As students go into college and begin their four years on a campus, there is lots to get involved in. Greek Life is very big on some campuses and lots of students take part in fraternities and sororities, building friendships that last a lifetime. In sororities, people join for sisterhood, leadership opportunities, and to get involved in their community. To give back to the community, sororities choose a philanthropy they care about and raise funds for.  Every sorority holds events and gets involved in different service projects to support their philanthropy (“Philanthropy and Service Activities Sorority Women Participate In”). For example, Alpha Delta Pi partners with the Ronald McDonald House for their philanthropy. They collect pop tabs that RMH trades in for money, raise money through different fundraising events like Pi Runs and Pie a Pi, and work with their local RMH centers to get involved directly with the Houses (Spencer). 

In his article “The Rhetorical Situation”, Lloyd F. Bitzer describes a rhetorical situation and the pieces that make this situation complete to persuade a reader. He describes the three constituents of a rhetorical situation, the exigence, the audience, and the constraints. These play a role in the argument that the author makes and how effective said argument is. Bitzer writes that the exigence is “an imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be” (6). The exigence is what prompts rhetoric and helps readers understand the purpose for the rhetoric. An author uses the exigence as motivation to respond and argue their rhetoric, persuading the audience in a specific situation. Bitzer continues to write about the audience aspect, explaining that “since rhetorical discourse produces change by influencing the decision and action of persons who function as mediators of change, it follows that rhetoric always requires an audience” (7). An audience is required for the rhetorical situation to have meaning. The whole point of a rhetorical situation is to make some change, which requires people to be the mediators of change. Each rhetorical situation is directed at atleast one audience if not multiple. The third and final constituents of a rhetorical situation are constraints, which Bitzer describes are “parts of the situation because they  have the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence” (8). Constraints limit the way that the rhetoric is delivered to the audience. These limitations can relate to knowledge, culture, beliefs, facts, attitudes, etc. and can cause the audience to not be mediators of change. The strength of these constraints can easily make an argument ineffective and result in a failed rhetorical situation.  The exigence, audience, and constraints work together in a rhetorical situation to tell whether or not the author’s argument is effective. 

Relating the Bitzer’s idea back to sororities and their philanthropy, ADPI’s philanthropy statements can be seen as a source rhetoric, meaning it comes from a rhetorical situation. ADPi has partnered with Ronald McDonald House Charities since 1979, donating money and spending time and energy volunteering at these Houses. This philanthropy has a lot of meaning to those in ADPi and whoever wrote it on the website had a strong purpose in wanting to show the meaning and importance of RMH to those who want to know about the sorority. ADPi has successfully helped support RMH through their philanthropy and their statements prove that they are dedicated to the cause of these sick children and their families.

The exigence for the ADPi philanthropy is that there are children who are very sick and have to travel far from home for medical care which can get very expensive. It is common for them to be separated from their families to try and keep these costs down, which makes life even harder than being sick. These children and families need to be nurtured and supported, so the Ronald McDonald House works to support access to care, reduce costs, provide psychosocial support keeping families together, enhance clinical experience and outcome, and keep normalcy within families (Rubin and Franck). Philanthropy is doing charitable acts to promote the welfare of others, often through monetary donations, so ADPi is in charge of collecting money (and pop tabs) to support the Ronald McDonald House. RMH needs any support and help they can get to try and get to the point that no children are separated from their families and get the health care they need during these hard times. ADPi takes this philanthropy very seriously and has worked closely with RMH since 1979. RMH is able to directly apply for grants from ADPi that supports “houses that do not have an ADPi chapter or alumnae association nearby supporting them, new houses being built, existing houses being renovated, and family rooms that are being expanded and renovated” (“Remember ADPi”). 

The exigence also is to encourage members to want to volunteer and get involved with the Ronald McDonald House. ADPi members are not “required” to do anything they don’t want to do, so a big part of this information being on the website is to show members how important RMH is to ADPi. These statements are encouraging and push members to make a difference since it is the philanthropy that ADPi holds close to their heart. Members can see these statements and be influenced to want to take part in the volunteering and other fundraising that helps RMH. Since members aren’t required to really be super involved or connected to philanthropy, showing the meaning behind it and the accomplishments ADPi has made will keep members wanting to be involved and giving their all to the philanthropy.

The audience of these philanthropy statements are the members of ADPi who get involved with the Ronald McDonald House organization. Understanding this philanthropy and becoming familiar with the purpose of it is super important with being a part of the sorority. People interested in joining the sorority that want to know more about the philanthropy aspect of the organization can also find this rhetorical text interesting and important. All Greek organizations focus on a philanthropy, so having information about it on their website for people to research and get information from is crucial. Anyone can reach the website, but this information is likely in its place for current members, alumni, or people interested in ADPi.  The website also points out the accomplishments of ADPi in fundraising for RMH, such as the contribution of $1,002,237 to RMHC across the United States and Canada during the 2019-2020 school year (“Remember ADPi”). Allowing people to see the dedication and amounts that their events are able to raise will make them want to be a part of such a great sisterhood that truly cares about their philanthropy. People interested in RMH can also find useful information on the website and in these philanthropy statements, as it includes different ways that people are able to help and volunteer with the organization. While the audience isn’t a huge group of people, the people who would be interested in this can find out a lot about the importance of philanthropy for ADPi. 

Constraints restrict the influence of a rhetorical text on the audience. Some constraints for the ADPi philanthropy statements are that some people don’t know about the importance of Ronald McDonald House organization to ADPi, this information is located on a smaller tab of the APDi website that can be harder to find, a lot of outsiders to ADPi wouldn’t be super interested in this, etc.. A big part of it being on a website is that they can’t put too much information or people won’t read it, so it has to be kept concise with the most important and interesting information. Since the audience is smaller, it doesn’t reach as many people and it may make a smaller influence than the author intends for it to make. Only those interested in ADPi or RMH would be interested in looking at this information and the different statistics listed on the website, so this is a big constraint in having people truly be influenced by the statements. The tab for philanthropy on the ADPi website is also hidden, so even some people interested in ADPi may not be able to find this information and be influenced by it. The details in these statements are also limited to keep readers from being bored or kept from reading it, so some people that may want more information have to look elsewhere. There is lots of information on the website about philanthropy, but it is difficult to find unless that is exactly what you are looking to reader about. Those who are discovering the website and not really sure what they are looking at may not be as influenced by the philanthropy statements since they are more hidden. These constraints, however, do not take too much away from the philanthropy statements because they are so strong and so well supported. 

These statements are definitely effective in showing the dedication that ADPi has to RMHC. An article on the ADPI Website explains the different supports, which includes “financial support through the efforts of our philanthropy events hosted by chapters and alumnae associations, volunteer support by having our women host craft nights or dinners for the families staying in the home, and in-kind support by giving items on local wish lists” (“What an Impact: Philanthropy by the Numbers for 2016-2017”). ADPi sticks to their philanthropy statements through all the ways they find to support RMH and their mission to help keep families together.