More than a century ago, Rotary International pioneered a new model of service leadership grounded in person-to-person connections. Today, those connections are a network that spans the globe—bridging cultural, linguistic, generational, and geographic barriers—and shares the vision of a better world. As People of Action, we understand that fulfilling our vision requires a plan.
This is Rotary’s Action Plan through 2024: to increase our impact, expand our reach, enhance participant engagement, and increase our ability to adapt.
This week we will explore Priority #1 - Increase our Impact. We spent time last year as a club to determine our key club impact areas. We closely align with RI.
We know People of Action are effective problem-solvers. Why do Rotarians achieve so much? We invest in relationships. We make decisions grounded in evidence. We know how to mobilize our networks to create solutions that last. And we’re always learning from our experiences in projects, clubs, and careers.
What does “Increase Our Impact” mean?
We all want Rotary to have an enduring global legacy: one of lasting change in communities and lives changed for the better around the globe. But unlike many contemporary organizations engaged in humanitarian service, we haven’t yet fully embraced a data-driven culture, nor have we adopted a consistent approach to measuring impact.
This priority focuses on building the practices, infrastructure, and capacity needed to define, measure, track, and analyze data from our service projects in a much more effective way. It also means making sure we’re focusing our efforts, attention, and resources in the most meaningful ways.
Why are we doing this?
We know that current and potential partners, younger Rotarians, participants, and, increasingly, donors want to see clear, tangible proof of impact. Fortunately, many of us have experience in our professional lives measuring impact against specific objectives. We can also draw from our data-driven experiences fighting polio to create metrics that can be applied in pursuit of our other goals: promoting peace; fighting disease; providing clean water, sanitation, and hygiene; saving mothers and children; supporting education; protecting the environment; growing local economies; and so much more.
What does this mean for Rotary International?
Over the next several years, Rotary will invest in:
• Continuing our effort to eradicate polio and using lessons learned in this effort to shape approaches to measurement and evaluation in our other areas of focus
• Continuing our effort to eradicate polio and using lessons learned in this effort to shape approaches to measurement and evaluation in our other areas of focus
• Evaluating our programs and offerings to ensure we are directing our efforts toward those that have the most impact
• Identifying expertise and a methodology for measurement that is appropriate for Rotary, along with tools and frameworks needed for evaluating our project work
What does this mean for me? How can I take action?
Our club, can significantly increase impact given the greater sense of focus we have generated by our club chosen impact areas. We will continue to collect more information on community needs and conducting pre- and post-activity evaluations. This will give us a better sense of where and how we can increase measurable, lasting change that will be meaningful to the community we serve.
These facts and details will also allow us to tell compelling stories of how our club helped make a difference. Sharing our stories can help us attract like-minded leaders to our club, form new partnerships, and build a stronger and more diverse network of people to collaborate with on bigger projects.
What will be our club’s legacy?
The answer starts with defining and measuring the impact we have on our community. We choose projects that offer the most value to our community and to improve those projects to have more impact over time.
Together, we can seek out new ways to translate our expertise into making a difference — in our community and across the globe. Let’s prove that our impact on the world has only just begun.