START A GROUP | PROTECT LIFE MICHIGAN
Find Out What Your School Requires & Will Allow
Get online or call your school's Student Life department. Typically, you will need a constitution, bylaws, a faculty advisor, and a minimum membership number. Don’t stress: PLMI can help you find each of these items. We will also email you a mission statement, constitution, and bylaws. Contact us today so we can help you get started!
Next, you'll need to know what sorts of activities your school will allow you to do: Can you chalk on campus, set up a table, reserve a meeting room, and hold events? What are the requirements to do so? Create a document with answers to these questions, so that you can refer to them easily.
Gather a Team & Delegate Tasks
Once you've started the process to become an official student organization, you'll need to begin gathering a team and delegating tasks.
Start with friends and people in your classes. You can also reach out to like-minded student organizations to see if any of their members would be interested in joining your group. Focus on finding friends who are responsible, dependable, and can help take on a leadership role for your group, but let students know that they aren't required to take on responsibilities in order to join the group.
Once you've assembled a team, you should begin delegating tasks. Click the PDF icon below to download a sample list of officer roles and responsibilities. This list will help establish clear expectations for your group.
Decide What Your Group Will Do
What kind of events will you hold? How often will you have meetings? What will be the mission of your group? These questions will help drive your group's events and meetings. Download the PDF below to see a list of sample event ideas.
Schedule Meetings
Hold meetings every other week and in the same location. If you don’t have much to talk about on a particular week, meet for a few minutes and then do something fun for the rest of your meeting. Get ice cream together or chalk pro-life messages on campus.
It is very important that your group never cancels a meeting. Whether you are talking business or doing something fun, you should keep the date. Consistency yields better results than an on-again off-again schedule.
Think Ahead: Recruit Younger Members
Immediately after your group gets going, start recruiting younger members so that there is someone to take over when you graduate. Plan ahead. Find younger people to join your group and encourage them to join the leadership team. You can recruit new members on social media, through fliers and tabling, and by visiting other student organizations.
ONE-ON-ONE SUPPORT
Protect Life Michigan provides support for your group every step of the way. Call or text us your questions anytime and we'll connect you to a campus activist: 1-616-294-8348. You can also email us at info@protectlifemi.org.