Dear sisters,
In Fall 2022, I shared that we continued to see chapter membership growth and had increased our focus on service and chapter health. I’m happy to report that we’ve seen excellent strides in service and the overall health of our chapters this semester.
Our Service Impact
Our collegiate members completed more than 20,200 hours of service last semester. This equates to $303,000 of potential saved labor costs at a living wage of $15 per hour. The chapter with the highest number of service hours was Alpha Rho at Virginia Tech, with 2,200 hours of service. We had six other chapters complete over 1,000 hours of service.
The National Leadership Team continues to monitor the impact of service and ensure that all chapters engage in hands-on service opportunities. We have updated our list of service projects that we encourage chapters to consider and have added a list of projects we will no longer count towards the national service hour requirement. Our goal in doing this is to standardize the level of service being offered by all of our chapters nationwide and ensure that chapter projects fit the true intention of each area of service.
Membership Growth
We continue to focus heavily on membership growth in order to maintain healthy chapter statuses. Chapters with 20 members or less are considered endangered chapters, and our goal is to minimize the number of chapters appearing on this list each semester.
In Spring 2023, our chapters extended bids to 301 potential new members, and we welcomed 250 of those individuals into Omega Phi Alpha. The number of members activated was two less than in Spring 2022, but the activation rate from bids extended was 11% higher.
In my last update, I mentioned that we continued to see an increase in members on Leave of Absence (LOA) each semester. I’m pleased to share that we continue to see a decrease in LOA statuses in the spring semesters. We continue to gather information about why members are taking LOA or choosing to disassociate and hope to engage members to stay active through their entire collegiate career.
Expansion
The Expansions Team wrapped up their full academic year of expansions by inducting Alpha Phi Chapter at Binghamton University on April 29, 2023. The chapter also welcomed 20 members to their Alpha Class the day after their induction. This chapter has been a long time in the making, and we are so excited to see it finally come to fruition.
We have a prospective new chapter at Marshall University and an interest group at the University of Cincinnati.
Beyond expanding to new universities, we continue to streamline our expansions process, matching the expansions period to active chapter life to create more sustainable chapters.
New Resources
The Chapter Health Team continues to create and update resources specifically needed by active members as the need presents itself. All of these can be accessed via OPAportal, including:
- Welcome to Chapter Health Program Video
- Active Retreat Planning Guide
- Sisterhood Director Manual
- Summer Opportunities for Members
- Chapter Wellness Facilitator Guide
- Role of a Big Sister Guide
- Active Recruitment Planning Guide
- Standard Operating Procedure for Chapter Health Specialists
- A Week in the Life of Chapter Health
- Executive Board 101 Training
- Honoring Sisters Guide
A new way for chapters to wrap up their semester included a chapter checkout with a member of the Chapter Health Team. This process aims to ensure chapters understand their status with the national organization before the start of the next school year. Leaving this meeting, incoming and outgoing chapter presidents will understand the requirements for next year, general expectations, and steps moving forward.
Each chapter received a report card grade based on seven markers of success:
- Email Correspondence and Utilization
- Completion of Items by Due Date
- Recruitment Goals Being Met
- Dissassociation Rates
- Slack Utilization
- Financial Stability and Practices
- Service Requirements
A total of 6 chapters received a letter grade of A.
- Gamma **
- Epsilon **
- Omicron **
- Alpha Delta **
- Alpha Omicron
- Alpha Rho
** These chapters were assigned a Chapter Health Specialist or worked closely with the Chapter Health Manager.
Additionally, chapters were given their status for the fall semester, reviewed their Chapter Assistance Plan (if applicable), and shared insight on their chapter morale and transitions process. It also served as a prime opportunity for reminding chapters about getting new officers on Slack, transitioning folks on OPAportal, completing the annual report and annual financial report, awards, and transitioning their bank accounts. Chapter Health plans to continue with the chapter checkouts next spring.
The Chapter Health Team embarked on a new framework for Officer Leadership Academy in Spring 2023. You may recall that in the Fall, there were 2 big days dedicated to connecting with officers to give them a refresh and direct connection with the national team. This spring, we piloted a workshop series version with multiple sessions throughout the semester. We were able to hold 15 sessions impacting over 200 actives. We plan to continue this series of workshops in Fall 2023, and based on feedback, we will diversify the times these sessions are offered to impact members more frequently.
We are very excited to offer our members continued leadership and personal development opportunities. If you have an area of expertise that you’d like to share with our members (Teach-a-Sister national project, maybe?), please reach out to Taylor Outler at [email protected].
Growing Forward
As we exit a year of expansion and transition our focus to a more sustainable growth pattern for our future, we also will re-focus resources on existing chapters that need assistance. We have eight chapters in our chapter health intensive program for the Fall 2023 semester and a few others on Chapter Assistance Plans (CAP). Many of our chapters have reported great success with a CAP this past semester, so we are excited to continue that!
The Chapter Health Team continues to have a long list of resources and projects to complete. We are very excited to roll those out this year, including another Officer Leadership Academy series!
Stay tuned to social media and your email to get updates from the sorority.
And don’t forget – log into OPAportal and update your information!
In sisterhood,
Alyssa Bernhardt
Managing Director