As we focus on the future for district 5030, one area of opportunity for our success lies with embracing our vocational legacy. It is a cornerstone of Rotary’s rich legacy that has ultimately underpinned our relevance and value to the communities we serve. In fact, the first initial years of Rotary’s history was driven by business engagement, which fueled its massive growth in those formative years. However, in the US, over the years this aspect of our service has dwindled in interest amongst our members with the reality that our connection to the business and professional world has slipped.
When you look to other parts of the world within Rotary, especially those areas where Rotary is growing dramatically, you will see that vocational service is at the core of the club’s activities. In India and the continent of Africa, they have encouraged and fostered the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise with the goal of leveraging Rotary’s high ethical standards in business and professions to encourage their members to embrace service. The results speak for themselves in terms of the clubs and Rotarians flocking to join them in these parts of the world.
Why then do we struggle with this idea in the US? There are many reasons, but in the end, I think it came down to the simple fact that many clubs eschewed the idea of service across a Rotarian’s personal, business, and community life. Some clubs even fined members for engaging in opportunities to discuss their business with other Rotarians to the detriment of the club’s influence within the business community. A shame in hindsight as we lost people who could have offered us much in terms of leadership, engagement, and financial support for our service activities.
However, there is good evidence that all is not lost when it comes to vocational service. We now see a massive trend toward people looking for meaning in their lives, especially where they can align their values to something greater than their work lives. These individuals represent Rotarians in the making. By highlighting our desire to seek service above self, there is no reason why our clubs cannot be the destination for these individuals looking to make a difference beyond themselves.
At the district level we are looking to capture this audience by advancing international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service. This represents one of our five strategic imperatives outlined in our 3-year plan to embrace our vocational legacy. We are going to pursue goals that allow us to encourage our Rotarians to:
- Talk about their profession in their clubs and take time to learn about fellow members’ occupations.
- Find ways to use their skills and expertise to serve a community.
- Practice their profession with integrity and inspire others to behave ethically through their words and actions.
- Mentor young people to achieve their career goals, specifically by supporting DECA and other similar programs engaging high school students.
- Guide and encourage others in their professional development.
In support of this effort, the district vocational team will be involved with or launching key initiatives that will support the strategic goal for our vocational legacy. For instance, we have launched our leadership program RISE (Rotarians Inspired to Succeed and Engage) Mentorship Program with excellent support from its participants.
We also plan to launch a series of thought leadership programs that will bring topical business leaders to speak to audiences about their journey and involvement with Rotary. Finally, we are also going to encourage corporate clubs through our Philanthropy in a Box initiative that melds the infrastructure of Rotary with a businesses’ employees who are looking for meaning in their lives.
As you can see, we have a lot of opportunities to make vocational service a vibrant and critical part of our clubs’ activities. By doing so, we can Awaken to the Extraordinary Opportunity of Rotary, where we once again align our business, personal and service lives to truly make Rotary an impactful and relevant destination for a new audience wanting to find service beyond themselves.
Chris Boland, Vocational Chair for District 5030
