Starting a Club in College: 5-Step Guide
Starting a new college club in 2024 is easier than ever, check out our 6-step guide
Starting a college club is a great way to make friends who share similar interests as well as develop leadership, communication, marketing and fundraising skills. Clubs can be a fun extracurricular activity that reduce stress and help you grow your network of professionals at the same time.
But what if you've attended your college’s club fair and nothing piques your interest? Every organization started with someone who saw a need and filled it by creating their own club.
In this article we’ll cover six steps you can take start your new club hassle-free, and continue to manage your club with embolt.app
Why Should You Start Your Own Club in College?
Starting your club can be one of the main highlights when you look back on your college experience. In a lot of ways, it's like starting a business; you’ll manage members, do fundraising, run events, and manage your club’s administrative side.
To start a club you really just need an idea and a passion to share that idea, from there you can enjoy a lot of the benefits that come with clubs. Not sure what those benefits are? Check out our article on five reasons you should join a college club
Once you’ve landed on an idea, the next thing you should do is choose a platform to host your club on, like embolt.app. Embolt is a member management platform for the modern day club, think Shopify/Discord for clubs — with this platform you can:
Link your club’s PayPal to accept member dues that fund events & activities
Manage club members information and renewal dates
Create registration forms that you can share with your members on your own hub
Create email lists to send notifications to your members
What Types of College Clubs Are There?
There are a lot of different types of college clubs you can join, check out our article above if you want some help deciding which clubs might be in your best interests to start & join.
Academic Clubs: These clubs focus on specific academic disciplines, such as biology, economics, or literature. They often host guest speakers, organize academic competitions, and provide opportunities for research or discussion within the field.
Professional Development Clubs: Clubs related to your desired career field can provide networking opportunities, career advice, and skill-building workshops. Examples include business clubs, engineering societies, or pre-med organizations.
Cultural and Identity-Based Clubs: These clubs celebrate diversity and provide a supportive community for students from various cultural backgrounds or identities. Examples include multicultural clubs, LGBTQ+ organizations, or international student associations.
Arts and Performance Clubs: If you have a passion for the arts, consider joining clubs focused on music, theater, dance, or visual arts. These clubs often organize performances, exhibitions, workshops, and social events.
Service and Advocacy Clubs: Clubs dedicated to community service, social justice, or environmental activism provide opportunities to make a positive impact. Get involved in volunteer projects, advocacy campaigns, or fundraising efforts to address important issues.
Recreational and Sports Clubs: Stay active and have fun by joining recreational sports clubs or intramural teams. Whether you enjoy soccer, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, or martial arts, there's likely a club for you to participate in.
Hobby and Special Interest Clubs: Explore your interests outside of academics by joining clubs dedicated to hobbies like photography, gaming, cooking, or outdoor activities. These clubs offer opportunities to meet like-minded peers and pursue shared interests.
Five Easy Steps to Starting a Club in College
Fortunately, college clubs have been a long standing tradition and the process has only become easier over time. Below we’ll outline what steps you can take in order to get your own club up and running:
1. Find an Interest for Your Club
You'll need to decide what you want your club to focus on. Will this club be academically focused, or be around a lifestyle or recreational sport? This is by far the most important step, what you want to avoid doing is starting a club that’s too ambiguous for members to determine if the club applies to them.
Once you have an idea in place, write down a short statement about what you club want’s to achieve, then sketch out a couple goals you’d like to achieve with your club.
2. Start Recruiting and Choose a Platform
Schools usually require a minimum number of interested students before you can officially register your club, so you’ll want to find a group of officers, or students willing to lead with you, and a group of members, or students interested in participating.
Next, you’ll want to setup a profile on a platform like embolt.app so you won’t have to deal with manually managing a tedious spreadsheet of members or sifting through Venmo / PayPal transactions to figure out who your members are.
Clubs like the UNLV Mountain Club for example use embolt to accept members and fund rock climbing trips that are planned multiple times per semester.
3. Find a Staff Advisor
Finding the right staff advisor is very important to your organization. they offer helpful advice and ensure your club is aligned with its original goals and intentions.
This might not seem like a very important step, but it is! Check out our other article which highlights the importance of finding the right advisor:
4. Complete a Registration Form
Many schools have an online form, or at least some sort of form you can turn into the college in-person. These forms will require you to list your officers, your advisor, and potentially your initial members.
It’s important to register with your college so you can gain access to college resources, such as funding, a free website, a mailing address, and rooms and equipment.
5. Kickoff Your First Meeting and Raise Awareness
Once you’ve successfully registered your club with the college, you’re all set to kick off an initial members meeting. We recommend making your meetings open to the public and free to participate initially — while member dues can be an important aspect in funding activities you generally don’t want a high barrier of entry when you’re new.
You can raise awareness about your group through social media and by posting flyers. Make sure to be patient with your growth, it takes time to foster a successful community but the payoff is worth it!
Conclusion
We gave a quick 5-step guide to creating your own college club in 2024. If you like what you read please consider subscribing to our newsletter, and if you end up starting a club give embolt.app a try to make running your club a stress and hassle-free activity.