Rotary International is here to support your membership journey. Here’s how.
When you think about your experience in Rotary, the first thing that likely comes to mind is your club: your weekly meetings, longtime friendships, and service opportunities in your community. But when you joined your club, you also joined Rotary International — a vast global organization with about 775 employees headquartered in Evanston, Illinois, and six additional offices around the world. Rotary International is here to support you in your membership journey every step of the way, providing tools, resources, and expertise to enhance your membership experience.
To help you take advantage of everything your membership officers, Rotary asked Drew Kessler, RI treasurer and a member of the Rotary Club of North Rockland (Haverstraw), New York, to walk us through a few of the available resources.
The Rotary Brand Center will help you tell Rotary’s and your club’s story, providing resources for developing your own promotional materials and templates for creating your club’s logo. “It’s a great tool,” Kessler says. “Rotary makes it easy for clubs to show their community how we’re people of action and how they can join our efforts.”
Rotary provides clubs and districts with global, district, and disaster response grant funding that makes their service projects possible. Kessler points out that our immense response efforts are supported through members’ donations to The Rotary Foundation. “There are organizations throughout the world you can donate to,” he says, “but with The Rotary Foundation, there’s the trust factor.” Members know their contributions are helping others.
With the Rotary Learning Center, you can take advantage of a wealth of training materials and online courses designed to help you learn new skills and become more successful in everything you do. “There is amazing content for anybody who is looking to understand more about the organization or is looking to go deeper on so many different subjects for personal and professional development,” Kessler says.
Rotary International connects you with experts who can advise on topics such as service projects (The Rotary Foundation Cadre of Technical Advisers), club and district operations (Club and District Support), the club experience (regional membership officers), and fundraising (annual giving officers), to name a few. And since you can drop into a club anywhere in the world, you’ll find support wherever you go. “When you’re a part of Rotary, you have that network,” Kessler notes.
Rotary Community Corps, Rotary Action Groups, and Rotary Fellowships connect you with others who share an interest in your favorite hobby or cause. “Rotary extends outside of your club,” he says. “The opportunity to connect with fellow Rotarians, Rotaractors, and community members who have similar interests or support causes you’re passionate about adds a lot of value to the membership experience.”
The annual Rotary International Convention features distinguished speakers, energizing breakout sessions, opportunities for lifelong connections, and so much more. “It’s a chance to meet members from all over the world and be in a city with over 20,000 like-minded people,” Kessler says.
Rotary headquarters helps clubs and districts manage their Rotary Youth Exchange programs and provides comprehensive youth protection resources to ensure program participants are safe from harm. “Our youth offerings are second to none and invest in the next generation,” Kessler says.