Rotary's Recruiting Death Dance
Rotary's annual recruiting waltz is our Dance of Death and reminds me of the mythical Thorn Bird who sings it most beautiful song as it impales itself to death on a thorn. If one critically analyzes our recruiting dance, it becomes obvious that the practice is organization-centered, not member-centered. It comes from an inward point of view . . . Recruitment Death Dance (Click here to read more.)
Jim,
ReplyDeleteThe points made in this article are spot on perfect in my opinion. We need to create the measurement of retention as one of our core metrics and I plan to do that for 7680 during 2012-13.
The other key point to retention in my opinion starts with attracting the right members to our clubs and to stop recruiting people. When we attract the right people due to our success stories and effective public image and relations, we then start attracting people that want to be here for the right reasons. With that, retention becomes much easier to manage. When we recruit folks into Rotary, we then need to recruit many of them to do all the rest of the things we do in Rotary, such as attend club meetings, pay club dues, participate in the Foundation, attend club projects and functions, attend District functions and projects, etc, etc, etc. That then make the management of a club that much more daunting. But if we attract folks that want to be there, then they will more than likely require little to no management, but rather only training, inspiration and support. So it all starts with the end in mind.
Thanks for your very relevant insights.