Monday, November 24, 2014

RI Poised for Membership Growth

“Take the Family of Rotary and Make it Real,” said Gary C. K. Huang, President of Rotary International at a recent Rotary Multi-Zone Institute at Denver, Colorado, according to today's speaker PDG James O. Coleman.

Coleman quoted John Hewko, RI's General Secretary, headquartered in Evanston, Illinois, as saying “We have a very serious problem in North America where we have about 30 percent of Rotary membership, but if the present membership decline trend continues, we will be down to 15 percent.” The Institute focused heavily on membership and how Rotary International must change how it conducts the business of recruiting and retaining members.  Hewko said, “We need to grow and we need to change.”

The organization founded in 1905 at Chicago, Illinois, is known for its efforts of humanitarian service throughout the world applying its motto of “Service Above Self” among its 1.2 million members in over 34,000 Districts (geographic regions).  Its flagship project which has been underway since the mid 1980’s is the Eradication of Polio from the earth. To date, only three countries in the world (Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan) are not certified “polio free” primarily due to civil unrest and political resistance.

Many other varied projects are funded by Rotary contributions, including hunger, water, health, sanitation, hygiene, nutrition, wheel chairs, and eye sight, to name a few.  Besides some of its local community projects like trail markers, benches, dictionaries to all third graders in the Washington County elementary schools, funds to the Sterling Scholar Program, the annual Four-way Test Essay Contest among area sixth graders, and cooperative activities with various agencies, the St. George Rotary Club also has an international project to provide and install cooking stoves for Mayan villages in the mountains of Guatemala. Other local clubs of Rotary International do similar projects.

Coleman said, “Membership matters Rotary will be modifying in order to promote its continued growth and prominent humanitarian work and grants from its Foundation will include allowing clubs to alter such things as types of meetings and attendance requirements, payment of dues, types of membership and expectations of members.”  Members must be able to feel the personal and professional growth which comes from membership and service opportunities as well as enjoy the social aspects of belongs to such a prestigious and wholesome organization. 

Huang said, “We must raise the image of Rotary.”  He further said, “People must know who we are and what we do.”

In addressing Rotary’s serious membership concern, Hewko said, “While diversity is important in general, two main areas of focus needs to be with the recently retired and young professionals.” Coleman told SGR, “In these days in our society, we must consider such factors as money, time and energy, as we look for new members and work to retain them.  Coleman said, “Young professionals may be reluctant to affiliate with organizations.  It has been cited Gen X, Y, and Millenials are distrusting of institutions, but they volunteer and give service.”  Coleman also said, “One powerful statement from John Hewko, was that ‘We need to change our focus from perfect attendance to perfect engagement.’ He also said, ‘Do what works, even if it means forgetting the rules.’”

Coleman said, “In order to make the change necessary to be relevant in today’s society, we must use social media to retain and recruit, especially young professionals.

Coleman joined Rotary in 1981 in Logan, Utah as a young real estate broker looking for a service organization to enhance the start of his business. He was impressed by Rotary's 4-Way Test on a plaque on the wall in a Logan savings and loan manager's office.  Coleman said, “I have learned Rotary is not a service organization, it is a membership organization which does service.”

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