The Loyalty Campaign

Of the several items which the Chi Phi Educational Trust is unable to provide assistance for, Ritual is one of them. Keeping our Chapters and Colonies well equipped and educated on our Heritage & Customs is critical to the preservation of our Fraternity.

The Loyalty Campaign will be used to help offset the costs associated with our members acquiring vital equipment and funding the Regional Ritual Retreats (RRR).

RRR is a unique program in which participants are immersed in our Heritage & Traditions through a weekend of learning both in the classroom and in the Lodge Room. Through performance of each of our Rituals, participants leave the program having a greater understanding of the most sacred elements of our Brotherhood.

This program is provided at no cost to our members. 90% of funding for RRR comes through the Fraternity by means of Alumni donations and undergraduate dues, with the remaining 10% coming from a grant through the Trust for the small portion of RRR for which they can legally provide funding.

With your support, we can continue to expand this program’s reach to our members and help preserve our history and promote the Values which make Chi Phi the organization it is today.

You may be thinking to yourself; Insurance? What insurance?

Chi Phi, like many national Greek organizations, did not carry liability insurance until the late 1980s, meaning many Brothers have never experienced the costs associated with maintaining this coverage. Today, liability insurance is an unfortunate necessity.

Our liability insurance protects both the Fraternity and individual members. It also covers Chapters, Alumni Associations, City Clubs, Housing Corporations, and the Chi Phi Educational Trust, plus all elected officers and individual members who support those entities.

In short, it is vital for Chi Phi to maintain this coverage. Despite our low-liability history, however, our insurance rates have continued to rise in proportion with other national Greek organizations. In 2014, each undergraduate was billed $130 annually for insurance; today that rate has more than doubled for a fraction of the coverage.

Despite the wide-reaching coverage and the benefits it presents to all members and entities of Chi Phi, paying for our insurance has fallen almost entirely on the shoulders of our undergraduate members. With the price having more than doubled in the last few years, insurance alone may soon price young men out of our Brotherhood. With financial support from our Alumni, we can help relieve the great pressure that insurance has put on our undergraduate members through no fault of their own.

Did you know that Chi Phi’s annual Congress is paid for through fees charged to our Chapters and Colonies?

Congress is the supreme authority of the Chi Phi Fraternity. As you can imagine, it is no small undertaking each year. In 2021, Congress will bring Brothers to Las Vegas, where we will be hosted by our many and proud Chapters on the West Coast.

Though most of the delegates at Congress hail from our Chapters across the country, each Alumni Association, City Club, and Housing Corporation is also entitled to representation. Unlike the charges made to Chapters, Alumni organizations are only charged a delegate fee if they are present at Congress. Many Chapters, for financial reasons, are unable to attend Congress, but are still charged for their two delegates. The delegate fee for the 154th Congress in Indianapolis was $600 each, meaning each Chapter, regardless of size or financial standing, was charged $1,200.

No Chapter should forego representation at Congress because they cannot afford to be present. This is the single most critical event to our Brotherhood and the future of Chi Phi as a national organization. Representation of every entity at Congress is essential to our success and continual existence.

The Loyalty Campaign will help address the issue of the costs associated with attendance at Congress, namely mollifying the rising rate of the delegate fee, which fluctuates annually based on the price of holding Congress at that location. With assistance from our Alumni and Friends, we can help Chapters in need by reducing the costs associated with the largest and most important Chi Phi event each year.

While much of the cost of returning to a campus is covered by local Alumni, expansion opportunities at new campuses are paid through undergraduate dues.

A gift to the Fraternity can help fund Chi Phi’s growth and expansion by giving Chi Phi enough capital to take on additional expansion opportunities without placing a burden on our young Brothers. Each expansion project which Chi Phi undertakes costs the Fraternity upwards of $30,000, which expenses such as staff training, room and board during the expansion, and the cost of recruitment activities on campus, among other expenses.

Combined with rising membership costs and the cloud hanging over Greek Like on some campuses, the short-term cost of expansion often outweighs the long-term benefits. These expenses are causing Chapters to throw in the towel at the same rate at which we are opening Colonies.

With support from Alumni and Friends across the country, Chi Phi will be able to take on more expansion projects in the coming years as we gain the ability to provide staff and resources to these projects without pulling any away from other areas of need, like program support and Chapter education.

Support gained from the Loyalty Campaign will make Chi Phi well poised to achieve our goal of having 70 active Chapters on the rolls when we celebrate our Fraternity’s Bicentennial in 2024.

Looking to 2021 and Beyond

Epsilon Delta Colony at Oregon State University – Corvallis, Oregon

Lambda Delta Colony at University of Arizona – Tucson, Arizona

Nu Delta Colony at Florida State University – Tallahassee, Florida

Chi Delta Colony at Georgia State University – Atlanta, Georgia

Delta Zeta Colony at University of South Florida – Tampa, Florida

Rho Iota Kappa Colony at University of Rhode Island – South Kingstown, Rhode Island

UIC Colony at University of Illinois at Chicago – Chicago, Illinois
*New campus

At the heart of the fraternity experience is the opportunity to become a better man. Chi Phi has been at the forefront of the fraternal movement for nearly two centuries. Today, the most important element to Building Better Men is providing them not just with lifelong friendships, but also with leadership opportunities and programs emphasizing character development.

Outside of our regional and national events, the Chapter/Colony Visitation Program has proven to be a critical element of Chi Phi’s mission. In addition to providing insight on Fraternity operations and lending a hand to Chapter/Colony Officers, Chi Phi’s Leadership Consultants can also provide recruitment training, membership retreats, Ritual education, and risk management and social event safety training during their campus visits.

While much of this staff is absorbed by grants from the Educational Trust, providing Ritual and recruitment education for our Chapters/Colonies and ensuring a meaningful Brotherhood or Executive Council retreat is often prohibited based purely on cost. With support from donors, Chi Phi can make sure that exclusive training and consulting from our staff can be given to each Chapter/Colony that needs it.

In addition to on-site training, gifts to the Fraternity can also be used to help Chapters and Colonies develop through attendance at national programs such as Regional Ritual Retreats and Congress. The cost associated with these events falls well outside the legal boundaries set for funding from the Educational Trust, leaving our Brothers to foot the bill for their travel and lodging.

A donation to the Fraternity will help Chi Phi continue to succeed where we have been strongest; supporting our undergraduate members through leadership development and educational opportunities.