After wandering through the maze of booths at the Student Activities Commission (SAC) Fair, after scrolling for hours through the mile-long online list of student groups, after questioning friends and faculty, you've decided that your passion for origami or scuba diving or watching film noir is not represented on campus. So you want to start a club.
Before doing so, however, you should make sure that you're ready to commit "an incredible amount of time and effort," said junior David Dittell, who started the Johns Hopkins Hip-Hop Society last year.
"You should start a club only if you really, really want it," he said. "It takes time to recruit new members and raise money. I wish someone had started a hip-hop club earlier so I wouldn't have had to do all the work.
"But in the end, if you care about something, you should do it for yourself."
Once you decide that you are committed to founding a new student group, you should register online through the Office of Student Involvement. You must include a statement of purpose, contact information for the group's officers and events planned for the year.
Jeffrey Groden-Thomas, the director of the Office for Student Involvement, will review your application to see if it meets certain criteria.
"I want to see whether it will be a viable group on campus," Groden-Thomas said. "One of the main things I look at is whether a new group overlaps the purpose of an existing group. My biggest advice to someone thinking of starting something new is to find out if there are already other groups on campus doing the same or a similar thing. If so, it's easier to rise to a position of leadership in an existing organization than to start a new one."
Groden-Thomas also considers what contribution the group will make to the student community or the community in Baltimore.
"A group should have a purpose that will appeal to enough students," he said. "One time, a group called "The Charity Group' applied. That's too vague. I wasn't sure what they were going to do.
"Another group was called the Monopoly Club. I was worried that this club would end once the founding student graduated. It seemed too narrow. For example, what happens if people decide to start playing Life?"
A new organization has to comply with University guidelines, such as being open to all Homewood students and being non-profit, Groden-Thomas said.
"There can't be a group on campus whose sole purpose is selling credit cards because that would violate University codes," he said.
If a group falls under certain categories, Groden-Thomas often suggests the officers meet with the appropriate organization on campus. For example, a religious group would have to get approval from Sharon Kugler, the university chaplain.
An organization can also become an SAC-affiliated group, which is a separate, and more involved, process.
The group has to submit an abstract and a constitution, it has to have a certain amount of members, the officers have to be in good academic standing, and the group has to go through a trial period called the "green-light period."
The major benefit of all that extra work is that an SAC-affiliated organization can receive funding from the Student Council.
But gaining official approval is only the beginning of the arduous path to having a successful organization.
Groden-Thomas said that club leaders should advertise extensively to get new members.
"Sometimes people come to me and say, "Oh, I don't know if anyone will be interested in my group.' Well, why are you starting it, then? Don't be afraid to ask people if they're interested in joining," Groden-Thomas said. "Hold events. Participate in the SAC fair. And don't worry about failing. Sometimes students have an event and want 50 people to show up, and only 12 come. But that's still 12 people that were interested."
Talk to people one-on-one to get them involved, recommended senior Carlo Cabanilla, who took over the Filipino Students Assocation.
"The club was in pretty bad shape last year," he said. "I had to show people who had signed up for it that the club was not lame anymore. Preparing for our performance for the Culture Show really brought people together because we were actually doing something, not just talking about doing something."
Senior Camille Bent, who re-started the Caribbean Cultural Society last year, suggested brainstorming to come up with ideas for events and fundraisers.
"You really have to get creative," she said. "Try to think of what college students would like. For example, we will be selling candied apples. When was the last time you had a candy apple? I think students won't mind giving a dollar to get one."
She also said that delegating work is important to keep a student club running smoothly.
"When you're starting out, try to recruit reliable people that are good at following up," she said. "Bad things can happen if only one person is doing all the work. Maybe that one person can handle it, but once they leave and they're across the country, the club will fall apart because no one knows how to do it except for them."
If you're stuck, try going to the Department of Student Development and Programming in the Mattin Center and picking up their Student Group Resource Handbook.
"You should just go to the office and pick their brains," Bent said. "If you have a problem, they've probably seen it before and can give you advice."
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