Membership Recruiting
Posted by Charlie Wasser
on Jul 04, 2015
The importance to a Rotary club to continue to grow its membership cannot be stated strongly enough. A club will develop a culture over time. With growth, there probably will be some change in the culture. However, as the new members join, any changes that might happen will be a slow evolutionary movement. Then again, since most social groups grow by attracting like minded new members, there may not be any discernible change. The point is that all members of a Rotary club should embrace growth and participate in recruiting.With new members, current projects can be expanded and new ideas from the cross fertilization of ideas from newer members may bring about new ways to serve the community. In the case of San Jose East/Evergreen Rotary, there are several community projects underway. The current goal is to find more members to keep the projects growing and continue to implement them.
There are two areas of focus for a recruiting effort in a Rotary club. The first is to continue to attract members of all demographic considerations. The other is to hone in on what attracts younger members. The underlying technique is best to showcase the value of membership and let the values attract new members.
A way to make the community aware of a Rotary club is for its members to participate in community events. An example could be to have a booth at a street festival or to volunteer in some obvious way (e.g. signs indicating the Rotary club members are running a water or soda booth with proceeds going to the nonprofit that organized the event).
To be seen more often and regularly, individual Rotarians should continually join community organizations and
infrastructure – Chamber of Commerce, downtown business association, run for city council and other city positions.Get as much PR as is available. There are a lot of venues with which to get free exposure. TV cable companies like Comcast have to offer community organizations free airtime. The cable companies, TV stations and radio stations donate free airtime for public service announcements (PSA’s). Rotary International can supply premade PSA’s or ones that are modifiable to the local club’s requirements. Print media is struggling to find original material. The various newspapers and magazines will print human interest stories (aka Rotary projects and scholarships).
Membership topics should be discussed at just about every meeting. Information and ideas from RI can be the topic. As new members join, they could be called upon to discuss what it was that attracted them to join.
Every club member should subscribe “for free” to the Membership Minute newsletter. There are Rotary stories and the latest membership development ideas, strategies, and resources.
To hone in on what attracts younger members, it needs to be remembered that there is a strong presence in the area of things “techie.” The club needs to have a strong online presence which includes but not limited to a newsletter, a website, and a Facebook page. These need to be kept up to date which is best done when more than one person does it week after week.
The alumni associations of local universities and community colleges should be approached. They usually put out newsletters and such. The Rotary club may be able to get “free” or inexpensive ad space. Since some alumni live in the areas near their alma mater, they could be attracted to the Rotary club by projects done by the Rotary club as described in the alumni news. The idea is that the alumni group would want to keep the school and its environs fresh in the alumni’s minds.
There are many young adults that have benefited from different types of scholarships and grants. There should be an attempt to locate the names of those people in the club’s geographic area. The alumni originally got their grants by showcasing their understanding of Rotary’s principles. They might want to continue working with Rotary to expand their passions.
Another venue is to work with community outreach departments of local corporations. There is a current trend to have employees do volunteer work in the community. That is one step away from Rotary membership. The membership could be the result of giving the corporations a recognized venue such as Rotary with which to do the community give back work.
Next week there will be a description of my suggestions of specific initiatives to be performed by San Jose East/Evergreen Rotary.