Additional New Student Recruitment Notes

New Student Recruitment:

1. Good to have Missional Clarity: What is the purpose of the club? Could graph out with a BCG grid of developing believers/community and outreach to non-believers. Can every leadership team member (and 2nd year member) give the elevator speech to a 1st year student who asks, "What's the purpose of the club?" or "Why should I join the club?"

2. The Pitch: In presenting benefits (not just features) of the club to 1st years, there's a balance between talking about benefits to the student vs. fostering a consumer mentality.

3. Various strategies exist for Reaching out to studentsOther

Celebrity speaker (ie, bring in athletes, CEO, etc.)
BBQ at popular professor’s house who is an open Christian
Ask a 1st year to be bold and put something out on the 1st year FaceBook or other social platform (recently got 10+ responses at Booth)
Church visits: as a group, go to a new church for several weekends, with a centrally located brunch for everyone who wants to gather irrespective of what church was attended
Marketing shows that the message/offer often needs to be presented 8-9 times before a customer buys: don't put all your marketing efforts into one basket
Having multiple options for next steps will engage more new students, e.g., a weekly Bible study, a wo/men's prayer group, a social event, a retreat, etc.

4. Attraction and Retention of 1st years: Initially, the concept of a fellowship and the content of the programming will be important for many new students, but over time the quality of the relationships will become the main reason people stick with the fellowship.

5. 2nd Year Retention: Unless 2nd years are on leadership team, generally hard for them to be as involved. Can ask them to show up to initial meetings for 1st years to connect with them, plus can ask them to mentor 1st years to keep them involved.

6. Failure to put concerted effort into recruiting new students will result not only in a smaller group this year, but also a smaller pool of candidates for next year's leadership team. In fact, new students should be discreetly assessed for club leadership potential from the beginning since the new leader selection process is ideally finished no later than Feb for quarter schools, and perhaps Dec for semester schools. IV recommends 48 hour follow up with every new contact, offering a next step such as a one-on-one coffee chat, a social event, etc. Generally, there is a 3 week window in the fall to get on people’s calendar

7. Fellowship Positioning/Reputation: Having leaders who are actively involved in other campus leadership positions and a club that contributes to school goals (like a service month at Georgetown) creates credibility to both believers and non-believers. Being seen as an asset by the administration, rather than an insular, resource-sucker, is one potential good goal and makes joining more attractive to 1st years.

8. Overcoming obstacles: time is the most precious commodity for most MBA's. Set a standard from the start – make it regular occurrence & get on people’s calendar early – so people know and can schedule around it.

Curriculum

Most schools are looking for studies that are interactive, relevant to b-school and work, and don't require lots of prep time. A generic Bible study is not value added for MBA's who can get that at church, plus misses the opportunity to go deeper into the experience of being an MBA. A few examples discussed:

About anything by Tim Keller, but especially Every Good Endeavor and Counterfeit Gods. Search for study guides or discussion question online.
IV has a running list of studies, attached. Please contact Mark if you have additions to make for future generations.