Making the Most of Membership Month

August is Membership and New Club Development Month. We are celebrating strong membership growth of nearly 25,000 members over the 2014-15 year. The hard work and support of our members has produced incredible results over the past year, most significantly with the recent polio eradication milestone on the African continent, which marked one year without a case of polio caused by the wild poliovirus. With your important efforts as Regional Leaders, we can continue attracting new members, engaging current members, and changing the world. Here are a few ways you can help:

• Rotary’s social media channels, The Rotarian magazine, and Rotary.org are showcasing Membership Month promotions and activities all month long. We encourage you to share these features with your club and district leaders.
• Remember to visit My Rotary or the Rotary Shop to find publications and resources to help you attract new members and engage your current members. Copies of many of these publications are also available through your Rotary workgroups.
• Tell our colleagues in Membership Development why you joined Rotary—and why you continue to stay involved—on Facebook or at membership.minute@rotary.org. Sharing the positive experiences you have had as a Rotarian is an effective way to interest a potential new member!
• Finally, take a moment to read a blog post by Zone 24 West E/MGA Chris Offer about why he stayed in Rotary.

What strategies for attraction and engagement are you using during Membership Month? Share them with us in the comments below!

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Using My Rotary to Connect with Others

By Adelita Hernandez, Connections Specialist, Rotary Service Connections

 Connecting with Rotarians and Rotaractors is easier than ever on My Rotary. Enhancements to groups and profiles and increased awareness of the My Rotary community have helped the growth of these valuable tools that help you connect online to your Rotary network. Increased member engagement through the Rotary social business tools has made My Rotary even more useful and interesting.

As Rotary’s community grows, more and more Rotarians and Rotaractors are joining and participating in discussion groups. With more than 350 groups to choose from, you are sure to find more than one topic that interests you. Many of the groups are growing. Next time you’re looking at your group, check out what other groups are available. If you don’t find a group that meets your needs, start a new group!

Some of our members are taking their groups from good to great by engaging their audiences in simple but effective ways.

• Past District Governor Robert Harness started the Using Social Media in Rotary Clubs He helps his group grow by regularly inviting new members and monitoring and moderating discussions.
• Rotarian Educators has a seen a steady increase of members each week thanks to the dedicated efforts of group creator Rotarian Maria Bossa. Maria always responds to posts and welcomes new members.
• Membership Best Practices is another popular group due to the relevant and interesting discussions that are happening around membership. For example, the value proposition of Rotary to new members and retention and growth in clubs.

These three groups are often among the top ten most active groups on My Rotary because of the efforts of their administrators.

Daily notifications make it easy for you to stay up to date on group activity. If there’s no activity in your groups then you won’t get an email. Since notifications were added to My Rotary, we’ve seen an increase in group growth. The key to making your group grow is to actively post questions and experiences. Groups with the most recent posts are always listed first; it’s important to keep discussions moving to ensure the success of your group.

You can also use My Rotary to find and connect other Rotarians, Rotaractors, and Alumni. Search by name, skills, or interest and to find others who have interests in common with you.

Develop and promote service projects on Rotary.org

Rotarians undertake service projects all over the world to make real, tangible change in people’s lives. Their projects are the furthest thing from “virtual reality!” However, “virtual tools” can be of great help in making service ideas into tangible reality.

In order to create real change in people’s lives, service projects need resources. They need money, materials, human expertise and effort. One club might have the idea while other clubs can bring in the money, the expertise, or the understanding of local needs. How can Rotarians connect all of these needs together?

The internet has provided us with an almost limitless ability to connect with people all over the world. Based on the recent success of crowdsourcing and funding , Rotary developed Rotary Ideas. Ideas is an online crowdsourcing platform where clubs can post projects needing resources and seek contributions from other, like-minded individuals around the globe. Potential contributors can agree to support a project financially, by donating volunteers or materials, or by partnering with the club.

After a project is complete, it’s important to share the results back with other Rotarians and contributors. Rotary clubs around the world accomplish thousands and thousands of service projects every year but it has been hard to see the collective impact of Rotary. Through Rotary Showcase, clubs can post descriptions, pictures and videos of their projects. By sharing their service project with the world, clubs can raise awareness of Rotary within their communities and show their impact.

To see these tools in action, look at a recent project done by the Rotary Club of Monrovia, Liberia. In response to the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the club created a project on Rotary Ideas to seek partners to aid them as they worked to provide support for Ebola patients and health workers. Rotary Ideas introduced the project to potential contributors who were able to contact the club for more information about contributing. After the project reached it’s first milestone, the club posted an update on Rotary Showcase about their accomplishments. In this example, the club made an ideal use of the online tools on Rotary.org: seek resources on Rotary Ideas, and post project successes and milestones on Rotary Showcase.

Do you still have questions about how to use these tools? The Rotary Social team has developed many resources to help you use these two tools. Email social@rotary.org for user guides and video tutorials.