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How do I start a MEDLIFE chapter at my school?
We are very excited that you are interested in starting a new MEDLIFE campus chapter! You may have heard about our organization through a number of different means, including friends, emails from academic departments, or direct contact from a MEDLIFE Expansion Leader. No matter how you learned of us, this document will provide a blueprint for starting a campus chapter at your school.
MEDLIFE student chapters are the heart of our organization. They provide the nexus for our medical missions, fundraising, and community outreach, and students interested in greater leadership responsibilities within MEDLIFE can show their commitment and professionalism through taking an active role in their campus chapter. Here we provide a general guide to the first few months of starting a MEDLIFE chapter at your school. Much more specific information is available elsewhere on our website, www.medlifeweb.org. If you have difficulties completing any of these steps, or features unique to your institution make this procedure ill-advised for your school, contact your MEDLIFE Expansion Leader for recommendations on how to proceed. If you have discovered MEDLIFE without first being contacted by an Expansion Leader, initiating this contact will be the first step in your journey to starting a MEDLIFE chapter at your school!

1. If you have not learned of MEDLIFE through one of our Expansion Leaders, email our staff at startinganewchapter@medlifeweb.org indicating your interest in starting a MEDLIFE chapter. We will do our best to answer any preliminary questions you may have, and will introduce you to your MEDLIFE Expansion Leader. This person is a student like yourself, who through work at their campus chapter displayed unusual commitment and passion for our work. They have years of experience working with MEDLIFE, and have been trained to answer any questions you may have about starting a new campus chapter. They can also offer advice on any difficulties you may experience. They are your BEST RESOURCE for any and all questions MEDLIFE for which answers cannot be found on our website, and they will also be checking in with you periodically on how your chapter is progressing toward fundraising and mission preparation goals. You will get to know this person very well!
2. Utilize the resources available on the website to begin familiarizing yourself with our organization, our philosophy, and some of our success stories.
3. At most schools, starting a new MEDLIFE chapter should not be a solo process! Starting a new campus organization can seem like a daunting task, and it is often easier if one engages a few fellow students to ease the obligations on a single person and to provide mutual accountability. As such, when starting a MEDLIFE chapter we recommend you begin by identifying at least one other person who can become excited about starting the new group and assist you in this process.
4. Depending on your school, pursuing official recognition as a campus group may or may not be an important early step. The majority of MEDLIFE chapters have been able to successfully engage students, recruit providers, fundraise, and plan successful medical missions without institutional recognition. If this is not the case at your school, contact your Expansion Leader to discuss how best to proceed.
5. Once you are comfortable with the goals of MEDLIFE, have identified a core group of campus leaders, and have had any remaining questions answered by your Expansion Leader, the next step is to hold a well-publicized meeting for students at your school interested in participating in a medical mission or in MEDLIFE as an organization. When well-publicized, these initial meetings may have a huge turnout! Fliers, posters, campus emails, asking professors to tell their classes, and word-of-mouth can all be used effectively to garner as much interest as you can. We have found that many students are excited about the possibility of getting involved in a new campus group, traveling on a medical mission, and taking an active role in global health work. If possible, this meeting should be attended by a MEDLIFE Director or Expansion Leader. If this is not feasible however, heightened communication with your Expansion Leader will be extremely useful in getting students excited about MEDLIFE. A MEDLIFE leader may be able to attend via webcam if we cannot get someone to your campus in person.
   • This meeting will introduce:
     • MEDLIFE as an organization
     • Goals, functions, and obligations of members and the new campus group. As indicated elsewhere, every student member of MEDLIFE has certain obligations to the organization, and in turn students can expect certain things from MEDLIFE. These must be made clear at the first meeting.
     • Introducing your first medical mission, including preliminary brainstorming for fundraising, recruiting providers, and available dates. As considered elsewhere, each student chapter is responsible for a certain level of fundraising and also to find providers for the mission.
