So you want to lead a club at Fordham? Great!
Have you been wanting to take on a student leadership role? Are you curious to know the ways that leadership roles can improve your Fordham experience? Are you worried about managing your peers? Need some tips on where to begin? Look no further; these are our go-to strategies for how to best lead your club at Fordham!
Why Lead?
Leadership roles are a great way to get involved at Fordham and demonstrate your passion for a specific topic or subject area. Whether it is through student government, service organizations, or cultural clubs, there is such a variety of opportunities to explore. Club leadership roles can also help to boost up your resume! The responsibilities you take on as a club leader can provide you with practical experience in addition to jobs and internships. Leading a club is also an excellent way to get to know new people and flex your skills!
Know your Club!
Make sure you know and review your club constitution! Your constitution will tell you:
- What the club is all about
- The mission and purpose of the club
- The leadership structure and roles and responsibilities of the executive board members
Be aware of your leadership roles! Each club must have a President, Vice President, and Treasurer, but after that, executive board roles are up to you and your club. You can set up unique roles based on your club’s purpose and mission. Some examples of additional roles include social media manager, choreographer, music director, events coordinator, and more!
Can’t find your club constitution or want to make changes to it? Check out the USG Operations Committee website or email them at usgopsrh@fordham.edu for assistance!
Forming your LEADERSHIP Team
College clubs, by nature, have EXTREMELY HIGH turnover rates. Therefore, your executive board should be made up of more than just senior students. Some key features of a good executive board include:
- Members from two to three grade levels
- Mixed levels of experience and expertise
- Members that are committed to the club and their roles
Mix It Up
You want to make sure you have a succession plan in place for your club for when the current senior class graduates (which, heads up, happens every year in May)! By letting students in different class years and with varying levels of experience hold leadership positions, more people get the opportunity to learn the ropes.
Leadership Means Delegating Responsibilities
You can’t just have students with a diverse range of class years and experience on the executive board without then actually delegating responsibilities to them all. As a leader, you must do your due diligence and train the students coming up after you. Otherwise, you risk ending up with a club that has to start over every fall semester because they weren’t made aware of where the club left off the year prior. Set your club up for long-term success by spreading out responsibilities and delegating tasks!
PRO TIP: If you’re the club president, remember that your job is not to manage the day-to-day operations of the club but to lead your members, the long-term direction of the club, and serve as a mentor for your executive board!
Set Goals for Your Club!
One critical aspect of leadership is your ability to set goals for your club. It’s important to set clear goals and deadlines that can range from weekly milestones, semesterly goals, or any other long-term growth you’d like to plan as a club. You can also set short-term goals that build up to your larger, long-term goal. Some examples of club goals you can set are:
- Growing your club’s Instagram account by 100 followers by the end of the year
- Recruiting 20 new active members at the fall club fair
- Raising $1,000 for a service organization associated with your club mission
- Recording an album for your a capella group to share with family, friends, and alumni
- Increasing the average attendance at your programs by 25%
Why does this matter?
Goals and deadlines are imperative when you’re planning club events! If you know the date of your event, it’s easy to then work backward from that date to determine what steps you need to complete and achieve your goals before the event happens. If your goal is to get 100 students to your banquet dinner, you know you need to reserve the space, order food, purchase decorations and supplies, all before you even begin to market the event to the student body. Working backward from the event date, you can draft a timeline for when those tasks will need to be completed. Then, you can work with your executive board to create a marketing strategy and promotion plan to help spread the word about your event and get students to show up! Setting smaller goals and deadlines along the way will help you to achieve your larger goal.
Each goal you set should be a SMART goal!
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
We’ll go into SMART goals further in a future blog post, but they aren’t limited to event planning! They can be used for personal, professional, and other club-related goals as well. The more strategic you are in your goal setting, the more you can accomplish! When you outline your club goals using the SMART method, you can more easily communicate with and set expectations for the rest of your club members.
Practical TOOLS to Use
Here are some of our tried and true tips for better organizing your club and managing your time as a club leader:
- Create a group Google Calendar to schedule practices, meetings, and club events
- Club members can download your calendar to add it to their schedule
- For online meetings and events, you can keep Zoom links there for easy access
- Bookmark links that you frequently use for your club and save them in labeled folders
- You can include things like your club member contact list, constitution, Rams Involved Community page, or anything else you use frequently and think is important to access
- Have your current executive board write up “how-to” documents in Google Drive with a step by step list of the most important parts of their roles to pass on to incoming leaders
- Meet with us in OSI during drop-in hours after your executive board transition to answer any initial questions you have
- Ask for help! No club is perfect so if you’re struggling or need extra support, let us know!
Create a Path for Future Leaders
As a club leader, you have a huge impact on the Fordham community. You set the example for incoming new students and underclassmen coming into leadership roles after you graduate. You have the capability to truly develop a strong community among the group of people who choose to join your club. Never be afraid to ask for help from mentors and advisors and take the time to learn from the other student leaders around you on how to take advantage of being the best club leader you can be!
