The Sigma Pi Membership Experience

Imagine if Sigma Pi was known as THE fraternity to join if you want the best job in your field after college. What would happen if you showed up to classes in Sigma Pi letters and the professors automatically knew they could count on you to be one of the most engaging and intelligent students in class?  What if the Sigma Pi house was the safest place on campus for women to hang out because you were known for chivalry all around the world? What if your fraternity could teach you how to buy a house on your own by the time you are 25 or how to have enough money saved to be able to retire early?

Last semester, the Fraternity engaged Phired Up Productions to conduct research on the membership experience of members, former members, and new members of Sigma Pi Fraternity. The goal with this research is to inform current Fraternity practices and turn those into better practices and to create a template for a membership development initiative to pilot later this year.

In total, over 1000 alumni men ranging in age from 22 to well into their 80s responded to our survey.  Over 600 undergraduate new members and existing members responded from all types of chapters from all over the country. Our response rate was amazing and we want to thank all of you that participated.

We learned a lot about what we do well and what we need to improve. Many undergraduate men (87%) feel highly favorably about their fraternity experience. Brotherhood, connection, and fit are the primary reasons why people join Sigma Pi and why they stay in Sigma Pi.  Men have a strong connection with big and little brothers and pledge classes and find that many of the resources Sigma Pi has in place already work well for them. Men that lead the chapter sought out the experience to lead and enjoy the experience. The connection local chapter members have with alumni and advisors is somewhat strong but with the International Organization- from a staff and volunteer perspective- needs some improvement. We need to do a better job of engaging alumni as many cited that Fraternity beyond college years did not seem relevant to them. Of utmost importance is that many alumni are willing to re-engage with the Fraternity but need to be asked to do so in a specific and direct way that is less time intensive that the current offerings.

Alumni men don’t necessarily feel like they need developmental programming, however they are willing to be mentors to undergraduate members. Our undergraduate members spoke loud and clear that career and life mentorship and development (in addition to brotherhood and life long connection) was precisely what they wanted to get out of Fraternity. This is the place where Fraternity education and membership development can be most relevant.

Character development, professional development, life planning, and career engagement are likely to be some of the cornerstone of new developmental programming and we are going to ask our alumni (many of whom we have never asked before) to help us more with undergraduate education.

Our staff is in the process of reviewing all of the feedback you gave us about what we are doing well and what we need to work on. We are listening to what you are telling us. We are reading all of your words. We are also engaging a committee of undergraduate men to work on membership development initiatives this month.

Our Fraternity has the information and power to make history as THE place where the BEST men are even better. We want you to be better for having been a member of our organization.

Can you imagine the impact our organization could have on the world if every single member focused every single day on truth and justice, chivalry, scholarship, character, and diffusing culture? We are in the relationship business, the values business, the life bettering business at Sigma Pi Fraternity- we hope to have this come to light more in our daily practices, interactions with chapters and alumni, and in all of the future work we will do developing our members.  a