What Happened to 2,200,000 Rotarians?

Year	Year-End Membership	# of Clubs
2003	1,227,337	31,511
2010	1,227,563	34,103
2017	1,202,937	36,656

Rotary International’s membership has hovered around 1,200,000 for the last fifteen years.  During this time, according to RI’s own records, Rotary clubs have inducted - and lost - approximately 2,200,000 members.  Why?  Nobody seems to have reasonably definitive answers, only conjectures.

Rotary International (RI) has acknowledged that it is a business, and that it should be led and managed accordingly.  Because of a 2011 international study, RI has rebranded itself as an organization created by and for People of Action.  To assure that the rebranding initiative is, or will be, effective, RI must maintain and continually study membership information.  By doing so, it can have an educated answer to why it lost over 2 million members and a more dependable base to launch its future.

Senior Rotary and staff leaders must accept that the rebranding initiative will only be effective when all interconnecting relationships are mutually beneficial. In doing so, RI can begin to critically examine, study, and address important issues such as:

• Are clubs pinpointing the appropriate target audiences to attract? 
• Are clubs informing target audiences what to expect when they join? 
• What percentage of the target audiences inducted left their club for reasons beyond club control (health (personal or family), relocation, financial setback, etc.)? 
• What is a reasonable Retention Rate expectation for one-year, two-year, three-year, five-year, & ten-year Rotarians? 
• What is a reasonable Attraction Rate expectation for the clubs, districts, and zones?

When RI begins to zero in on these types of critical issues it will be able to:

• Judge the degree of success of its rebranding initiative, and 
• Strategically plan for a successful future.

It is vital that RI establish a priority on recording and analyzing important membership related information.  Accurate information is necessary for RI to establish a mutually beneficial interconnecting relationship with its primary target audience – Rotary clubs.  The most cost-effective place to start is to utilize data RI presently collects and semi-annually publish Retention Rates, Attraction Rates, and RG Indexes for each club, district, zone, and RI.

Retention Rates and Attraction Rates are both important.  Retention Rates are particularly helpful in determining if clubs are delivering the People of Action brand’s promise.  Attraction Rates, in combination with first, second, and third year Retention Rates, indicate the quality of the target audience clubs are attracting, the clubs’ effectiveness at delivering the brand’s promise early, and the club’s ability to inform target audiences of the relationships the clubs offer.  RG Indexes help identify clubs, districts, and zones that are most successful at delivering Rotary’s brand promise and quickly highlights clubs, districts, and zones most in need of assistance.