In this second presentation, D9520 Membership Chair Mark Huddleston presents some simple tips that clubs can implement to make their clubs more attractive
D9520 Young Professionals Forum - Attracting Young Professionals Part 2
1. Young Professionals Forum
August 8, 2013
Attracting Young Professionals
Part 2 – Identifying Solutions
• 10 Tips to attract, recruit and
retain younger members
2. Tip 1: The first place to look
is right under your nose
3. Consider all those who have been touched
by your club in the last 10 years…
• Exchange Students
• Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA)
• Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment (RYPEN)
• National Youth Science Forum (NYSF)
• Ambassadorial Scholars
• Peace Scholars
• Indigenous Medical Scholars
• Group Study Exchange Team Members
• Rotaractors
6. • Put them on our mailing list
• Invite them to special events
(changeover, Christmas dinner)
• Ask them to help at service projects
• Ask them to like your club
Facebook page
Keep your warm contacts warm!
• Hold a dedicated alumni night
It’s important to build a relationship before you ask them to join!
7. Tip 2: You have to be easy to
find online
Tip 3: You have to be easy to
understand online
8. Does your club have an
independent,
tailor made website?
YESNO
Does your club have an
active Facebook page? YES
NO
INACTIVE
9.
10. Online Challenge:
Ask a young (under 40) friend, relative
(someone who doesn’t know much about Rotary)
to see how easy it is to:
1. Find your club online
2. Discover your club’s service priorities
3. A reason to get involved
4. How to get involved
5. Contact details
Ask them to do it in front of you.
11. Your club’s service priorities
3. A reason to get involved
4. How to get involved
5. Contact details
If your club website has NOTHING
else on the home page, make sure it
CLEARLY articulates these four items:
14. • Business Networking Groups
• Libraries
• Universities
• Shopping Centres
• Welcome to Australia events
• Citizenship Ceremonies
• Cultural & Ethnic Groups
• Partner with other charitable causes and events
• Community Concerts
• Royal Adelaide Show – Country Shows
• City to Bay Fun Run
• Sporting Clubs & Events
• Careers Expos
• Ask your kids or grandkids for ideas
24. “If our meetings are not
interesting to them, why
would they attend?”
Holly Ransom
• Inspirational Speakers
• Topics focussed around Leadership and
Personal Development
• Mentoring & Networking Opportunities
• Less formal, more energetic
• Intergenerational mix-up games
• One “Action” meeting per month
• Breakfast meetings cheapest, easiest, punctual
25.
26. Traditional Rotary Club Meeting Structure
Business
• Announcements
• Committee & Board
Meetings
Meal Guest Speaker
28. The Rotary Club of the Future
Week
1
Week
2
Week
3
Week
4
Week
5
Week
6
Week
7
Week
8
Week
9
Week
10
What about all those announcements?
29. Traditional Rotary Club Meeting Structure
Week
1
Week
2
Week
3
Week
4
Week
5
Week
6
Week
7
Week
8
Week
9
Week
10
The Rotary Club of the Future
Week
1
Week
2
Week
3
Week
4
Week
5
Week
6
Week
7
Week
8
Week
9
Week
10
30. As a membership
organisation, it’s
incumbent upon us
to make the change,
because we’re the
ones wanting the
members. Holly Ransom
Editor's Notes
In this presentation we will look at 10 tips that any club can implement to help attract young professionals
We invest in many young people, then wave them goodbye after they give their report, and they disappear into the sunset, never to be seen again.
Our recent district survey indicated that only a very small percentage of recent recruits were our alumni
If you have a “join us” or “become a member” button/link on your website, replace them and instead have a “Volunteer” link. Young people are likely to be intimidated by the thought of joining, but they might just volunteer!
If the young people aren’t coming to you, take your club to them.
Here are some places that Rotary can be active, and have a presence in front of young people
If anyone in your club is a regular user of LinkedIn, please contact me for information on how to find potential members via LinkedIn
One of the hardest things for us to do, is look at things like a non-Rotarian. One of the reasons we need to bring fresh blood into the organisation is to gain a different perspective and get some fresh ideas. Yet many clubs have a culture of shunning new ideas, and don’t have an environment that encourages newer members to speak up. If we want our newer members to feel welcome, it’s not just about listening to them, we have to encourage them to speak.
As Michael McQueen suggests in his book “Winning the battle for relevance”,
Whether it is a new staff member who has just joined the team or a young person who hasn’t yet learned their place, the beauty of those with fresh eyes is that they have no trouble thinking outside the box because they don’t yet know what the box even looks like. More importantly people with fresh eyes are blissfully unaware of how things have always been done. Solutions often lie in unexpected places where only beginners might bother to look.
Rotary is a big global organisation. Yet so many of us are happy to remain cocooned in our club. For so many of us, our total Rotary experience is a schnitzel at the pub once a week. But young people want it all, and they want it now, and they are not likely to be satisfied solely by the Rotary experience that one club can offer. You must introduce them to the big, wide world of Rotary very early in the piece. Take them to other club or group functions. Get them involved in a district committee. Encourage their participation in district events such as assembly and conference.
One of the common responses from the delegates at the Young Professionals Seminar in Chicago was that “Younger professionals want to connect to the larger Rotary organization through district leadership, events, and international meetings like the Convention”
Everyone is passionate about something. Rotary has a way to address most causes. Rotary is on the ground in most countries. Find their passion, and find a way Rotary can address it.
The incidence of resignation due to conflict is sadly on the rise. Conflict must be swiftly and professionally dealt with.
I will make available the list of Turn offs I read out
an overview of meeting initiatives presented by Holly Ransom at the D9520 Conference in Ballarat 2015
What might the club of the future look like?
Every club meeting has 3 basic components
Over the course of the year, most meetings look surprisingly similar. Clubs also periodically partake in fundraising, projects, socialising and training
What if we mixed it up, and scheduled more random meetings that incorporated all of these items? We are expected to meet weekly, but not on the same day every week, or the same venue. There are also plenty of ways to conduct business and disseminate information and reports.
Compare the traditional club, and the club of the future. For members concerned by the cost of meetings, the future example is a lot more flexible.