

[txPHIMU]

We always do much better in COBing than formal rushing usually.
We set up a COB week...
On Monday we have a meeting where we give our Membership Director/Rush Chair names of girls we know and who might be interested. We also go out that night and post flyers about the COB week. Be sure your large wooden letters are out as well as any sandwhich boards you might have.
Tuesday morning the director contacts the girls we suggested with invites. We also have a sign up booth (cookies and flyers with info, girls in letter shirts looking cute) set up for names and phone numbers so we can contact them for/after the events.
We usually do Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night activities.
We have done an ice cream social, a spaghetti dinner, pajama game night, movie night, midterm meltdown..or fondue party, death by chocolate party, etc...food always draws people in
We have also invited girls to movie night at someone's apartment or out to a campus event (tailgate, greek night at the basketball game, play, etc) with us. This is nice because they can see your involvement in campus life.

Have well known fraternities sport a letter shirt for yall one day a week...get shirts printed fairly cheaply at 9 or so dollars a piece and they will buy em for sure.

If you have any other questions I'll try my best.

[DubaiSis]

I'm also interested to know what PHC means. It might seem hair-splitting on your wording, but my understanding is that the NPHC sororities do things vastly differently than the NPC ones. But in either case, your national should be able to provide support. It's in any organization's interest to have all of their chapters be successful. And if your chapter has just recently expressed interest in making a real change, national will probably want to reward that.

I think the hardest part is getting the PNMs to come to an event. So getting the word out, advertising, flyering, etc. is important. Do everything your campus will allow. Can you send a press release to the school paper or radio station? It's a long shot, but if they'll print it, it's FREE. Just make sure whoever writes it knows how they're written.

Once they're there, I really think good conversation and happy girls will sell you a lot more than a spectacular activity.

Good luck, and let us know what works!

[gee_ess]

Have you read the book I

[gee_ess]

Okay, I have no idea what is up with that other post. I have tried twice to fix it with no luck.I was trying to suggest the book I Heart Recruitment which several on here have said is a great help to a chapter in this situation.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

I'm also interested to know what PHC means.

Panhellenic Council (NPC groups). Many schools use this abbreviation.

Get rid of the dead weight and the drama causers before you do anything. Then do all those other ideas that you had.

Also, strengthen unity in the Greek system. No one wants to join if they see the sororities backbiting and talking crap about each other.

Bad rushes often have very little to do with what you're doing during the actual rush parties.