September is a month inherently linked with the start of school. And as students flood back onto campus, we ponder how to attract them to SWE, and how to keep them around after that. Here’s a few tips and ideas I’ve found works well.
Attracting Membership
- Free food! Nothing attracts people to an event quite like free food. In addition to giving them a free meal, this also makes it time efficient because people can listen to you and eat at the same time.
- Have current exec and other members present at the meeting to talk to potential new members. This makes people feel like your chapter is active and welcoming, which it is!
- Publicity! This seems obvious, but I wanted to emphasize that people cannot come to events that they don’t know about. Email, posters, word of mouth. Make sure that the campus knows when your SWE events are.
Retaining
- Offer a way for freshman to get involved. Many collegiate club leadership positions run from spring to the next spring (such as Jan to Jan), instead of fall to spring. This makes it difficult for the new freshman to get involved right off the bat, when they are usually the most excited about clubs and opportunities. Consider establishing a “Freshman Representative” type position to get new, eager freshman involved at the exec level right off the bat.
- Establish a big-little program that links the freshmen to SWE upperclassmen. This upperclassmen can encourage the freshman to come to events, and show her around and introduce her to new people at the events.
- Be consistent in your meeting days and times. That way, SWE will naturally establish itself as a part of people’s weekly schedules, instead of a random aberration that throws that week off.
Any other ideas or tips that worked well for your chapter? Let us know in the comments!
