Summer Recruitment Part 2

After covering the basics, the next step is to set up the structure that will propel your chapter to success in summer recruitment. Remember that the key to recruitment is making friends. Therefore the foundation for your summer recruitment plan should be to create opportunities to build relationships. Crazy right?

Regional Teams
Split up your chapter into teams based on where they will be during the summer. For some groups, this may be regions within their state. For others, you may have teams all over the country. For those members who do not live in an area that sends a lot of people to your campus, there are vast opportunities that they can assist with online.

Team Captains
Each of your regional recruitment teams needs to have a captain. This will be your main point of contact for the team as well as the person that is responsible for holding the rest of the team accountable.

Expectations
These can vary depending on various factors such as team size, distance, ext - however I would recommend that each team is responsible for one in-person recruitment activity each week. It doesn't have to be a big event, it doesn't have to include every team member and it doesn't need to be advertised on Facebook. Get together for a small event and invite Potential New Members. Additionally, each group should add a set number of names to the Names List each week.

Alumni Engagement
Instead of telling Potential New Members about how strong your alumni network is, here's a chance to show them. Invite alumni in the area out to some of these events, and see what doors they can open for you (think: sports tickets, rounds of golf, ext). This is not only a way to impress PNM's but also to build strong relationships with your alumni.

Budget
With a vast majority college students, finances are an issue. The thought of having to pay for weekly events out of pocket is enough to turn people off from the idea of Summer Recruitment. Set aside part of your Spring recruitment budget for the summer teams that can cover some/all of the expenses incurred by the teams as they do their weekly events. I'll go as far as to say your Return on Investment for Summer Recruitment will be far better than that of formal recruitment (think of all the money you're saving by not buying wings and t-shirts for 50 members and their girlfriends?).

Stay tuned tomorrow to find out how to find people to invite to your small events.