More Membership Ideas

I'm always intrigued by how other organizations handle recruitment. Think about it this way; right here in Elizabethtown we have several civic / fraternal organizations looking for new members. These include the Kiwanis, Rotary, Knights of Columbus, Freemasons, the Moose, and many more. Each of these groups draws from a different segment of society and markets their membership different. Kiwanis and Rotary are both civic groups that tend to pull from the same pool professionals and business leaders. Freemasons and Knights of Columbus are both fraternal, but draw from different religious backgrounds (at least traditionally.) The Moose is a different animal (pun intended) unto itself as it is an organization based around social interaction with a little bit of fraternalism.

In much the same way, young men have several different organizations they can join, only one of which is DeMolay. As with the adult groups, many of these clubs go about membership a little differently. One segment that has seen marked success in the last twenty years has been Greek fraternities at colleges. These groups have an even tighter margin than DeMolay does when it comes to membership. They only have guys for roughly 2 to 3 years before they move on, yet they keep their Chapters running with this high turnover. So, this made me think, what are they doing that helps keep their numbers up?

After a quick search I came across a great resource from Tau Kappa Epsilon called "Recruitment 101." While it is geared at college age / campus recruitment, there are some ideas and thoughts in the article that could really be of value to DeMolays. There are a couple of great sections on attitude, goals, and recruitment events that could benefit us as DeMolays.

Next time you seem to be up against a wall with membership ideas, think outside the box and look to see what other groups are doing to attract members. You never know what you might find!

Frat!~"Dad" Seth Anthony