5 Quick Fixes for Your Recruitment Marketing

This summer, the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) has been working with more than 200 College Panhellenic Associations to boost their recruitment marketing efforts. As we’ve worked with them, we’ve identified some things that are holding back their recruitment marketing efforts–and that could be holding back yours, too. Here’s part of what we’ve learned and five quick fixes for your recruitment marketing for every Panhellenic:

1. Put your Recruitment registration link and deadline EVERYWHERE.

If potential members wanted to join a Panhellenic sorority on your campus, could they find information on how to do that? If you google “sorority recruitment at [name of your campus]?” what comes up? Your recruitment registration link and the deadline to register should be everywhere online and on campus (where permissible). 

Check and update:

• Your college/university’s Fraternity & Sorority Life (FSL) website. Coordinate with your fraternity/sorority advisor if your Panhellenic officers do not have access.
• Your Panhellenic’s social media accounts. If you’ve already posted once about the links and deadlines, keep posting. You need to share this information repeatedly to ensure it stays at the top of your feed.
• Your Panhellenic webpage. If your Panhellenic maintains a separate website from the FSL site, make sure your recruitment registration link and deadline are listed here, too.
• Chapter websites and social media. The sorority chapters on your campus also play a role in promoting the sorority experience. They should be able to post about when Panhellenic recruitment will be held, what the registration deadline is, and how to register. Encourage chapter members to share individually, too!

2. Share recruitment event dates.

If potential members can find your recruitment registration link, can they identify when recruitment registration ends? When recruitment orientation is? When each round, preference and Bid Day will be held? Provide as much information as possible so potential members can plan ahead and mark their calendars so they don’t miss out on any part of the recruitment process!

3. Be clear about PNM expectations.

Do you offer multiple orientation sessions and do potential new members (PNMs) need only attend one? Do they need to register for recruitment before they attend orientation or after? Is orientation required? If you host a partially structured recruitment, have you explained to PNMs what events they are expected to attend prior to when invitational rounds begin? Be sure to spell out PNM expectations on your website and social media so they don’t miss a critical part of the process and, therefore, miss out on joining a sorority.

4. Explain how to meet sororities/members prior to recruitment.

How are you providing ways for potential members to meet the sororities or sorority members prior to recruitment? It might be that some members participate in summer programs with new students, that Fraternity & Sorority Life members are allowed to present during orientation or that sororities/sorority members play an important role in new student move-in. Your campus might also have an all-student organization fair once classes start or there might be special events to meet all fraternities & sororities on your campus. Whatever opportunities your campus or Panhellenic offers, promoting those opportunities can go a long way to making connections with new and transfer students and helping them become interested in sorority recruitment and membership.

5. Be open to questions. 

Even if you’ve fixed items 1-4 above and you’ve provided a ton of other information about the benefits of joining a sorority, potential members may still have questions about recruitment or joining a sorority. Be sure to share how PNMs can contact your Panhellenic to ask questions. And, be sure someone is monitoring those accounts so questions can be answered quickly.

If you’ve gotten through this list and you know your Panhellenic is doing all of these things, give yourself a huge pat on the back! If not, there’s no time like the present to get started making these changes, whether your recruitment is this month or not for several months.

We’ll be sharing more of what we’ve learned during this project in the coming months. In the meantime, if you have a question for how to improve your recruitment marketing or you want to share an idea that works great for your campus that you think others can benefit from, please feel free to reach out to me by email.

Panhellenically,

Loretta Good
Chief Marketing Officer
National Panhellenic Conference

From the NPC Chair: A time to grow sorority membership

Dear friends,

Summer is still in full swing with heat waves across the country, but fall is in the air as colleges and universities are starting back-to-school activities, and we will soon have college football every Saturday! Hooray! This also means that fall sorority recruitment has begun across many of our campuses. It is the time of year that many of our chapters welcome new members and bring them into their sorority families, whether that is through the primary recruitment process or continuous open bidding (COB).

This time of year may bring back fond memories for those of us who joined a sorority during primary recruitment or who participated as sorority members and had conversations with many potential new members. However each of us remembers our recruitment experience, we all realize that recruitment is the lifeblood of our organizations and that we all have the opportunity to encourage relatives, young women in our hometown and community, and others we know about the benefits of sorority life. 

As I wrote about last month in the chair's message, championing the sorority experience is a priority in our strategic framework. NPC's responsibility is to promote the life-changing impact that sorority life can have on our young women today. Research I have previously mentioned shows that our members have strong positive emotions, robust relationships, life meaning, and accomplishment due to their sorority membership. The role of sorority is to foster a community where our members thrive and feel empowered to lead and champion their causes by equipping them with skills and confidence. Now is the time for us to identify and encourage young women to sign up for recruitment and join a sorority so they can become tomorrow's trailblazing women.

Everyone has their story about how their sorority membership has provided sisterhood, a home away from home, leadership opportunities, confidence, and the ability to provide care and support to others. I invite you to think about your life and how your sorority membership has changed you for the better, equipped you with exceptional skills, and provided remarkable lifelong sisters and other Panhellenic friends. I, for one, have been forever impacted by my sorority membership. I value my sorority sisters, and I treasure my many Panhellenic relationships. I hope you share similar sentiments.

