If you want to win international awards then you have got to make sure EVERYONE knows who you are. How do you do that? See below.
BRANDING: the average law school chapter bills itself around school as Phi Alpha Delta. Those of you who have attended convention are well aware that you are more than just Phi Alpha Delta. Each chapter should strive to develop its own identity within the school community and within the fraternity at large. Now this is not to say that you should focus your efforts exclusively on one type of programming in order to establish some sort of "branding". All award winning chapters have to have balanced programming, and meeting the requirements of chapter merit award will insure that you do.
MARKETING: I am not going to get into a debate about the exact definition of marketing vs. advertising, so for the purposes of this post you will have to accept that marketing means getting new members to join your chapter by making them aware of what all you are doing and how great it is to be a member of this amazing organization. This is more than just posting flyers around the school. Here are some ideas: get all members to wear PAD t-shirts one day per month it promotes bonding among current members, and it inspires other people to want to be a part of that in-crowd.
ADVERTISING: You do have to do some flyer posting, so that people know what you are doing and when.
PADLAW yahoogroup. Sign up for PADLAW yahoogroup (on the front page of www.pad.org) What you want come June 1 is for Board members to be sitting in their offices, rubbing their hands, pacing the floor and WAITING for your award application to come in, because they have been following your progress all year. Get it?
PAD REPORTER. Free advertising extraordinairre. Send pictures and a one or two paragraph description of the event to andrew@pad.org and let the whole entire fraternity see how awesome you are.
School Newspaper. If your school has one, or a newsletter, or a docket, get your events in there, along with a random little announcement from the chapter every month. Here are some examples: a congrats message to newly initiated members, a thank you to outgoing officers, a happy bday to all the PAD members with birthdays that month, or a follow up to tell the the school about a particularly successful event, with recognition to all members who helped organize the event. (save copies of all this stuff to include with your award application).
Bar Journal. Put announcements about upcoming events in the local bar journal. Make sure you put a prominent statement that ALUMNI FROM YOUR SCHOOL are welcome to attend. (save copies of all this stuff to include with your award application).
Chapter Calendar. Make sure everyone you can think of gets a copy of your chapter calendar. Post it on the padlaw and District 15 yahoogroups, email it to the DCO, pass it around your school, and to any of your members who graduated last year.
The Vice Justice is in charge of Communications and Branding/Marketing/Advertising. The best way to make sure they do this, is to make sure the rest of the E-Board is doing their job so the Vice Justice has time for this stuff. Chapter Justices, with the exception of officer training YOUR job is to make sure your E-Board is all doing their jobs. Also think about creating a position for publications and another for publicity/advertising. The Vice Justice would oversee these positions since the Vice Justice is in charge of all forms of communications.
(Borrowed from Pam Nash, former District 21 DJ, with a few changes of my own.)
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