ENTERPRISE

Story By Nitesh Joshi, Chair of the Rotary Great Britain & Ireland ​Board 2024-25

OUR North Star initiative effectively commenced in October 2023 once ​Rotary International approved the funding request of providing $800,000 ​over three years to reverse the decline in membership in Great Britain & ​Ireland.

As an official pilot of RI, we have been asked to be brave, innovative, and ​inventive by thinking of new ways of how to expand our membership and grow ​Rotary in these islands.

In November 2023, Rotary GB&I announced four new channels of membership ​with how a prospective member can join Rotary: Club, Direct, Corporate and ​Enterprise, with the latter two focusing on re-establishing our relationship with ​businesses.

We are bringing business back into Rotary and Rotary firmly back in business.

By conducting external research and numerous surveys, the message we were ​hearing was businesses of all sizes were keen to be associated and work with a ​quality volunteer-led organisation such as Rotary.

Businesses were keen to explore how Rotary could assist them in fulfilling their ​corporate social responsibility, environmental and sustainability goals, and how ​their staff could work with us to deliver volunteer work with a pre-defined focus.

We noticed two strands emerging:

The first strand was for clubs to engage and recruit local businesses to become ​Rotary members – known as Corporate Membership.

Corporate Membership has been an established channel of RI for many years ​however in Great Britain & Ireland we have been low adopters of this. ​Consequently, we have never fully embraced this opportunity, until now.

This membership initiative is about inviting small businesses located within the ​local community to join a club. This could include the venues where clubs meet, ​the local estate agent, restaurant or accountant firm in the area. Joy Cooper-​Palmer explains more about this on page 4.

The second strand was for us to engage with bigger businesses. An essential ​requirement for these larger companies was they wanted to work with a global, ​trusted organisation, one which could demonstrate how they could measure the ​impact of their volunteers’ activity and, as one would expect, these businesses ​required us to provide a clear return on investment for the money they spend ​with us.

From this concept Enterprise Membership was born.

The profile of an Enterprise client soon emerged: a company with between 100 ​to 1,000 staff which aligns its values with our values. A business that wants to ​partner with a global brand and one which remains acutely aware of its own ​business and social responsibilities regarding the welfare of its employees and ​the environment.

With this in mind, the question arises: how can you help?

We are asking members to lend their support in finding new Enterprise clients by ​sharing their high-level contacts and relationships they have with businesses ​which fit this profile.

This could be a friend of yours running a large business, someone you meet ​regularly over lunch, or someone you know who could benefit from becoming an ​Enterprise client of Rotary Great Britain and Ireland.

All we request is you complete a simple online form when our Enterprise team ​will contact the prospective client to arrange a formal ‘match-making’ meeting, ​while keeping you updated.

Due to the lengthy lead-in time in acquiring an Enterprise client and the ​experience required to manage this relationship, Enterprise Membership is being ​fully managed by our Enterprise team located at the Rotary Support Centre in ​Alcester, Warwickshire. This team is responsible for finding prospects, creating ​quotations, and following up to convert them into becoming a Rotary GB&I client.

Enterprise Membership is a completely new type of membership not prevalent ​anywhere in RI so there is no roadmap for us to follow. We are creating a new ​path laying down one stone at a time.

This is work in progress as we learn and find answers, so watch this space as we ​develop and nurture this new exciting channel of membership.

Anyone joining Rotary via one of our four channels is ultimately a member of ​Rotary GB&I who enjoys all the benefits and access this provides. Our different ​channels are there to attract new diverse members from different backgrounds, ​however all our channels are equally supported and no one channel is there at ​the detriment of another.

Our clubs are the bedrock of Rotary, and we encourage all clubs - if they desire - ​to continue increasing their membership and aim to sprout new clubs within ​their community whether satellite, impact, e-club, cause-based or any other.

Our Rotary Great Britain & Ireland membership train has most definitely left the ​station and our North Star aim to grow our membership to 60,000 by 2028 ​remains a key focus. It serves as a reminder of the work which collectively we all ​need to do over the coming years.

Though acquisition of new members is essential, we cannot and will not lose ​sight of our retention strategy – retaining all existing and new members so they ​continue to enjoy the amazing fellowship and service opportunities which Rotary ​provides.

This is an exciting time to be in Rotary. I feel we are in the right place at the right ​time, doing the right thing, and with the continued support of all of our ​members, we will grow Rotary successfully and sustainably within Great Britain & ​Ireland.

To contact the Enterprise team, visit: rotarygbi.org/members/north-star-​toolkit and head to the ‘Membership Offerings - Questions and Referrals’ ​section.