The first year that I assumed the role of chapter counselor at the Texas Beta Chapter at North Texas, many of the officer’s goals were not very aggressive, or were totally unrelated to advancing the chapter like ‘throw an awesome date party’ or ‘pay all the chapter bills.’

During my second year, our regional director introduced us to the Chapter Assessment Tool (CAT). It was a real eye-opening tool for us as it let us know what areas of the chapter we were excelling in, and what areas of the chapter needed more improvement.  

Basically, the CAT helps assess your chapter’s current success in the areas of recruitment, membership experience, leadership, finances and risk management. Then, it helps create an opportunity to set goals in each area and increase your operational efficiency. It gives everyone a common road map, and helps make sure each officer’s goals support each other’s.

After getting our arms wrapped around it, we were able to combine it with our SMART Goals sheet and create some really effective plans for our undergraduates. It gave them a vision and direction for where the chapter should be going and what they should be trying to accomplish as executives, and helped keep them on track once they got going. 

One of our other chapter counselors, Lauren Campbell with the Michigan Beta Chapter at Western Michigan, had this to say about it:  

“We use the CAT to set our chapter goals and officer goals and then track the progress of those goals. The way the CAT is set up with the Minimum, Chartering, Great and Ideal Standards, it is an extremely easy and user-friendly format. This process means that changes in officers each year on the executive board are more easily achieved. Each officer can see the standards and where the chapter sits in each area, and then begin to work on office and chapter goals.”

You can download the Chapter Assessment Tool here. It was a lifesaver for me, and can help any chapter volunteer get the ball rolling on really strengthening their executive board members.