When the B+ Foundation was first brought to Villanova in 2013, it was by two greek life members, a Sigma Nu and a Delta Delta Delta. Since then, 12 greek life chapters on campus have been paired with B+ Heroes and greek life has positively impacted the fundraising efforts each year since.
This year, the greek life co-chairs consist of sophomore Angelina Membiela, juniors Olivia Farrell and Bridget Dougherty and senior Milly Greenan. They work under and with the recruitment director, Alex Sperling.
“The greek life team works directly with the greek-life team captains (TCs) to plan and execute all fundraising campaigns throughout the year,” Farrell said. “We start off each school year by selecting the TCs for each chapter that are expected to attend biweekly meetings and essentially be their advocates for NOVAdance within their own chapters.”
Each year, the members of greek life go on stage to fundraise extra money through their chapters during Power Hour.
“Power hour this year is going to involve a family feud game with the [greek chapter] presidents,” Farrell said. “We selected different family feud questions and had the rest of NOVAdance committee answer the survey questions. All the presidents that are able to attend will be on stage to answer the questions, and the chapters will be split evenly into two teams.”
Throughout the year, NOVAdance leans into their strong connection with greek chapters for their fundraising efforts. From their team specific fundraising initiatives like Reps Race to 8, where chapters and organizations came together to table and fundraise under their teams, to the competitive nature of highlighting which greek organizations have fundraised the most amounts throughout the year.
“We definitely have some chapters that have consistently done extremely well with fundraising throughout the years such as Pi Kappa Phi and Kappa Delta,” Farrell said. “However, this year we have not only seen these chapters continue to succeed but multiple other chapters have tremendously improved, for example this year Phi Sigma Kappa already exceeded their fundraising goal for the year by over $15,000.”
A large part of the greek life success is the new member initiative. Each spring semester, NOVAdance brings Joe McDonough, founder of the B+ Foundation, to campus to speak to new greek life members, and to spread awareness about the organization and the story of the foundation’s namesake, his son, Andrew McDonough, who fought a 167 day battle to AML Leukemia in 2007.
“The new member campaign this year was an incredible success,” Farrell said. “Bringing in a total of $58,177 within a week from greek life alone. We definitely cannot reach our $800,000 [goal] without greek life putting in their work.”
This year, each greek life co-chair works specifically with four-to-five chapters from both the Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic sororities, and their TCs.
The TCs for these organizations chose their chapter’s fundraising goals, and the greek life chairs help assist them in reaching that number.
“I realized how much the TCs and Hero Liaisons (HLs) really do for their chapters’ fundraising efforts,” Farrell said. “Having a strong set of TCs can really make or break your fundraising goals, and this year our TCs have exceeded expectations. Working with them has been my favorite part of my job as greek life co-chair.”
At the end of the Day Of, the senior members of committee will gather on stage and reveal the final fundraising total for the 2026 NOVAdance. Without the work of the members of greek life and the greek life co-chairs, the total would be vastly different.
