WE ARE PHI SIGMA SIGMA - and we are today’s leader in the interfraternal world when it comes to implementing Web-based member services and social networking.
In four short years, we have transformed our progressive women's philanthropic and social organization from a paper-laden operation to a virtually paperless, completely self-servicing entity supporting 107 chapters internationally and nearly 60,000 members. As a result, our staff members, volunteers and sisters-at-large can now mentor one another online using a myriad of existing Phi Sigma Sigma networks, and they can create their own personalized networks as well.
This incredible transformation has allowed Phi Sigma Sigma to completely revamp operations - notably, shifting our staff resources and focus from one that was largely clerical in nature to one that provides even more meaningful professional services to our membership, maximizing the benefits of their affiliation with our nearly 100-year-old organization.
Our most recent addition in the area of professional services has been a Communications Consultant, who is responsible for two new cutting-edge enewsletters, Connections and 
Savvy, which launched in January 2009 and March 2009 respectively. These enewsletters provide snippets of full articles with Read more > links that drive readers to our newly redesigned Web site, where they can finish the stories and, equally important, easily access the social networking features.
Connections is published monthly to over 22,000 members and friends of Phi Sigma S
igma, and Savvy is specifically designed for chapter leaders, advisors and volunteers of Phi Sigma Sigma with a distribution of over 5,500 monthly during the academic year. Since launch in January, our site has had 175,000 visitors with 900,000 page views.
Most recently, Phi Sigma Sigma transitioned its ground-breaking Chapter Excellence program from a paper-based system to the Web. Chapter Excellence, first launched 10 years ago, sets forth comprehensive expectations for each of 
our chapters and their individual members in four key areas: self, chapter, campus and community, and the Fraternity. In the past, our chapters compiled this information throughout the academic year and then mailed a physical portfolio to Headquarters annually for review. This year, Phi Sigma Sigma moved this entire program online using custom database tables and Web forms along with our social networking resource library. Documents uploaded to the resource library are fully integrated with our database so that they can be referenced as part of a chapter’s submission.
Advantages to this new online approach are significant - and include engaging all members of each chapter directly in the program, providing year-round qualitative feedback to our chapters, and “going green” - as this eliminated a significant amount of paper! Going forward, we will know even more about our members' individual contributions to their campuses and communities, as well as their numerous personal accomplishments. Moving this program online also saves money for our chapters (the cost of shipping their portfolios to Headquarters) and potentially tens of thousands of dollars for our Headquarters, as we formerly transported (at great expense) experts to a single location each year to review, score and offer constructive feedback on the portfolios - vitally important performance-improvement information which wasn't delivered to chapters until the start of the next school year. Now that we're online, our chapters get that feedback immediately, so we can feel even more confident they are improving in real time (a considerable advantage for us in the increasingly competitive interfraternal world).
As you know, introducing a technical component to a long-standing, successful program like Chapter Excellence can pose challenges for members. We found the opposite at our recent Convention, where members of all ages embraced the online Chapter Excellence program with open arms. Our chapters are very excited about this development! We have our database and social networking platform to thank for this - as well as many other successes we envision for the years ahead!