Immediate Revenue Opportunity for Grand Chapter: Member Authentication Services

Within an earlier post entitled "The Internet Is Official Distribution Like It or Not", I mentioned the primary assets of each level of the Fraternity (local chapter, province, and Grand Chapter):

"The Grand Chapter's primary asset is the ability to certify that an individual is indeed a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. No other entity is able to effectively compete with GC's ability either.

The Grand Board and IHQ (as well as each level of organization) should never forget this. Lose this ability (especially within the courts due to hazing) and you might as well shut the doors and go home.

The primary asset of the provinces is the ability (granted by Grand Chapter and IHQ) to initiate individuals into membership within Kappa Alpha Psi.

The primary asset of chapters is the ability to select individuals for membership to be initiated by a province."

Over night, a new opportunity for potential streams of revenue from the assets listed above came to mind.

The idea is for a service that has been done in the past on a complimentary basis but I have seen evidence that a paid service has been developing for some time. But one irony is that official members have formed a captive audience and market with the willingness to pay for the service. Nothing indicates that the general public would care to pay for the service at this time.

The service is member authentication where the legitimacy of one previously unknown Kappa is verified by Grand Chapter for the benefit of another Kappa or local chapter.

Simply, Brothers and Chapters rightfully so within the modern age of technology and potential liabilities want to know if a Brother is really a Brother regardless of what personal knowledge the individual has of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

My first thought is that Grand Chapter would be the central clearinghouse to obtain such information.

All that would be needed in addition to the willingness to offer the service would be the official membership number, social security number (if this ever was recorded), and the current address (or zip code) of the purported member.

Two immediate benefits to Grand Chapter would be the ability to know where individual Brothers are always living and the resulting ability to maintain communications with them.

The immediate benefit to the inquiring Brother or Chapter is to reduce and eliminate any risks associated with any resources entrusted to the member or shared by the local chapter and/or brother(s).

But upon further contemplation of the concept, it appears that such a service is not restricted to being provided by Grand Chapter alone.

Provinces and local chapters could provide the same service but their speeds of providing the service might face a greater challenge to them.

Since provinces are the primary vehicles of initiating candidates for membership, it seems that they would have the same information during some part of the intake process.

Local chapters could provide the service as well if the chapter's records have been adequately maintained by past and present Keeper of Records.

The cost of a member authentication service would have to be kept low enough that if the cost was passed on the legitimate member, it would not be too prohibitive as compared to the benefits of legitimate membership and/or participation within any local chapter's activities.

A member authentication service could be paid via PayPal or credit card.

A derivative of the member authentication that I referenced earlier within this post is the fact that Grand Chapter now charges a fee to provide a roster of initiates of a particular chapter. This need is primarily for reunion and/or homecoming activities centered around a particular college or university's local chapter.

The possibility (although not confirmed) exists that a fee is also currently charged to local chapters wanting to know the names and addresses of nearby Brothers not affiliated with a local chapter for reclamation purposes.

Member authentication is only a sign of the times as the membership seeks to become more informed and connected through technology in ways previously not witnessed.

With the creation of more members-only websites created by individual Brothers (especially those that are currently vulnerable by having URLs to be only shared within the Bond), security and authentication of individual Brothers will always be a concern.

But even this entire idea could be made obsolete by Grand Chapter creating an official members only website where simply having the ability to log in would certify the Brother's identity. Such a website should include a photo of the Brother at a minimum as well as a record of past chapters affiliated with (and potentially offices and committee chairmanships held with other desirable information).

Since the revenue stream might be too good to resist, I imagine that charging a fee to authenticate members would occur first.

Yours in the Bond!