Recruitment is Everyone's Job, All the Time

By Kurt-Alexander Zeller, International President

Although you will be reading this column in fall, at the beginning of a new program year, I’m actually writing it at the ending of the last program year, immediately following the annual meeting of the International Executive Board. The annual IEB meeting is always an exhilarating time when the members of the board enjoy deepening our bond of Friendship as we work “Together in Harmony” to further our Fraternity’s calling to advance the cause of Music.

There is always one activity during the annual board meeting, however, that is not so much fun, and that is setting the Fraternity’s budget for the coming year. This actually is quite an exercise in working “Together in Harmony,” because in the end we have to harmonize the Fraternity’s anticipated revenue with the Fraternity’s expected expenses to create a budget that is in harmonious balance. Achieving this balance has become more challenging over time because the Fraternity’s dues-paying membership has been declining for many years. In 2024, despite a tiny uptick in dues-paying alumni membership numbers, we have more than 500 fewer dues-paying members than we did in 2019 before the pandemic.

No one should panic — we finished the 2023-24 fiscal year in the black and we have created a balanced budget for this year. But a course of continually decreasing revenue (membership) at some future point will cease to be sustainable. Even long before we would reach that point, there is a problem, because members do not want Mu Phi Epsilon merely to find ways on the cheap to manage to continue to do what we’ve always done. They want new initiatives, new services, new programming — they want Mu Phi Epsilon to be bold, to be innovative, to be out in front of the curve. Innovation, however, requires investment — in time, in human effort, and yes, in finances.

The thing that will give Mu Phi Epsilon more of all three of those things is enhanced member recruitment. The International Executive Board will be pursuing several membership-recruitment and extension initiatives this year, but we also want to challenge each chapter and each member to do the same — in a membership organization, recruitment is everyone’s job, all the time. Each one of you, whether you’re 18 or 80, knows a wonderful musician who would be an exemplary member of Mu Phi Epsilon. Please invite them! Working “Together in Harmony,” our fraternity can grow and prosper.