This is a part of the Strategic Plan 2025 series.
October 2022-December 2022 marked the final quarter of the 2022 Calendar Year and served to tee Phi Kappa Tau up for a strong 2022. We want to reflect on the goals set during that period and what was set in motion for 2023.
The goals for the October 2022-December 2022 Quarter Were:
1. Adopt proactive approach towards growth
2. Develop program strategy and execution plans that deliver value
3. Refine and expand membership engagement
4. Architect a high-performance culture and collaborative team
Adopt a proactive approach towards growth:
Many chapters had their strongest recruiting semester in years, such as Alpha Sigma at Colorado State.
To achieve a proactive approach towards growth, many small adjustments needed to be made and areas of improvement had to be identified. The close of the Fall semester brought in 965 new associate members, which was 65 over our goal for the quarter. This was due to increased recruitment by the chapters and proactive outreach via the recruitment services program. New recruitment and branding materials also aided the efforts to ensure a professional and consistent look amongst the chapters. This growth was also supported by our expansion department which associated over 100 men through their efforts in the quarter which accounted for just over 10% of total associates. We also saw the beginning of a new “revitalization” program at the University of Kansas in which recruiters went to our Beta Theta chapter which resulted in a doubling of the chapter size during the project.
Some areas of improvement include the timeliness of initiation as only 8% of new associates were reported as initiated and a process is being developed to address this inconsistency with reporting moving forward.
Develop program strategy and execution plans that deliver value:
The logo used to advertise “Zenith Officer Institute”
Research is critical in the development of our programming for undergraduate and graduate members. To do so we launched the Brotherhood Assessment to which we received 30% completion rate across all chapters. We look forward to increasing this survey completion in future collaboration with Dyad Strategies to increase the quality of information regarding our membership.
The development of a new, expanded officer academy took place with the creation of Zenith Officer Institute that would go on to take place the following quarter. Further developments were made regarding the refined membership orientation program “The Palm,” and final preparations were made for the Spring 2023 launch.
Refine membership engagement:
The “Veteran Recognition Pin” is sent free of charge to US Veteran members.
Multiple steps were taken to refine overall membership engagement. On the alumni side, a new graduate transition best practices process was created and delivered to volunteers, and research began on best ways to increase volunteer engagement and utilization of digital resources such as Member Planet. The Veteran Recognition form launch made it simple for veteran members to receive their newly developed commemorative pin and the development of forms for the 25th and 50th anniversary lapel pins.
For undergraduates, a few small but impactful resources were developed including travel tips guide for undergraduates, the Brothers Keeper Archive for peer-to-peer recognition, and new recruitment marketing materials/templates for chapters to use.
In addition to all the developed resources we also made refinements to our membership materials such as shifting how we distribute associate pins to ensure more timely acquisition of materials for chapters, and the exploration of a new official store that chapters can more easily access high quality Phi Kappa Tau merchandise.
Architect a high-performance culture and collaborative team:
The CEO search began in December 2022.
As an organization, we have been striving to refine our processes as well as continue to identify necessary shifts to further progress the goals of the Strategic Plan. There is still a lot of work to be done in identifying what specific processes need to be changed and how we document the culture and workflow of the Executive Offices, volunteer stakeholders, and of course – our undergraduate members.
A key piece of this addressed during the quarter was the launch of the CEO search through columns fundraising to identify the next Chief Executive Officer of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity expected to be selected in Spring of 2023. With the addition of a new CEO to the team, we anticipate a greater attention to our volunteer structure and forward momentum on key areas of executive function.
Overall:
This quarter saw great strides as a team in moving the Strategic Plan forward and served as a great exercise in making both small and large improvements to set Phi Kappa Tau up for success. We have quite a bit of work yet to do to achieve our 2025 goals, and aligning all stakeholders is a key piece to that. Visit phikappatau.org/strategicplan for more information and to track progress. Our next update will be out April 15th which will go over the January-March 2023 quarter.