UNC-Charlotte doubles chapter size

This fall, we shifted our efforts to the Balanced Man Scholarship and focused a majority of our energy on our process for recruitment. Through that focus, we more than doubled the size of our chapter, from 16 men to 37. The BMS drove up the quality of men we were recruiting and brought us honors students, athletes and scholarship finalists.

This semester, we want to continue to grow. We are always finding ourselves in the middle of the quantity vs. quality battle, but the key is to approach that intelligently. We know that we will ensure the longevity of our success with quality—if we can continue to recruit excellent men then we will have met our goal.

Our success was possible because we inspired the vision that encouraged others to act. This process has helped ingrain our mentality to be successful for years to come. Simply put, the entire chapter agreed on the same goal and wanted to succeed more than we wanted to breathe.

We had three keys to our success:

Define our process. We identified our recruitment plan and stuck with it. Once the recruitment plan was set, it could be communicated to our members. We held a recruitment workshop the week before formal recruitment and shared our enthusiasm for excellence. We set our goal to recruit at a high level not just as an executive committee but also as a chapter. If there is uniform support from the group, you have the opportunity to have groundbreaking recruitment.

Inspire a shared vision. Not only was it important to share our recruitment plan with the entire chapter, but it was essential to get every member to believe in it. To motivate our brothers, we focused on the “Why” behind what we do. Our values as a Fraternity gave us this common bond and helped determine the kind of men we were looking to recruit. That type of intensity and desire, because it was shared, gave us tremendous support in recruitment. It was never one guy that helped double the size of the chapter—it was every single guy that shared our vision.

Strive to reach your goal. As a chapter, we agreed that we would not stop until success was fully attained. We always have a carrot in front of us. It doesn’t matter if we have 30 members or 10 members, we know we are capable of great things, and we believe in the guys around us. We set goals, not because we like the sound of them, but because we know we can reach them. The best motivation is intrinsic, and it’s not a reward. You can internally feel your desire to succeed, and that is the strongest motivation.

Effective recruitment builds the foundation for a strong chapter and can ensure the longevity and growth of both members and membership alike. There is no secret to good recruitment, and through good planning and instilling the right vision in your chapter, you are capable of succeeding at any level.

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