This fall, let us remember how sorority has shaped our lives and strive to engage as many women as possible in the recruitment process so they may enjoy the benefits of sorority membership and our Panhellenic communities can grow and prosper now and for generations to come.​​​​​​

Interfraternally,

Cheri M. De Jong
2021-23 NPC Chair

From the NPC Chair: A New Strategic Framework for NPC

Dear friends,

The NPC Board of Directors met in June in Louisville to conduct business, including a robust discussion of a new strategic framework to guide NPC’s work during the next two years. 

In setting our future direction, the board approached strategic planning in a slightly different way. We began by reviewing our strategic priorities as identified last fall:

    Growth in Panhellenic communities

    Champion the sorority experience

We then discussed the Conference's current strategic goals and our renewed focus on growth in recruitment. We also noted that our previous strategic plan was very complex, with many layers, and more challenging to measure.   

As the outcome of our discussion, we determined we should streamline our approach and incorporate the prior two strategic priorities into a new strategic framework that the board and staff will build upon and monitor on an ongoing basis. Moving forward, we are focusing on the priorities that matter the most to our constituents. The board plans to communicate our objectives, initiatives, and measurable outcomes from our workforce on these initiatives to our wider Panhellenic community on an ongoing basis. We plan to do that by using a simplified reporting format for all to clearly see progress.

Following is a high-level look at our new strategic framework and the two priorities in it.

PRIORITY 1: GROW PANHELLENIC COMMUNITIES

Through dedicated coaching and resource sharing, NPC personnel will assist College Panhellenic Associations in increasing recruitment participation and, as a result, collegiate membership.

Stimulating the growth of our collegiate Panhellenic communities is of utmost importance, and we will do that by leveraging a number of recruitment-focused strategies. Specifically, this includes the digital marketing campaign already underway with our College Panhellenics to increase promotion of the sorority experience and stimulate recruitment registration numbers so NPC organizations see increases in membership. A top priority also includes reducing the barriers for potential new members to participate in recruitment and join a sorority as these barriers hinder our membership growth capabilities. NPC staff and volunteers will continue to look at innovative opportunities for our College Panhellenics to reduce restrictions and barriers for potential new members and recruit more women to our organizations.

Data collection and analysis is another critical area that NPC is investing in so the entire Conference can have important information available to everyone as we look to make crucial decisions regarding how to best support growth within our Panhellenic communities.

PRIORITY 2: CHAMPION THE SORORITY EXPERIENCE

Through marketing and community engagement, NPC will improve the public perception of the sorority experience.

Continued advocacy for our sorority experience is critical for our broader publics—potential new members, parents/caregivers, guidance counselors and coaches, college/university personnel and administrators, among others—to support and engage with us. National and campus-based advocacy initiatives within our new strategic framework will provide further positive messages and images to promote the modern sorority experience, improve public perception and, ultimately foster new member interest in recruitment and sorority membership. 

The board recognizes that we need to stay agile and flexible with whatever may happen within our community in the future. Continuous review and oversight, along with the possibility of shifting and changing objectives and initiatives, is critical to the success of this strategic framework. 

Interfraternally,

Cheri M. De Jong
2021-23 NPC Chair

Together as Sorority

This content first appeared in the Summer 2022 edition of "The Lyre," the official magazine of Alpha Chi Omega, and is reprinted with permission.

When you join a sorority, you enter a community. You have chapter sisters to laugh and cry with, an alumnae network to help you pursue your dreams and even a national sorority that connects you to sisters coast to coast and beyond! But have you ever thought about the even larger sisterhood you're a part of?

When you accepted your bid to your chapter, you also joined the Panhellenic community. As the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) vision states, we are all "advancing the sorority experience together." We come together as nearly 5 million sorority women across the world.

Jen Daurora (Delta chapter of Alpha Chi Omega at Allegheny College) serves on the NPC Board of Directors and points out that no matter which of the 26 NPC member organizations we are members of, we all have shared experiences including leadership opportunities, education and the ability to support our communities through philanthropy and service. And most importantly, she adds, "I think the underpinning of women supporting women rings true throughout the NPC experience."

We strive to uplift our sisters in all their endeavors, and our empowerment can extend to the Panhellenic community. It's why our collegiate chapters have Panhellenic delegates to connect the Alpha Chi Omega chapter to the larger campus, and why many cities have Alumnae Panhellenics to bring together women from all organizations for networking and making a difference.

In a time when some are questioning the value of the sorority experience, we can work together as sorority women to share the benefits we've received and that others can obtain if they are open to the experience.

"From my perspective, togetherness for NPC really means the way we leverage our collective strength to advocate for and promote the sorority experience as a whole," Jen explains. "Because while it is important that each member organization strives to be its best and each chapter strives to reach its full potential, it's important that as a community we're helping one another reach our goals as well."

