Promoting Rotary’s public image is important because it promotes awareness and enhances understanding about how Rotary, Rotaract and Interact clubs address the challenges affecting communities around the world.
As members of the Rotary family, we each have an important role to play in helping one another talk about how your members and your club make a difference in the community. A positive image will help your club raise awareness of Rotary, attract and engage members, increase contributions to The Rotary Foundation, and garner partnerships, volunteers, and support for projects and activities.
RAISING AWARENESS OF ROTARY
You’ll find many ways to make the community more aware of Rotary, including:
- Sponsoring special events (for example, marathons, recycling efforts, or fundraisers for a Rotary project or program)
- Creating exhibits that can be featured in museums, historical societies, city halls, or libraries
- Advertising in newspapers, magazines, billboards, buses, airports, or train stations
- Establishing communication with the public relations staff of other organizations that your club is involved with
- Cultivating relationships with journalists and key media contacts in your media market
- Linking local Rotary projects to relevant issues in your community
- Promoting stories, particularly to news media and social media, about members working through Rotary to make the world a better place
- Encouraging Rotarians to wear their Rotary lapel pins and talk about the organization
- Having Rotarians post information on a club or district website or social media sites, or refer members of their community to Rotary.org
- Go to the Brand Center and Press Center for resources to enhance your club’s public image.
Public image affects all areas of Rotary. Measure the impact of your efforts by conducting focus groups, interviews, and surveys with your target audiences, and benchmarking your membership numbers, Foundation contributions, and other areas before implementing your plans
STRENGTHENING THE ROTARY BRAND
The Rotary brand strengthens when members live it. Rotarians are people of action, vision, and commitment, who solve real problems in communities around the globe. The way you talk about Rotary can affect the public’s perception of it.
You can bring Rotary’s story to life by:
- Telling stories about the value that Rotary brings to communities
- Encouraging members and club leaders to promote Rotary’s brand and to use the public image resources locally
- Using Rotary’s brand and messaging at club events and in club communications
- Encouraging members and club leaders to achieve the public image goals for the Rotary Citation
- Remembering these strategies when communicating with Rotarians, prospective members, the public, donors, and community partners.
- Liaising with the District 7030 Public Image Team which can help you share Rotary’s successes with the community; media; local, civic, and government leaders; nongovernmental organizations; and similar entities. They can also use the Rotary story to enhance membership and retention, expand Rotary service, and inspire friends, fans, and donors to further support Rotary. Your assistant governors can also work with clubs to reflect Rotary’s core values.
PROMOTING THE ROTARY BRAND
The Rotary logo identifies Rotary clubs and their members in every part of the world. Rotary International owns trademarks and service marks (referred to as Rotary Marks) for the benefit of Rotarians worldwide.
RI depends on clubs and club leaders to work with your clubs and members to ensure they understand how to use Rotary Marks. When reproducing Rotary Marks, follow the guidelines approved by the RI Board of Directors in the Rotary Code of Policies, which allows Rotary clubs, districts, or other Rotary entities to use the Rotary Marks. (NB:- Rotary entities include Rotary International, The Rotary Foundation, Rotary clubs or groups of clubs, Rotary districts or groups of districts, Rotary Fellowships, Rotarian Action Groups, and administrative territorial units of Rotary International. Individual RI programs are not considered Rotary entities.) The marks may not be altered, modified, obstructed in any way, or reproduced other than in their complete form.
Rotary’s Brand Center offers resources for Rotary members to plan events, maximize social media’s impact, and customize their logos, stationery, campaign ads, event fliers, PowerPoint presentations, and more to easily apply Rotary’s brand. You’ll also find messaging guidelines, with tips for communicating to multiple audiences, and guidelines for writing about Rotary and using the Rotary Marks. Merchandise bearing the Rotary Marks should be bought from one of Rotary’s licensed vendors. If you have questions about licensing, contact RI’s Licensing Section at rilicensingservices@rotary.org.
Raise club and member awareness of these resources and help club leaders and members understand how to use them. Additionally, the District Public Image Team can work with clubs to ensure their websites and materials are current with Rotary’s messaging.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Consider these questions in preparation for your tenure as a club leader or as a member of the Rotary family:
- How do you explain what Rotary is?
- How can you encourage your club and members to use storytelling to promote their projects?
- What innovative ideas do you have to promote Rotary?
- Who in your community can you partner with to enhance Rotary’s public image?
- What club projects, activities, or special events would interest the public?
- How can you encourage clubs and members to use the resources in the Brand Center to keep their messaging and promotional materials current?
- How can you help clubs and members live the Rotary brand?
- What support or resources will you need from the District 7030 Public Image Team?
KEY POINTS FOR TALKING ABOUT ROTARY
Here are messages to help you develop key points before media interviews and speeches to external audiences.
INTRODUCTORY PRIMARY MESSAGE
- Every day, in our communities and around the world, our neighbors face tough challenges — conflict, disease, and lack of clean water, health care, education, and economic opportunity.
SUPPORTING MESSAGE
- Rotarians have a vision of what’s possible for their neighbors. They mobilize other leaders and experts to take action and see it through.
ABOUT ROTARY — PRIMARY MESSAGES
- Rotarians are people of action, driven by a desire to create opportunities, strengthen communities, and find solutions to the tough challenges that affect people around the world.
- Rotary is a community of 1.2 million men and women from all continents, cultures, professions, and experiences who connect through our local clubs.
- Rotary clubs tackle projects of every scale and inspire fellow Rotarians, friends, neighbors, and partners to share their vision, exchange ideas for lasting solutions, and take action to bring those ideas to life.
SUPPORTING MESSAGES
- Together with our partners, neighbors, and friends, we’re:
- Promoting peace — encouraging dialogue to foster understanding within and across cultures
- Fighting disease — educating and equipping communities to stop the spread of life-threatening or preventable diseases
- Providing clean water — building local solutions to bring clean water and sanitation services to more people every day
- Saving mothers and children — expanding access to quality care so mothers and children can live and grow stronger
- Supporting education — expanding access to education and empowering educators to inspire more children and adults to learn
- Growing local economies — creating opportunities for individuals and communities to thrive financially and socially
- Eradicating polio — uniting the world to end polio, once and for all
- Rotary is a trusted partner and resource. With members and projects in almost every part of the globe, there’s no limit to the good we can do.
Rotary’s top philanthropic goal is to eradicate polio worldwide.
- Rotary and its partners are close to eradicating polio, having achieved a 99.9 percent reduction in cases since 1988.
- Rotary’s chief role is fundraising, advocacy, and mobilizing volunteers.
- Rotary’s contributions to the global polio eradication effort will exceed more than $2.2 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect more than two billion children in 122 countries from polio.
- Rotary is working to raise an additional $50 million per year through 2020 for polio eradication, to be matched 2-to-1 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Rotary builds peace and international understanding not only through education and humanitarian service but also by developing young leaders.
- More than 900 graduates of the Rotary Peace Centers master’s degree program are in key decision-making positions in governments, corporations, and organizations around the world.
- Rotary’s humanitarian projects help prevent the underlying causes of conflict, such as poverty, illiteracy, and lack of clean water.
- Rotary’s Youth Exchange program fosters international goodwill by enabling over 8,000 high school students to live and study abroad each year in 115 countries.
- Rotary’s Interact and Rotaract programs develop young leaders by promoting volunteer service, leadership, and professional growth.
KEY RESOURCES