A Five Step Membership Development Plan for Rotary Clubs

Step 1: Assessing your Club

Evaluation of Club Meetings Concepts and Structure

Complete a SWOT analysis

• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats

Prepare a Strategic Plan to address the issues arising from the SWOT analysis.

Complete a Demographic Profile

Take a look at the make up of your Club’s membership and consider the following questions: Are you recruiting younger members? Compare your Club with the ANZO region:
Members under 30 years old    1%
Members 30 – 39 years old    10%
Members 40 – 49 years old    35%
Members 50 – 59 years old    29%
Members 60 – 69 years old    17%
Members over 70 years old    8%

Are you tapping into that enormous untapped pool of women members? Some Clubs now have a women membership in excess of 15%. Think about the effect of increasing your Club’s membership by 15%.

Chart your Club's membership loss and gain over the past three years. How many members left the Club for reasons other than death, relocation or a serious health problem? Why did they leave?

Introduce an Exit Contact Programme whereby the Club President talks with the exiting member, and records the reason for him/her leaving.

Compile a Classification Survey

• What are we missing?
• Is your Club membership inclusive?
• Does it have a balanced membership?

Use this exercise as a useful “trigger” for prompting approaches to potential new members, e.g. “We don’t have a dentist – I know one who would be great member!”

Remember “Past Service” (the 1995 Council on Legislation has opened this membership category to retired people who were not previously Rotarians).

Step 2: Assessing your Club’s Programme

There are two ways to ensure a healthy membership level for your Club – retaining current members and attracting new members.

What are we doing to retain existing members? Is your programme properly balanced with active fellowship and service?

Fellowship is a key element of Rotary. While some of your more senior members may be contented with the exclusive group they share every week, and the same social event that is churned out every year, your younger members will be looking for interaction, and the opportunity to involve their partners with the Club. Try rotating seating arrangements to break up those “exclusive cliques”. Have one or two greeters stand at the door welcoming everyone to the meeting. Rotate this position weekly so that all have a chance to “meet and greet”.

Evaluate your service projects in terms of interest. Perhaps its time to replace or augment some traditional projects with something that will appeal more to newer, and younger, members. Appoint some recent recruits to explore community needs and propose new project ideas.

Research has shown that many younger members drop out because they feel an incompatibility and lack of fellowship because of age differences. Consider simultaneously recruiting several new Rotarians in the same age group.

Provided Club members feel needed, retention of members will be less of an issue. Also overlooked in the ‘feel needed’ category are our retired members who are absolutely essential to the Club Service Committee management area in particular. They need to have a feeling of involvement, and a sense that they are critical to their Rotary Club. Never make the mistake of thinking you are doing a Rotarian a favour by giving him or her nothing to do!

What are you offering prospective members?

• Are you undertaking projects and activities that will both interest and challenge the Rotarians you are seeking?
• Is your Rotary Club seen as a prestigious and interesting organisation? Consider putting together a professionally produced information prospective about your Club, its activities, membership, significant achievements, and it’s plans. Include a sample of recent speakers, and perhaps short profiles of prominent members.

If you want to attract leaders and professionals, then it is important that your Club projects that same image.

Are you providing an opportunity for progression from Rotaract to Rotary in your area? Actively encourage this through formalized regular contact between Rotaract President and Rotary President. Have you considered inviting the local Rotaract President to join your Board?

Step 3: Going about Recruitment

Five reasons why not to look for new members!
1.    I don’t have time!
2.    I love eating alone!
3.    We’re so great our Club sells itself!
4.    I like spending my time with other “over 50” males!
5.    It’s not my job!

The mechanics of it - Some thoughts on how to tap the pool of prospective members.

