She’s the First*{Campus}

How to Launch a STF Chapter with Great Support

Founding members of She's the First*{Hofstra} -- that's Gen (with postcard) & Chelsea (right) in the middle!

As two Rhode Islanders who moved to New York to pursue interests in magazines, our professional aspirations and love for service have always been intertwined. By participating in both Ed2010 (which is the home to the Hofstra branch of Her Campus) and She’s the First*{Hofstra} (which a group of us founded in 2010), we’ve been able to explore our interests and help make a difference.

When we brought She’s the First*{Hofstra} to campus, we had a vision for success. With everything the organization had already accomplished, we saw big things for our campus chapter. But before we could get started with fundraising efforts and raising awareness, we had to tackle a challenge in and of itself–publicity.

There was a small group of girls who felt passionately about STF but we knew we couldn’t do it alone. We would need supporters and established groups to not only join forces with us, but also show us the ropes of how to make a name for ourselves on a campus with over 170 clubs and organizations.

At our first meeting, we talked about what we hoped to accomplish that year. We decided on a fundraiser, how we were going to direct students’ attention to the organization, and how to recruit members and club sponsors. Among our small group of founders, we had writers who contributed to hercampus.com. Our writers knew exactly what to do—we were going to utilize the site to shed light on our group.

Her Campus is an online magazine but also so much more–it’s a “collegiette’s guide to life.” The site posts stories for college women with topics ranging from Style to Love and Life, all of which are written by top college journalists around the country. Aside from the content on the main site, Her Campus also has campus branches. They’re responsible for posting campus events, trends, and more. Hofstra’s branch knew this would give us the publicity opportunity we were looking for.

It started with an article Chelsea wrote titled “She’s the First–Changing Girls’ Education One Step at a Time.” Before we had even established our own chapter, it was important that we put out the message of the umbrella not-for-profit we were working under. Within the piece, we mentioned our organization and how we would be working closely with the cause. Once the story went live, we were finally on the map.

When we started talking to different organizations about possible co-sponsorships and awareness opportunities and we mentioned our name, many of the responses we got were, “Oh yeah, I think I read about you guys.” Her Campus had finally put a name to an otherwise undefined organization.

From there on out, we use our Her Campus branch to publicize for She’s the First*{Hofstra}. We post photo-blogs about fundraisers and awareness events, such as our campus-wide residential awareness programs and tie-dye cupcake sales.

The site selects articles from campus branches weekly and ranks them in order of reader worthiness and popularity. The first piece we did made it to number one, drawing other branches to our page and thus bringing their attention to She’s the First. With a taste of how we were running things and an idea of how wonderful a cause it was, other campuses felt the urge to hop on the nonprofit bandwagon and start a She’s the First chapter of their own.

Gennifer’s experiences with STF & HC extend beyond campus. When applying to attend the first-ever Women: Inspiration & Enterprise symposium last year, she wrote about her experiences with STF and how eye-opening its vision is. When she was chosen, she represented both organizations, alongside the women she admires like Tammy, STF campaign developer Devin Tomb, and HC founders Stephanie, Annie, and Windsor.

As an editor, Gennifer has encouraged readers to start their own chapters and featured women like Brittany Laughlin and Adejire Bademosi—two WIE young champions she would have never met if it were not for the tie to She’s the First. Earlier this year she also worked with New York Women in Communications scholarship recipient Katie Corrado to compile a list of collegiette™ amazings, who embody what it means to be a first.

Her Campus is not only our platform for campus attention, but also for other campuses nationwide in order to encourage them to join the cause. It’s no wonder why the link between the two is practically invincible – when you give women the opportunity to thrive, no barriers, no obstacles, no challenge, can stand in their way. We urge all collegiette™ STF supporters and aspiring media professionals to start a branch of HC at their university by July 31st: Just head to hercampus.com/my-campus.