How can we do that? Jen suggests that collegians let potential new members (and others!) know what makes them proud to be in a sorority, whether it's learning to manage an officer budget or having a sister notice your potential that you didn't even see in yourself. For our alumnae members, Jen recommends they share openly with their networks that they're sorority women. She also explains it's important to articulate broad benefits; the collegiate experience you had might look very different for today's student, but the opportunities and lessons are far-reaching.

Of course, while we all share a sorority experience, we also each have a story. And your story—with all of its nuances and lessons and moments that make it distinctly yours—is a powerful piece of advocating for the experience.

"Be proud of what you've gained from this experience," Jen says, "and tell your own story."

From the NPC Chairman: New Research Highlights Benefits of Sorority

Dear friends,

Summer is here! Congratulations on making it through another school year. I hope that you have had a successful year and are now enjoying your summer vacation. Reflecting on this past year, I thought about how much the sorority experience matters, including my lifelong membership journey that began more than 30 years ago. That experience has changed my life in so many ways, and my sorority and NPC service have brought me in contact with women I treasure and filled my life with joy. I also contemplate how my experiences made me into the businesswoman, mother and grandmother I am today.

Many of you have similar stories of how your sorority experience has significantly impacted your life. Whether your experience was 30 or 40 years ago or as recently as last year, the effect has been powerful and one that I want to explore alongside some recent research findings.

NPC and member organization leaders and volunteers recently attended a Zoom presentation by Dr. J. Patrick Biddix regarding his latest Panhellenic sorority research on belonging and well-being. I noted a few key takeaways from the research that I believe support how impactful the sorority experience is for young women today.

• Sorority women generally feel a stronger sense of belonging and satisfaction at school v. non-sorority women.
• A vast majority, 75-80% of sorority women, agree that their organizations support and respect individuals and unique differences among their members and welcome and appreciate culturally different views of their members.
• A vast majority, 75-80% of sorority women, agree they feel comfortable having open discussions about race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, religion and mental health and well-being.
• Our members show strong positive emotion, engagement, robust relationships, life meaning and accomplishment due to their sorority membership.

We all know that increased well-being leads to positive emotions and satisfaction with life, and that can increase member retention and overall student success. Positive general comments reflect that women value their experience and feel support and respect from their sisters. They also value their leadership skills and ability to grow and develop into influential leaders.

While the sorority experience is highly valued, there is room for improvement. Specifically, some women indicate struggles with diversity, equity and inclusion. This is an area that continues to evolve where we as NPC and our member organizations must continue education and awareness to promote a culture shift in our members, including collegiate members, alumnae and advisors. For our experience to remain valuable and relevant for years to come, all of us must work together to create a more welcoming and inclusive Panhellenic community.

Overall this research provides important insights as we strive to extend our message about the power of sorority and the positive impacts of membership. So, as you relax on these long summer days, reflect on your experience as a sorority woman and what you value the most. Is it the lifelong leadership skills you acquired or the invaluable friendships you still have from those good old college days? Whatever it may be, hold on to those thoughts and share them with others to promote an unforgettable and valuable experience so that others may flourish as a result of the sorority experience.

Interfraternally,

Cheri M. De Jong
2021-23 NPC chairman

From the NPC Chairman: Reflecting on the end of the academic year

Dear friends,

As the school year winds down and many of our students prepare for graduation, it is a time to reflect on the past year and look forward to what is next. As a matter of fact, I plan to attend my niece's graduation at Colorado State University—she just happens to be a sorority woman too! 

As we look back on this past year, we began with a great deal of promise that the pandemic was waning and things were getting back to normal, yet the pandemic did continue, perhaps to a different degree depending on where you lived. For many, it was finally time to be gathering together in person and cultivating more friendships within their chapters and sorority communities. The year has been one that has many of us seeing challenging times in our community growth, housing concerns and issues, and the mental health of our students. Yet, I see a resilient base of sorority women who have stepped up in their philanthropic and service efforts to help others and demonstrated excellent care in taking care of each other. 

Personally, as I reflect, I am proud and humbled to be a member of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) Board of Directors and serve as its chair. I see the thousands of sorority women graduating this month from around the country looking forward to their post-college life, and I know that through their sorority experience, they are ready to head out into the world and make a difference.

The NPC board is also looking forward to making a difference. Our College Panhellenic communities need focused marketing efforts to help them experience growth in recruitment and thrive. A major action the board has taken is to approve a concentrated marketing plan throughout this summer aimed at helping many of our campuses that recently have seen noticeable declines in sorority membership to grow.

Our sorority experience is incredibly valuable for so many women that all of us must promote and advance our Panhellenic communities so more women want to join our organizations. We want potential new members to know that the sorority experience can help them establish leadership skills, build their confidence, create lifelong friendships, and establish the importance of service to others.

As each of you reflects on the end of the school year, remember how much the Panhellenic experience has meant to you and determine ways that you can promote and advocate to others the power of sorority.

Interfraternally,

Cheri M. De Jong
2021-23 NPC Chairman

From the NPC Chairman: The State of the Conference | April 2022

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.