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One Rotary Summit Ideation
DISTRICT 5950 - SEPTEMBER 15, 2017
One Rotary Summit Ideation Results:
Attracting More Women to Rotary
Following are the raw notes transcribed from the One Rotary Summit idea generation. We are attempting to create a “toolkit” that offers a step by step approach to some of the ideas. As you use or implement ideas, please let Tom Gump know your experience. Together we can move ideas to action.
Themes from One Rotary Summit tables brainstorming sessions:
1. Membership
a. Attracting new members
- Focus on younger Rotarians; engage youth
- Go where women are - social groups; work places; Target leadership of clubs that are women focused
- Focus on people who want to do good
- Keep a log of the names of females the club is recruiting
- Have a contest to see who can bring in the most new women members
- Have current women members recruit new members; encourage women to bring their friends
b. ASK!
- Reach out to Female Community Leaders
- Invite Women Business owners to speak; participate in service projects &/or attend club meetings
- Ask/Invite them to join!
- Ask guest speakers to join
- Encourage members to bring guests who might join
- Ask every person in the club to actively recruit a woman they believe would be a good Rotarian
c. Flexibility
- pursue creative memberships to Rotary
- more flexibility in attendance
- Family memberships &/or Corporate memberships
- more flexibility in meeting times & locations
- stress flexibility
- understand logistics and meet where women want to meet
d. Fee structure
- Keep membership fees low &/or tiered so lower fees for younger members
- Give a 10% discount on Club dues to new members for the first year
e. Engage new members
- Get new women members involved and engaged in club activities
- Form a new member project committee (members of 3 year or less) and provide them with a budget
- Establish “Rotary Buddies” for new members for on-boarding & getting them engaged in projects
- Mentor new members once they come in to retain them; potential to have females mentor females
- Give them a reason to stay - friendship
- Provide a realistic perspective of what new members should expect in the first year
- Identify prospective members who have a passion a grant could support - write stories about how new members benefit from being a member or a being a recipient of a program or project
2. Increase Visibility
a. Media
- District needs to show/help clubs improve Public Relations, esp Social Media
- Increase public coverage of key service projects and events - esp using Social Media
- Utilize district social media resources — but, need clubs to provide inputs
- Better utilize district to showcase accomplishments
- Add Public Relations women to Leadership positions
- Increase visibility across media outlets - Newspapers, Social Media/Facebook, Club websites
- Create videos that promote women membership
b. Messages
- Highlight diversity of membership
- Publicize how new members benefit from being a member or a being a recipient of a program or project
- Use pictures (worth 1000 words) - include generational involvement; activities taking place at different times of day
- Have pictures of women on websites and club slides
- Promote service projects
- Create a new elevator speech on why women should join Rotary and practice it at club meetings
c. Rotary Branding
- Members need to Brand themselves - wear Rotary shirts & pins
- Talk about that Rotary is not just for business - educators, government, etc
3. Club/District Environment
- Provide women with the opportunity for leadership roles
- Cover topics in club meetings that concern women
- Cover important topics at meetings - make it worth people’s while to join Rotary
- Bring in influential women as speakers and champion them - perhaps have Lynx basketball players as speakers
- Have events that are interesting to women - wine tastings
- Adjust tone to make Rotary more family friendly
- Adjust mindset of current club members
- Club programs should appeal to women
- Have a welcoming environment - welcome everyone when they come in the door
- “Terminate Rotarians who ‘scare’ women”
- Recognition for service hours in addition to recognition for dollars contributed
- Identify and discuss barriers to the entry of new women members
- Break up “club cliques”
- Be inclusive
- Big clubs need to collaborate with other clubs and other organizations
- Recognize events in womens’ lives - celebrate new babies & weddings
4. Projects
- Be strategic in the selection of important projects - balancing all 6 areas of Rotary focus. Be careful not to have too narrow a focus
- Be intentional in choice of projects — select projects that encourage diversity, particularly gender diversity
- Provide projects that involve the community
- Focus on projects to change image from “Guy Club”
- Partner with women focused organizations on projects
- Organize projects that are family oriented - including children
- Organize projects like “Days for Women - sewathon for feminine hygiene kits; projects that women are passionate about
5. Events
- Host big events with topics more interesting to women
- Strategic in event selection to host events with enthusiastic appeal to both attract diversity and raise money
- Host social events such as Ethnic Dinners; Wine & Cheese; BBQs
6. Seek Feedback
- Conduct an online membership survey
- track why women don’t return
- Survey women in individual clubs - asking them what attracted them to Rotary/club & what keeps them involved in Rotary
- Survey a group of women on what they know about Rotary & their attitude toward Rotary to determine “where we are at”