PP Shankar Duraiswami from the Rotary Club of Melawati drew my attention to the following article and I want to share it with all of you. Read on.......
Annually, More Than 157,000
Rotarians Have Been Walking Out Clubs’ Doors Taking With Them Over
US$7,500,000
Of Rotary International's Dues Revenue.
“On 30 June 2003, we had approximately 1.2 million members in 31,551 clubs. As of 30 June 2010, we had approximately 1.2 million members in 34,103 clubs. Since 2003, we have added 2,552 Rotary clubs yet only increased our overall membership by 226 members. Shocking? Even more disturbing is that in this seven-year period, we inducted into our Rotary clubs more than 157,000 Rotarians walked out of Rotary clubs’ doors during each one of those seven years, reducing Rotary1.1 million members.”
- Director John Smarge’s address to the 2011 International Assembly.
What’s even more mind-boggling is that an average of International’s annual dues income by more than us$7,500,000, or 12.5%. We can only hope that RI’s Board of Directors had not been made aware of the magnitude of these osses.
We can only wonder about the full life value of an additional 1.1 million Rotarians advancing the Object of Rotary. We can only wonder about the lost full life value of
1.1 million entrepreneurial brains sharing ideas, which would have given birth to countless other ideas. We can only wonder about how much the full life value our worldwide network of business, professional, and community leaders could have contributed to 1.1 million families and personal networks. We can only wonder about the lost full life value of 1.1 million sets of hands and feet participating in a wide variety of projects. We can only wonder of the full life value to local societies if each of those 1.1 million were in contact with fifty to one hundred others from different walks of life. And, of course, we can only wonder of the lost full life value to The Rotary Foundation, to district coffers, and to local club treasuries and foundations.
But why did this human and monetary capital walk out? Clubs will always lose members
for reasons they cannot control, such as death, health, and relocation. Assume this uncontrollable loss to be 7% annually. Is anything being done to keep the remaining 146,000 Rotarians from walking out with over US$7 million in dues every year?
engage an agency to assist RI with brand revitalization. It allocated US$975,000 over the next two years to implement the process, and directed US$600,000 of that amount to be included in the 2011–12 budget. This is a major, refreshing step, because for years assisting member clubs with their #1 priority, membership, has not been RI’s #1 priority. Though it does seem a bit strange that serving its customers’ needs would not have always been Rotary International’s number one priority (see previous Strategic Plans.)
In most businesses, a 12.5% annual customer and monetary loss would trigger prompt and substantial evaluations of the organization’s four Ps (priorities, policies, procedures,
practices), starting with the means of reporting gains and losses. After all, if the Board of
Directors had been made aware of the magnitude of these losses several years ago, I suspect a cause and effect analysis would have taken place long before now. All clubs send membership gains and losses to RI. All clubs send semi-annual reports to RI. These reports include paid membership information. It seems that regardless of how complicated it would be to compile the information, the secretariat could, semi-annually, report to the Board the real number of Rotarians that walked out by zone, district, and club. Had this information been available seven or more years ago, and priorities and recognitions placed on retaining and recruiting members, perhaps the brains of 1.2 million business, professional, and community leaders working together would have made our condition today substantially different.
There’s no question that clubs and individual Rotarians are responsible for membership. But just talking about it does not help. How much importance have Rotary leaders placed on retaining members until this Rotary year? How much emphasis are zone and district leaders, even this year, placing on retaining members through recognitions and awards based on accurate numbers? What priorities are being placed on supporting clubs
in helping them discover and practice Rotary fundamentals through GETS, PETS, and other training programs?
Rotary is in the people business. The only measure of an effective club, regardless of how many projects and programs each have in place, is their ability to retain and attract members.1 It seems only logical that an association serving such a diverse group of clubs would have an objective data base from which to gauge overall branding, public information, and training efforts, and a monetary base of reference to measure return on investment potential.
It will take years to adjust practices of 34,000 clubs with over 1.2 million Rotarians. It seems that RI could put a priority on data consolidation and reporting that would supply beneficial information to RI’s Board of Directors, zones, districts, and clubs. After all, if
only ten percent more Rotarians would continue walking into club meetings, overall membership would return to the growth stage, more Rotarians would be advancing the Object of Rotary, RI revenues would increase about US$700,000 a year, district and club revenues would increase, and the Rotary Foundation would receive more contributions. Doesn’t that make an investment in time, data processing, and meaningful reports worth considering?
Can we improve retention by up to ten percent?
Together We Can!
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