Let's talk about membership!

"Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success." ~Dale Carnegie

Hey PACURH!

It's a new year and a new and exciting beginning for your NRHH chapter! Hopefully you are all ready to start the year strong and get lots of valuable new NRHH members, along with keeping up the interest of the old!

Most of you are probably familiar with the fact that catching and keeping members can be a daunting task at the very least. The good thing is, you aren't alone! Not only are other NRHH chapters going through similar things, but other organizations as a whole go through this! Clubs, Greek communities, workplaces, etc.! During the past year, I went to a program at my school, put on by one of the community centers for diversity clubs, all about membership recruitment and retention.

(Image courtesy of Sonoma State's housing home page)

This program was valuable because, although not catered towards NRHH itself, it talked about ways to get members and to keep up their interest. Here are some of the main points from the event (keep in mind these are meant to just give you some ideas, and you are encouraged to try new things and be creative!):

1) Make sure your current membership knows what you are all about. Perhaps create a tag line or slogan (elevator speech?) that sums up your organization as it runs on campus. Basically, if your members can't explain what NRHH is, how do you expect anyone to be interested in joining? *eg: "NRHH is the residence hall organization made up of the top 1% of on-campus leaders, and is devoted to creating community in the residence halls and providing opportunities for service, leadership development, academic enrichment, and recognition."


2) Create a handout that explains your purpose. So, when you go to club fairs, etc., you can hand it out to people to let them know what you are. This might be more effective with your RHA, but it never hurts to have a few pamphlets made out to send to prospective members!

3) Think about ways your chapter can provide things that no other organization can provide. Perhaps NRHH can link up with alumni members for networking nights or etiquette dinner programs. Maybe you're the only service-oriented organization on campus. Maybe OTMs can become something your Associated Students organization gets to learn more about!

4) Create a membership benefit program. Everyone loves coupons and study snacks... even more, everyone loves getting mail! Consider membership gifts or benefits.

5) Be creative about getting your name out there! Even if it's just all your members go to programs on campus to give recognition to the organizers! Passive programming works well too!

So, with that, I'm going to open up the comments for everyone to mention something about how they recruit members or retain them! Please give a little paragraph about anything in particular your chapter does!

Besides that, I wish you all the best of luck as your reach out to new and returning members!

(NRHH logo image credit: University of Arizona's NRHH chapter. Due to formatting issues, the credit for it is going down here...)