A reader of the August 1 Post The Heart of Rotary is not Service asked, "Don't you believe that the original framers of the Object of Rotary wanted service to be integral to our organization?"
"No", I replied . . . "Integral implies that service is embedded in the organization whereas The Object of Rotary's opening paragraph says, 'The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service
as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster: . .' " An ideal is a standard, moral value or belief. Adopting an ideal becomes a way
of life; something that is less subject to be replaced by whims, ideas, or
changes in circumstances. Nowhere does
the Object of Rotary even imply that service would be embedded in or used as an adjective to
describe the Association of Rotary Clubs, which evolved into Rotary
International (RI).
The
original framers wisely constructed the Object of Rotary so it could be adopted
by any person, at any time, in any place, and under any social, political, or
religious system. They wanted the Ideal
of Service to be a value embedded in Rotarians; a value that would help them make
their personal, business, and community lives better regardless of where they
lived, worked, and/or played.
RI President
Barry Rassin, in his August 2018 message, says, "A well-known saying goes, "If you want to change the world,
go home and love your family." That doesn't mean people should ignore the
needs outside their own homes; instead, they should pay attention to the needs
within.
It can be tempting, when our priority is
service, to focus only on the things that look like service: the projects, the
planning, and the work that yields a visible benefit to those who need it. But
to do that work effectively, we need to keep our own house in order. In Rotary,
that means conducting ourselves in accordance with the principles of Rotary,
treating others with respect, and following The Four-Way Test. It means
maximizing our impact by planning carefully and stewarding our resources
wisely. And it means looking after the long-term health of our organization by
ensuring that our membership is strong, engaged, and healthy."
Attempting
to make service integral to RI or any of its member clubs promotes concretizing the results of putting the Ideal of Service into practice. RI itself is encouraging concretizing when it
pressures clubs to report outcomes such as volunteer hours and service projects
or when it asks clubs to set targets for projects and contributions to
TRF. These may appear to be sound
business practices that generate favorable public images, but concretizing results often leads
to the results exceeding the Ideal in priority. This common organization mistake has led to
the bankruptcy of once successful organizations, including General Motors and
Kodak, and hindered RI's growth, particularly in legacy regions. 
The
quantity and quality of service projects (including
polio eradication), volunteer hours, and dollars contributed to TRF are the
organization's rewards for attracting and retaining Rotarians who choose the Ideal of Service as a way of life, and the only true measure of the
organization's long-term health is reflected in RG Indexes.