     •  Scheduled meetings for the term should also be planned at this time. We recommend that new chapters meet at least once every 2 weeks, preferably on the same day and time, so everyone feels accountable and fully involved in the group. Since many people interested in our work share similar interests, you may find a lot of new (or old) friends at MEDLIFE meetings!
     • Beginning to identify future leaders within the student ranks. Running a MEDLIFE chapter can be quite time-consuming if only a few people are heavily involved, and MEDLIFE is always eager to give students responsibility and opportunities to help the poor. You should begin identifying students who want to plan fundraisers, students who can recruit providers, and students who can organize mission preparations. In a moment, we will discuss formal positions available for students interested in greater responsibility.
     • If this all seems intimidating, don’t worry! Your Expansion Leader will make sure you have all the information you need to run this first meeting in a confident and efficient manner.
6. After your first (hopefully very successful!) MEDLIFE group meeting, you will be asked to provide your Expansion Leader with brief minutes of the meeting and a list of interested students so email contact can be made. All students should be strongly encouraged to register on the MEDLIFE website and begin to familiarize themselves with our work. All required forms and applications are submitted electronically on the website, so all students interested in participating in a mission will be required to register. Also, please let your Expansion Leader know of scheduled meeting times so they know to be available for extra consultation at these times.
7. After this first meeting, excitement among students should be running high. Students interested in taking on a leadership position will find applications for student Director Positions (Director of Fundraising, Director of Provider Recruitment, Director of Mission Preparations) available on the MEDLIFE website. For new student groups, leadership positions are filled by an application process overseen by MEDLIFE leaders. This process takes into consideration both the application and feedback from the Chapter President. These four roles, Chapter President and the three Directorships, are the only required positions for every new MEDLIFE chapter. If your school has a larger number of students with genuine interest in pursuing greater leadership responsibilities within the MEDLIFE organization, contact your Expansion Leader for more opportunities. After the first year, chapter positions will be filled by a democratic vote. *Note: if you find there is conflict among the (hopefully) several people integrally involved in starting a MEDLIFE chapter at your school in terms of titles or responsibilities, contact your Expansion Leader immediately. There are a number of ways we can help you peacefully resolve this issue, including the sharing of titles, and discord over terms should never get in the way of our helping the poor.
8. Once the leadership of your chapter is established, you will want to set up weekly leadership meetings (these may not be necessary in the weeks of overall group meetings). In these meetings you will discuss how the chapter is progressing toward your goals, and what needs to be done by each branch of your chapter in the following week.
9. At this time, you also need to be giving serious thought to when you want to plan your medical mission. Your Expansion Leader will provide you with recommendations on how much time to allot for the preparations, as well as any unavailable dates. Generally speaking, it is difficult to start a new MEDLIFE chapter and plan a medical mission in less than 6 months. Once you have decided with your Expansion Leader on a time for the mission, work backwards using the pre-mission timeline (found on the MEDLIFE website) to determine the appropriate deadlines for your chapter.

NOTE: If you are unable to muster sufficient student interest to fulfill the MEDLIFE requirements of students for the mission, providers, or fundraising, this does not necessarily mean you will be unable to take part in a mission. While we encourage all our chapters to be self-sufficient units, it has occasionally been necessary to combine missions from two schools into a single trip. This is logistically difficult for the MEDLIFE staff, but we do not want your work to be in vain if student obligations make a mission untenable for your school alone. It will be extremely important that you notify your Expansion Leader as soon as it appears you may not be able to meet one of the requirements, NOT just when the relevant deadlines pass! The less time you give us to coordinate missions from two schools, the less likely we will be able to combine your team with another group.

Finally, contact your Expansion Leader if you have difficulties in any of these steps. We pride ourselves on being a focused, efficient organization such that the majority of our time is spent working to help the poor. If bureaucratic issues are forcing you to spend more time in meetings than engaging in mission prep or fundraising, contact your Expansion Leader so we can help ease this process.