Should Rotary International have a Chief Membership Officer?

Member and donor-dependent organizations that prioritize recruiting large quantities of supporters are making a serious mistake.  Supporters are organizations' reward for delivering enhanced supporter value.  The only objective measure of whether or not organizations are delivering value and deserve this reward is the rate they retain and attract supporters.   

 For Rotary International (RI), understanding these realities could have influenced senior leaders' decisions much earlier had they valued RI's supporters and marketed the Object of Rotary's Ideal of Service.  Instead, in the 1980s RI began promoting select expressions of the Object of Rotary.  In the 1990s membership stabilized and, in some major market areas, began declining. To counter this trend, RI actively encouraged clubs to recruit, not attract, members - its infamous Recruiting Death Dance.

     This probably would not have happened had RI had a Chief Membership Officer (CMO).  Such a person, like the Chief Marketing Officer of many successful organizations, could have been an active part of marketing to and understanding RI's two-tier supporter base; clubs and Rotarians.  It is not too late for RI to consider establishing such a position, if it hasn't already done so.  The CMO (with assistants in each Secretariat office, and Zone Membership Coordinators) would be RI's connection between trends, societal changes, club and Rotarian changing needs, RI strategy and support, new club potential and how all these come together to affect membership.  Their measure of success would, of course, be RG Indexes of each administrative division and club. 

RI should once again become the inventive, pioneering organization it once was in the member-supported civic club industry. To do so, it must become more innovative in marketing the Object of Rotary's Ideal of Service to clubs and Rotarians because  

What Results do Rotary International's Leaders Expect from the Regional Membership Plans?

Organizations require growth.  Projects require goals.  Leaders reach for growth.  Managers reach for goals.  Leaders reach for growth because growth stimulates and helps managers achieve goals.

Upon review, each 2016-17 North American Regional Membership Plan (RMP) has many goals, objectives, and action plans.  Membership development plans should have a few of these, but one critical item is missing - a priority statement with the result leaders desire!  This is problematic because Rotary International's leaders should establish a priority statement with a measurable and attainable desired growth target.  If the RMPs do not have such a priority statement, how will coordinators and managers know if their objectives and actions are on track to reach the desired results?

     So let's examine some basic membership development plan fundamentals:  Rotary International's objective is to advance the Object of Rotary.  It does that by chartering and supporting independent Rotary clubs.  Rotary clubs attract and retain members - Rotarians - from within their local social fabrics.  The Object of Rotary is the value proposition that embeds the Ideal of Service in Rotarians' personal, business, and community lives.  Rotary's growth, and actions by Rotarians, Rotary clubs, and Rotary International (RI) - including polio eradication - are expressions of the Object of Rotary.

    To continue advancing the Object of Rotary, RI needs clubs, and clubs need members who embrace the Object of Rotary's Ideal of Service.  Therefore, RMP priority statements should express acceptable and attainable growth targets related to creating clubs and helping them retain and attract Rotarians who embrace the Ideal of Service.  Priority statements should be simple and straightforward so there is little chance for misunderstanding.  For example:  "Zones --- and --- priority is to reach an annual RG Index of 90.76 by June 30, 2020." 

What is RG Index and was the number pulled out of the air?

     In 2013, using RI information from Past RI Director Smarge's 2011 International Assembly presentation, this former Zone 34 Coordinator calculated, using simple arithmetic, that if RI improved its annual Retention and Growth Rates to 88.84% and 1.92% respectively, its RG Index would be 90.76 (add the two rates and drop the % sign), and RI would be growing at a steady rate.  In the sample priority statement, which could be instituted immediately, the RG Index is a simple, understandable, measurable, and attainable growth target.  Every goal, objective, and action in each RMP must center on reaching this target.  Goals and objectives that are not designed to do so, whether or not they appear to be desirable initiatives, are distractions and must be eliminated.

 Past experience tells us that continuity in leadership is vital.  Every existing and future Rotary leader must understand that RI's sole purpose is to grow Rotary.  Leaders that are successful at growing Rotary should be appropriately recognized at conventions, institutes, and conferences simply because, when advancing the Object of Rotary, local

Misunderstanding Membership Development Can Derail Organizations.

            Throughout the last century the world's population grew and generally became more affluent. Rotary International (RI), an association of local, autonomous Rotary clubs, flourished.  Its charitable subsidiary, The Rotary Foundation, thrived by internally marketing worthwhile projects and programs that attracted contributions, primarily from members of North American Rotary clubs.  Toward the end of the century, RI undertook an ambitious worldwide service project to eliminate polio.  But on the horizon of this sunny optimistic future, a sinister, dark cloud loomed.  Income from dues-paying members stagnated.  Club membership in North America and some other regions began a gradual, steady decline.   To reverse this trend, RI leaders assumed that all they had to do was come up with tools that would encourage clubs to get more members.

            This self-centered assumption made it easy for RI's leaders to be seduced by the same siren melody that victimized many, and doomed a few, successful organizations.  It is not uncommon for leaders to believe that by concentrating on getting better at refining and improving their attributes, projects and programs that membership development is simply a matter of recruiting more members.  What leaders have difficulty comprehending, some until it is too late, is that their organizations should approach developing membership by being innovative in creating ways that their attributes, projects and programs enhance the membership experience.

Being innovative at enhancing the membership experience for Rotary clubs and Rotarians will face many obstacles.  Perhaps the most difficult will be overcoming two decades of misdirected priorities embedded in the minds of many Rotarians, most previous leaders, and many aspirants.  This can only be conquered by an intensive internal marketing initiative that delivers, in words and actions, Rotary's differentiating value proposition; a campaign centered around conveying the perception that 

Does Rotary International Really Understand Who Its Supporters Are and Why They Support Rotary?

  Rotary International (RI) does not have one group of supporters (customers).  Just like automobile manufacturers, Starbucks, McDonald's, Woolworth's, and many other national and multi-national organizations, it has two:  local outlets and their customers.  These organizations succeed when they authorize local outlets to deliver their differentiating value proposition and support the outlets as they adapt to local customers' values, wants, and realities.  For this reason, and this reason alone, organizations with local outlets, franchised or otherwise, must thoroughly understand the realities, situations, behaviors, expectations, and values of their outlets AND their outlets' customers.
    These are basic big business fundamentals, yet few Rotary leaders are educated and/or supported on understanding and applying them.  RI is not defined by its name, constitution, by-laws, Code of Policies, motto, the Four-Way Test, The Rotary Foundation, the quantity or quality of the service projects and programs it and/or its member clubs sponsor, or any amount of public information. It is only defined by the differentiating value perceived when people pay dues to join a local outlet (club), recognize themselves, and are identified locally as "Rotarians".  It is the same with all successful organizations that have many local outlets.  For example, the automobile manufacturer BMW is not defined by its name or the mode of transportation it produces.  It is defined by the differentiating value perceived by customers when they purchase a mode of personal transportation, recognize themselves, and are identified locally as owners of "the ultimate driving machine".

    RI is a multi-national business with over 35,000 outlets (clubs).  Since 1996 its membership (customer) base has hovered around 1.2 million.  Many more than that have come and gone.  Important positive changes have been adopted and are beginning to spread throughout the Rotary network.  Unfortunately many outdated mindsets - 'clubs are local service organizations', 'Rotarians are just volunteers or charity workers', 'clubs exist to support districts, RI, and TRF' and 'membership is strictly a club issue' - continue to flourish among Rotarians, many of them in, or seeking, leadership positions.  This can only be overcome by continuously internally marketing to clubs and Rotarians on how the Object of Rotary compliments and supports local clubs and Rotarians in their realities, because, as People of Action,