Dear friends,
The National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) recently held its Annual Conference, March 31 – April 1, in Louisville, Kentucky. This was the first large in-person gathering of Conference and member organization leaders, volunteers and staff since October 2019, prior to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this Annual Conference, NPC CEO Dani Weatherford, J.D., and I shared a State of the Conference report on behalf of the NPC Board of Directors. That report recapped the work of the NPC board and workforce (volunteers and staff) and offered insight into our current efforts and future focus. I'm pleased to share with you edited excerpts of the report below.
Interfraternally,
Cheri M. De Jong
2021-23 NPC Chairman
The State of the Conference | April 2022
Speaker: Cheri M. De Jong, NPC chairman
It is a privilege and honor today to be a part of providing the state of the National Panhellenic Conference. NPC has had many achievements over the past year, yet there continue to be a variety of challenges that all of us are facing together.
Today I will discuss the work of the board this past year, various initiatives that the board has directed and how that is defining our focus in the coming years.
These incredible women that make up the NPC Board of Directors bring forth broad professional expertise, countless leadership experiences within the fraternal community, assorted professional skills, different perspectives and knowledge within NPC, and unique thoughts and ideas on improving and enriching NPC and how we advocate for the sorority experience.
As this board began their work of the Conference nine months ago, we determined that with a change of leadership, a still-new governance structure and the many challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic brought, it would be essential to engage in a listening tour of our constituents. This listening tour had each of our board members reach out to member organization leadership teams that consisted of delegates, inter/national presidents and executive directors to discuss their strategic interests and priorities, challenges and feedback on NPC activities. These meetings with member organizations provided clear and direct feedback for the board on the Conference's priorities.
The loud messages were compiled, and the board reviewed the information, keying in on areas that member organizations believed NPC could make a difference and how those issues align with our strategic focus areas. It was determined NPC should remain committed to two main areas:
- Cultivate Strategic Growth of Panhellenic Communities.
- Champion the Sorority Experience.
The key focus for this board is the growth and promotion of the sorority experience through marketing and public relations efforts. Growth is of utmost importance for our member organizations. Additionally, marketing about the sorority experience is also a top priority to create awareness of sorority life that can benefit all of our recruitment efforts.
Our organizations also have many challenges and opportunities:
Housing. If there is one thing that so many member organization leaders have voiced during the past several years, it is housing and the inability to fill some of your houses due to lower membership numbers. As a former national president, I understand and sympathize with each and every one of you. These financial burdens weigh heavy on your organizations and potentially drain resources that could be deployed elsewhere. …
Declining college enrollment in some regions of the country is significantly impacting many of our collegiate chapters. The changing demographic is perhaps the bigger issue of students enrolling in college. …
Alongside this is declining interest in our organizations and questions about our relevancy to young women in today’s collegiate experience. The world is changing, and so are our potential new members. Our organizations are making changes too, whether it be to legacy or recommendation policies, acceptance of transgender members and creating more diverse and inclusive membership opportunities. Our communities are transforming, and this is a moment of adjustment for all of us. …
Each of these challenges is being felt by all our member organizations, and we realize that these challenges create opportunities for NPC to help grow our Panhellenic communities, promote and advocate for our sorority experience and continue to be a convener for our member organizations to work together on campus-specific needs or engaging in issues that we all face. …
So where do we go from here?
The board has embarked on several initiatives as a result of the priorities previously discussed and is driving our future focus. (Those initiatives include:)
- Opportunities to partner with researchers to support our marketing messages with strong relevancy data. …
- The Growth and Marketing Pilot currently underway … to target campuses to increase recruitment of potential new members …
- A full audit of the NPC Manual of Information to streamline the information and strengthen accountability to Unanimous Agreements, policies and best practices. …
- Diversity, equity, inclusion and access with the board’s focus shifted to including and incorporating access and equity in our conversations, resources and communications for our College and Alumnae Panhellenics to use. …
The NPC Board of Directors wants to see all of us working together toward the same goals: focused marketing and other initiatives to grow our Panhellenic communities and consideration of ideas to break down the barriers to membership in our organizations.
If we want to survive and be relevant in five, 10 or 20 years, we need to do this collaboratively. I hope you all feel that we are partners in this critical work. We want to dive into the issues and create the best possible solutions to ultimately provide an inclusive, values-oriented, affordable and relevant membership experience to as many collegiate women as possible. And together, we can make this happen. …
Speaker: Dani Weatherford, NPC CEO
This was a year when we were able to return our focus to the Strategic Plan after pausing almost all of that work from spring 2020 to spring 2021 to respond to the COVID pandemic and anti-sorority activism. As a reminder, the plan prioritizes three major areas:
Priority number one is to Cultivate Strategic Growth of Panhellenic Communities. I think of this bucket of work as direct and tactical support of our College and Alumnae Panhellenic communities. Providing them with the tools and resources needed to function appropriately and focus their efforts on bringing more women of various backgrounds into the community. (Work in this priority includes but it not limited to:)
- Our flagship opportunity to train College Panhellenic officers is the College Panhellenic Academy. …
- New recruitment resources and education for College and Alumnae Panhellenics. …
- Providing resources related to creating a more inclusive recruitment process. …
- A new partnership with Phired Up to provide a three-part marketing training series to current and incoming Panhellenic marketing and recruitment officers. …
- Nearly a full year of work dedicated to recruitment reform. …
- Our Growth and Marketing Pilot to provide targeted coaching to Panhellenic communities in the most need. …
- Several other projects and work groups supporting our College Panhellenic communities. …
Priority number two is Champion the Sorority Experience. I think of this priority as our advocacy work mostly done at the national level—promoting our brand and protecting the experience—but we also do this at the local level. (Work in this priority includes but it not limited to:)
- The work of the NPC staff in managing campus concerns. …
- The promotion of the sorority brand through awareness campaigns, including direct advertising, national marketing partnerships and pipeline program partnerships. …
- Advancing our legislative agenda through policy advocacy work, engaging on such topics as freedom of association, anti-hazing initiatives and tax parity. …
- Research partnerships, including our renewed collaboration with Gallup and a partnership with Dr. Patrick Biddix. These efforts are focused on the impact of sorority membership. …
Priority number three is Leverage the Collective Strength of our Member Organizations, along with our industry partners, to continue advancing the sorority experience. (Work in this priority includes but it not limited to:)
- NPC volunteer recruitment, development and accountability, including for the volunteers supporting 583 College Panhellenics and 171 Alumnae Panhellenics. …
- Growing the NPC Partner Program. …
- Convening (virtual) NPC Family Gatherings to share data and information with internal stakeholders. …
Thank you for what you do to advance the sorority experience and to create a community that is kind and welcoming to all women who want to be a part of this extraordinary sisterhood.