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‘SERVICE VERSUS FUNDRAISING’

Article by ARC PDG Doug St Clair

There is no doubt that Rotary clubs need to raise funds and have a source of annual income to survive.
Often our service projects require seed funding and we also have causes such as our Polio Plus program,
our drought appeal or even supporting a Youth Exchange student. Some “easy” sources of income are
Local Council Grants and the Gambling Community Benefit Fund (in Queensland but probably existing
in other jurisdictions) and to a lesser extent District and Global Grants. Of course, there is always the Bunnings
BBQs.

Many clubs have a long history of donating funds, often towards the end of the Rotary year, to a range of worthy
causes and even sometimes to other charities. This is fine and makes us feel good and enhances our respect within
the community. Rotary, however, is a service organisation, not a fund raising organisation and if half the effort we
spend on devising ways to raise funds and then carrying out the fundraising activities was put into community
service I think we would quickly begin to gain even more respect within the community and see a positive influence
on our membership numbers.
I’m not suggesting you “scrap” the Bunnings BBQ but it’s probably going to be a lot easier to invite prospective
members to a clean-up day in the local park or painting a local hall than working at a sausage sizzle. I personally
enjoy the latter but if I were considering joining or new to a club, I’d want to know what else there was to satisfy my
need to serve.
I know that many of you have heard this before but I still keep running into clubs and members who get really
hooked on coming up with ways to raise funds for their club and don’t spend an equal amount of time or more on
working out what service projects they can achieve.

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Rotary on the Move September 2020 Page 6