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I have been struggling all week with what to write here and what to say. Is there anything that I can say that will add to the conversation? The truth is that Kathleen Saltmarsh-Voss had this bulletin ready to go Tuesday night but for my sole contribution (i.e. this column). June is Fellowship Month in Rotary, a time when we reflect on how we use our Fellowships and our fellowship to spread the message of Service Above Self.
In the end, all I have to offer is that we are not yet where we need to be to make the face of Rotary reflective of the welcome we feel in our hearts for others who also have the heart for service. And I know that we want to extend that welcome. I know that we take great pride in being a club that invites all across the political spectrum and that welcomes all from different religions or no religion and that calls "Rotarian" everyone around the world, no matter where they are born, who want to be of service to humanity.
But we're really not there yet. We have almost 140 members in our club. If we were reflective of the potential in our community we might expect that:
* About 11 of us would have been born outside the United States
* About 10 to 15 of us would be grappling with some sort of disability
* About half of us would be women, and about half men
* About 6 or 7 of us would identify as LGBTQ, and at least 1 of those Rotarians would be in a household raising children
* About 105 of us would identify racially or ethnically as Caucasian, 9 of us would identify as Black, 26 of us would identify as Hispanic or Latinx, 4 would identify as Asian, 1 would identify as Native American or First People, and the rest would identify (like my son, Dexter) as Biracial or Mixed.
There are two things I want to make clear here before I leave you for the week. The first is that there is NO ONE in this club I want to see leave. The solution is not to exclude the voices or people that may be statistically overrepresented among us. You are here because you have a heart for service and because you were a Rotarian even before you knew what a Rotarian was.
The second thing though is that growing Rotary means that we need to "pull up." We need to create space. We need to not just passively accept the presence of new guests and members in our midst but actively recruit and welcome the business leaders and professionals who are underrepresented in our club. Yes, we should still invite those "Rotarians in their hearts" who look like us and think like us too, but we cannot stop there or the impact of Rotary will continue to diminish in the United States.
And if the business leaders and professionals in our community are not reflective of the overall demographics of our community, then we need to "pull up" there as well and make sure that we are educating and recruiting and hiring and promoting in line with our own Four Way Test.
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