Fall Membership Challenge
The Fall Membership Challenge is a recruitment contest between student chapters occurring September 16, 2024 through October 21, 2024. This contest is intended to challenge students to recruit new Material Advantage Student Members. Contest winners receive monetary prizes for the most creative strategies and the highest percentage increase in chapter membership.
How To Participate
There are two categories in which your chapter can participate:
I. Most Creative Recruitment Strategies ~ $500 Prize
To be eligible for this award, participating Chapters must:
- Compile a report of the month’s recruitment activities/programs and submit via the online Membership Challenge Application (link below) by the deadline.
- The report must be in essay format (written in English, double-spaced, using font size 11 in either Ariel or Times New Roman) that is a minimum of one page (inclusive of photographs, charts, etc.) but no more than seven pages (inclusive of photographs, charts, etc.). If any report is submitted with more than seven pages, the excess pages will not be considered.
- The essay should describe the recruitment strategies used as well as include photographs that show the chapter spirit, activities, and/or new members.
- In addition to uploading their essay within the online Membership Challenge Application, chapters will also be able to separately upload up to three high resolution photos and up to two videos to further support their submission if desired.
The chapter that implements the most creative program to recruit new members while achieving a minimum 5% increase in membership will win this category.
II. Most Students Recruited ~ $1,000 Prize
To be eligible for this award, participating Chapters must:
- Download and fill out the Membership Challenge Member Sheet. Upon completion, this sheet must be uploaded to the online Membership Challenge Application (link below) by the deadline.
- Please note, paper membership applications will not be accepted. Rather, all student details must be included in the Membership Challenge Member Sheet.
- Both new members who have already joined online as well as those who intend to join will be counted in this contest. The Membership Challenge Member Sheet has two tabs that will provide instructions for either situation. For members who intend to join to be counted in this contest and credited to your chapter, payment details must be included when the online Membership Challenge Application is submitted. Both the Membership Challenge Member Sheet and online Membership Challenge Application will walk you through this process (if any of your memberships are being paid for by credit card, you can download the Credit Card Information Sheet here).
The chapter with the highest percentage of membership increase during the Membership Challenge will win this category. In the event of a tie, the prize money will be split evenly among the winners.
General Rules & Procedures
- For both award categories, only new members will count towards chapter growth. As mentioned under II. Most Student Recruited, payment details must accompany members who have not yet joined. If payment details are not included, those students will not be credited to your chapter for this contest.
- Participating chapters must have a minimum of five active (paid) members at the start of the contest. If a chapter has fewer than five members, only the increase beyond five will be counted towards the chapter growth percentage.
- Starting chapter membership size will be determined based on existing Material Advantage Membership as of September 15, 2024. Only members with a Material Advantage join date between September 16, 2024 and October 21, 2024 will be counted.
- You may enter both categories; however, the same chapter cannot win both categories.
- Photographs/videos submitted may be published in Material Advantage Partner publications, their websites, or online social media accounts (at the discretion of each Society).
- For more information about the Membership Challenge, contact ASM.
Submission Deadline
The Material Advantage Membership Challenge ends on October 21, 2024. Participating chapters must fill out and submit the online Membership Challenge Application no later than 11:59 PM US Eastern on October 23, 2024.
Fill out the online Membership Challenge Application!
