On November 8, 2025, Rotary District 5370 gathered for its Fall Assembly to align clubs and leaders with the District's three-year Action Plan (2025-2028) and focus on key priorities for growth and impact.
This article summarizes the essential takeaways from the presentations on the District's core strategic pillars:
- Expanding Our Reach through Public Image
- Increasing Our Impact through Foundation giving
- Enhancing Participant Engagement through focused Membership engagement efforts
- Increasing Our Ability to Adapt as we create our plan looking forward
The content emphasizes the critical need for effective storytelling to attract members and partners, and outlines the strategic plans designed to reverse recent membership decline and build vibrant, sustainable clubs across the District.
Meet Jeanette Bancarz, District Governor Elect 👋
"It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”
Jeanette Bancarz is a highly respected partner known for cultivating relationships and ensuring exceptional results. She began her 17-year Rotary journey in 2008 with the Rotary Club of Edmonton Mayfield, later witnessing Rotary's power following the 2016 Fort McMurray fire. After earning her Bachelor of Management, Jeanette built a 26-year banking career with ATB Financial, which fostered much of her leadership growth. Now, with the support of her husband, Marc, she owns Centennial Flight Centre, a fixed-wing flight school near Edmonton. She is a self-proclaimed crazy cat lady who enjoys country living
District 5370 Action Plan 2025-2028 🎯
Through video, Chris Etienne, Rotary International Director for Zone 28 & 32, encouraged Rotarians to support the Rotary Action Plan and strategic priorities like growing membership and expanding reach.
Ramesh Ferris, the current District Governor, presented how District 5370's plan focuses on four main areas, with specific goals for the coming years:
- Increase Our Impact:
- Focus on The Rotary Foundation giving, with participation goals of 65% in 2025-26, 68% in 2026-27, and 70% in 2027-28.
- Polio Plus Society Membership is targeted to increase to 175 in 2025-26, 200 in 2026-27, and 225 in 2027-28.
- Enhance Participant Engagement: Aims for membership growth to 1550 in 2025-26, 1600 in 2026-27, and 1650 in 2027-28.
- Increase Our Ability to Adapt: Focuses on increasing the number of Clubs using the Accessibility Tool, with goals of 10 in 2025-26, 15 in 2026-27, and 20 in 2027-28.
- Expand Our Reach: Focus on members creating their "Rotary Personal Expression Statement" by prompting "Why I joined Rotary" during District Governor visits.
Expand Our Reach: Public Image 📢
The Public Image presentation, led by District PI Chair Maëlle Toews, emphasized that Public Image is about relevance, impact, and membership engagement, not vanity.
Why Tell Your Story? Storytelling helps to attract members (people are drawn to purpose), attract partners & funding (major foundations fund impact), and boost internal morale & club culture.
Where to Tell Your Story? Key platforms include your Newsletter, Website, Social Media, and Physical Events, with District resources also available to amplify success.
How to Tell Your Story? We need to shift from doing good to communicating good: it’s all about IMPACT. It’s always best to use impact-focused stories over simple facts. Great storytelling moves from what you did to what you changed.
As an example, going from “We/our club donated $500.” (We/Us focused) to “Five students now have new backpacks and supplies for the school year, thanks to our club!” (focus on Impact/Change).
Download this document for two examples of storytelling frameworks you can use!
Increase Our Impact: The Rotary Foundation 🤝
Led by District Foundation Chair Libby Weir, this presentation delved into the Rotary Foundation (TRF), which transforms Rotary's service into sustainable change by measuring impact by the lives changed, not just the funds given. With over 110 years of humanitarian impact, more than $110 million USD is granted annually, with 91% going directly to programs.
Rotary's funds are channeled into four core funds:
- Annual Fund: Powers local and global grants (more on that below).
- Disaster Response Fund: Provides immediate relief for crises like wildfires and conflict. The fund provides emergency shelter, water, and medical relief.
- For example, a $25,000 USD grant supported the Jasper Food Bank following the July 2024 wildfire recovery.
- PolioPlus Fund: Supports the goal of global polio eradication. Rotary is committed to finishing the job. Polio is 99.9% eradicated, remaining only in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- Rotary's $50M USD goal is matched by the Gates Foundation, turning every $1 USD into $3 USD.
- Endowment Fund: Ensures long-term stability and future impact through permanently invested gifts.
A key part of what makes the Foundation’s system unique and so powerful is the SHARE System. The Annual Fund Share system is critical. First, donations are invested for three years. Then, the resulting funds are split, where 50% becomes District Designated Funds (DDF) for local District Grants and Global Grants, and 50% goes to the World Fund for Global Grants and programs.
Libby highlighted a personal story for her around the "Right to Read - Rwanda" Global Grant, which trained 325 teachers and reached over 25,000 students annually.
As a Call to Action, clubs are encouraged to: Support the Annual Fund to see local and international projects flourish; Ask every member to give something ("Every dollar shapes a life"); and/or Make the Foundation part of your Club culture. The message is: "We don't fundraise — we fund purpose!".
Enhance Participant Engagement: Membership 📈
The District Membership Committee (DMC), chaired by Bruce Hobin, shared some facts on membership growth, noting that while about 150,000 new members join Rotary each year, about the same number leave in North America. He noted that, while District 5370 has seen negative membership growth since 2021, the decline has slowed down over the past couple of years.
District Membership Goals (Enhance Participant Engagement): The DMC is working toward the district goals for total members set by the District Governor stream.
RI Mandate and Sub-committees: The RI Board is asking Membership to establish three sub-committees for 2025-26 to build sustainable membership growth:
- Attraction: Strategic attraction of new members. Tools include the RI Online Membership Leads System (which resulted in 10 new members in 2024-25) and a "Get to Know Rotary" event in April 2026.
- Engagement: Strong engagement and retention of current members. Tools include promoting the District Accessibility Tool, Virtual Fireside Chats for New Members, and a New Member Survey.
- New Club Development: Development of new, vibrant Rotary clubs. Tools include a dedicated District resource, Marilyn Muncha, and support for New Club Model presentations.
How Clubs Can Help: Clubs can take action by utilizing tools in the RI Learning Centre, sharing their club's successes and challenges with the committee, or even joining one of the District Membership Sub-committees.
Increase Our Ability to Adapt: the Look Forward
Ultimately, the power of Rotary lies in its capacity to change and grow. Increasing our ability to adapt serves as the bridge between the goals for the Foundation, Public Image, Membership, and across the District.
By embracing the 3-year action plan format, the strategies outlined for membership attraction and engagement, utilizing the storytelling framework of Public Image, and channeling generosity through the Foundation into sustainable impact, District 5370 is strategically positioning itself to move beyond simply sustaining its presence and, instead, lead with purpose, visibility, and measurable impact in the years to come.