Membership Information

Rotarians are business and professional leaders who take an active role in their communities while greatly enriching their personal and professional lives. A Rotary club contains a diverse group of professional leaders from the community that the club serves.

Membership in a Rotary club offers a number of benefits:

• effecting change within the community;

• advancing business and professional contacts;

• developing leadership skills;

• gaining an understanding of — and having an impact on — international humanitarian issues.

Through Rotary's service programs, a Rotary club can have a significant effect on the quality of life in its community. Rotary Foundation programs offer opportunities to form international partnerships that help people in need worldwide.Some 1.2 million Rotarians in 30,000 clubs in more than 160 countries make significant contributions to the quality of life at home and around the globe.

Resources for Prospective Members

To find out more about Rotary's rich history and the organization's mission and structure, see What Is Rotary?. Recent issues of The Rotarian spotlight Rotary club projects that promote literacy, provide disaster relief, support Rotary's global effort to eradicate polio, and address other critical community and world issues.

Rotary membership is by invitation only. If you would like to learn more about the Rotary club in your community and its various service projects, contact a local Rotary club or surf the Internet for the many Rotary websites.

Becoming a Rotarian

An association of some 30,000 autonomous clubs in more than 160 countries, Rotary International is one of the world's largest service organizations.The goal for a club's membership is an up-to-date and progressive representation of the community's business, vocational, and professional interests.

An important distinction between Rotary and other organizations is that membership in Rotary is by invitation. Rotary clubs invite individuals to join and become members.

Membership is vital to a Rotary club's operations and community service activities. A primary goal of the club is to continually expand the club with committed members who have the interest and ability to get involved in service and humanitarian projects.Prospective members must:

• hold — or be retired from — a professional, proprietary, executive, or managerial position;

• have the capacity to meet the club's weekly attendance or community project participation requirements;

• live or work within the locality of the club or the surrounding area.

The Membership Process

Often a person being considered for membership is invited by a member/sponsor to attend one or more club meetings to learn more about Rotary.The sponsor may then submit the name of the candidate to the club's membership committee.

An individual who is interested in membership but doesn't know any Rotarians can contact the local club directly. Some Rotary clubs maintain an office and may be listed in your telephone directory.Other resources include a Rotary club in an adjoining community, the local chamber of commerce, the public library, or other non-profit service organizations.

Rotary uses a classification system to establish and maintain a vibrant cross-section or representation of the community's business, vocational, and professional interests among members and to develop a pool of resources and expertise to successfully implement service projects. This system is based on the founders' paradigm of choosing cross-representation of each business, profession, and institution within a community.

A classification describes either the principal business or the professional service of the organization that the Rotarian works for or the Rotarian's own activity within the organization.Some examples of classifications include: high schools, universities, eye surgery, banking, pharmaceutical-retailing, petroleum-distribution, and insurance agency.

Benefits of Rotary

Rotary membership provides the opportunity to:

• become connected to your community;

• work with others in addressing community needs;

• interact with other professionals in your community;

• assist with RI's international humanitarian service efforts;

• establish contacts with an international network of professionals;

• develop leadership skills;

• involve family in promoting service efforts.