• Host and organise a business community Charity Luncheon or Dinner, with the dual purpose of raising funds for a local or national charity, and raising awareness of your Club for recruitment purposes. (An added plus could be the facilitating of networking opportunities amongst your local community interests). Extend, from the Club President, personalized invitations to business heads/senior management in your catchment area to attend (they pay of course). Ensure that you have a significant speaker (mayor, cabinet minister, sports personality, etc) to attract attendance. Organise sponsorship to boost income. Network guests with existing Club members (be careful in your pairing!) with a view to attracting them to Rotary.
• Ask each new member of your Club to write out a name, profession, and telephone number of a likely prospect. First “vet” the prospect, and then have the Club President make initial contact by (perhaps) inviting him/her along to a meeting as a Club guest.

Keeping Track of Names

It is critical that each Club has a designated Membership Development Director, Chair or Coordinator. It is suggested that he/she should report direct to the Club President. It is helpful to have the incumbent on the board.
How often are names mentioned in passing, in conversations, but no follow up action taken?

The Membership Development Coordinator should record the details of any prospective member when mentioned from whatever source, including:

• Name
• Occupation and position
• Possible Classification
• Contact details
• Proposer
• Subsequent action taken by the Club

The list serves both as a prompt to the President in monitoring progress to the stage that formal membership vetting has been completed, and an approach has been made to the prospective member, as well as an action schedule progressing the process through to induction.

Step 4: Managing the Recruitment to Induction process

Evaluate the efficiency of the processing of membership proposals.

The vetting and approval process for nominations

Ensure that the Board within a maximum of 30 days (to ensure that the proposal meets all of the classification and membership requirements) processes any nomination. This is a function of your Membership Development Coordinator (MDC).

This process should not, under any circumstance, extend beyond 6 weeks. The process can, in fact, be accomplished with ease within one month. It is the responsibility of the MDC to drive the process. Don’t let it meander along!

The invitation process

It is suggested that the invitation process (referred to above) be undertaken by a Club member who is well known and respected in the community, appointed to the role for the year (perhaps as a member of the membership development committee).

The induction ceremony

Prepare well for the induction ceremony. The MDC should maintain a checklist to ensure all arrangements are in hand for the ceremony.

The ceremony itself should be relaxed formality, one that will show new members just how important they are to the Club. Use a prepared script – but try to memorize it.

Step 5: The Aftercare Process

Worldwide Rotary loses an estimated 10 percent of its members each year. Some of this loss is due to natural attrition (death, transfer, health problems, etc). But most Rotarians leave because they have lost interest – or worse still, the Club has lost interest in them. If your Club is steadily losing members, now is the time to take steps to reverse that trend.

The Information and Orientation Programme

Begin at the beginning. Start your retention efforts the minute that a member is invited to join, by providing him/her with a structured orientation programme.

Establish a New Member Mentor Framework by linking an experienced Rotarian with the new member. Have the mentor accompany the new member to his/her first Club make up.
Plan an information programme on Rotary and your Club. Give new members the excellent RI publication Getting Started in Rotary as a part if their induction pack.

Involve

Identify the skills, talents and interests of each of your Club members. Match their involvement with those skills, talents and interests. Ask new members how they would like to be involved in the Club. Don’t let the behaviour of members who are cynical about the Club influence new members. Solicit their input, and listen to what they have to say.

Get new members involved, but also keep track of their comfort level in this area.
Involve new members in greeting/cash desk duties, which will give them an opportunity to meet everyone in the Club.

Make your Club meeting an event

Consider the interests of both the newer and the older members of the Club equally. The older member may want things to remain unchanged, while the newer member may expect variety and excitement. Plan your meetings to accommodate both.

Focus on quality. Nothing works as well as high quality to achieve member satisfaction. When members say they are not attending because they are bored and because nothing new happens, they are talking about quality.

Make fellowship a component of everything you do.

Keep track of Rotarians on the move

If a member of your Club relocates, make sure that he/she is not lost to Rotary. Give the member leave of absence for up to 12 months to enable him/her to make-up at Clubs in the new community with ease. Your Club secretary can send the Notification of a Rotarian Moving to your Locality slip (available in the Club Secretary’s Manual) to inform these Clubs that a potentially valuable member has moved to their territory.