Brotherhood is the glue that binds the Collegiate Chapter together, but recruitment is the source of its endurance. A Collegiate Chapter cannot ensure an ongoing Brotherhood if it cannot provide itself with an unbroken stream of new members. In order to have enough Brothers to conduct successful academic programs, quality social programs, great service projects and meet the financial and organizational needs of your chapter, you must have a strong membership recruitment program. The new Brothers who join today will lead your chapter's accomplishments in the future. The more you recruit and the higher the quality, the greater your chapter will be.

You are what you recruit. Campus organizations are in a competition with each other to attract new members. It's often "Survival of the Fittest." Accordingly, some fraternities and sororities thrive while others border on extinction. Chapters with a strong recruitment effort grow stronger, while those with a weak recruitment effort grow weaker. New members bring new energy, fresh ideas, additional skills and more able hands to grow the chapter and make the Phi Sigma Pi experience better for everyone. Membership recruitment is the most important activity in any organization that desires continued existence.

Nothing is more important than the ongoing ability to survive. Recruitment is the lifeblood of the Fraternity. Recruitment is the life-sustaining activity for a Collegiate Chapter. If there is a single function or program that can make or break a chapter, it is the ability to recruit well. Each year Brothers graduate. They leave and start their professional lives. If the Collegiate Chapter fails to replace them with new initiates the chapter shrinks. If the chapter consistently recruits fewer and fewer initiates then not only will the quality of its programs and the Phi Sigma Pi experience diminish, but its own survival will be at stake.

One of Phi Sigma Pi's ideals is leadership. In many instances we choose to demonstrate our leadership through service to others. Ironically, our organization is much more effective at serving others when we are at our peak performance. When we are weak our ability to serve others is weak. When our numbers are small our potential to have a significant impact on our charities is diluted. Again, everyone benefits when Collegiate Chapters first focus on making themselves strong through solid, effective recruitment. When attracting enough new Brothers is not at the forefront of a Chapter's concerns to be addressed, service to others can be.

The initiate advisor is one of the most important officer positions in the fraternity. It is the centerpiece for recruiting and training new members to make sure the chapter can sustain itself and run effectively in the future. Because of the great importance of this position, the initiate advisor should never feel this is a position that must be tackled alone. The entire chapter should take a hand in recruiting and training initiates during the program. The chapter must work together during recruitment and initiation events to increase the number of potential new Brothers, help initiates see if Phi Sigma Pi is right for them, and prepare these initiates for active Brotherhood.

To a large extent, recruitment is a numbers game. All things being equal, the number of people who will want to join will increase in proportion to the number of people you originally contacted. If you can get 50 people out to your Meet Nights and 10 of them decide to join, then getting 100 people out to your Meet Nights would most likely result in 20 of them wanting to join. This means that its even more important for all Brothers of the chapter to do whatever it takes to get more people out to the chapter Meet Nights and other Rush events.

Typically when the topic of quantity arises so too does the topic of quality. Quite simply, quality and quantity go hand in hand. It is a fallacy to think they are mutually exclusive. You can have both. You need both to become a great chapter and you need both to survive. If your chapter values quality, then how can it not value quality in quantity as the means of improving the chapter? Don't let the quality versus quantity arguments stereotype your chapter into a size that limits your ability to become more than you are currently. In the final analysis, more good Brothers create a better chapter.

For more resources designed to assist with recruitment, please visit the Behind the Login page.