But when was the last time we talked about what values we are looking for in our new members? Obviously, Phi Gamma Delta has our five: Friendship, Knowledge, Service, Morality and Excellence, but what about your chapter? What do you value and how do you measure that in your potential new members? If you can work with your chapter to develop values-based selection criteria, we can add some structure and continuity to our system.

Think about the last time you voted on extending a bid to a potential member. How many times do you think you heard the phrase, "he's a good guy," per potential member? Once? Twice? Five times? My guess is, that is on the low end with some potential members. 

What if, as a chapter, we had 5-6 set values, with measurable standards for each, that every brother knew and agreed to? When bid votes come around, hang the values on the wall and ban the phrase "good guy." Each time someone wants to speak for a potential member, they need to use one of the values and a standard on why they feel the potential member would be a good brother. Think about how much faster the process would go and how many more useful conversations would happen!

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At your next meeting (cabinet, recruitment team or chapter), let the brothers know what you want to develop and why. Brainstorm as a group, 5-6 values your chapter finds important (think more critically than Phi Gamma Delta's five). Once you agree on those, come up with 2-4 standards for each. Be sure they are measurable and achievable. Check out the examples below:

(You can find more examples in the Recruitment Manual.) 

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One of the most commonly used ChapterBuilder tools by staff when recruiting is the forms tool. ChapterBuilder has a long list of things to help customize forms to integrate potential members into our names list. Whether you are standing next to someone in the coffee shop, tabling at an activity fair, or on your social media account, you can pull up or post a link to your form and let potential members fill out their information. Your team administrator will get an email saying there is a new potential member and they can reach out! Our recruitment system starts with building our prospect pool!

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Fraternally,

Nick Hawley - Director of Growth

Perge!