RAISING AWARENESS

A PR grant can be a powerful tool to boost Rotary’s public image and generate interest in your district’s clubs and community service projects
After a 2008 survey revealed a low level of awareness about Rotary in France, the country’s 18 district governors decided to work together for change. The result was a full week in March 2009 of coordinated billboards, radio, advertising, press briefings, membership outreach efforts, and more.
To have every Rotary club in Zone 11 take on a communications project at the same time as a national multimedia communications project was kind of “crazy,” said Alain Marulier, the zone’s Public Image Resource Group coordinator.
The US$288,000 campaign was funded by each district, Le Rotarien magazine, and PR grants from Rotary International ($8,500 per district, for a total of $153,000).
Marulier, a past district governor and former president of Le Rotarien, said one of the keys to the campaign’s success was that clubs could choose the projects most appropriate for their communities and receive professionally designed tools at no cost. Nearly half the Rotary clubs in France participated.
As a result, the zone has seen a 30 percent increase in views to its website and many calls from people wanting to know more about Rotary. The districtsrepeated the coordinated effort last month, with even more clubs participating.
In 2009-10, RI awarded $2 million in PR grants to districts around the world. Looking for ideas for your district? Here are a few more successful projects:
In India, District 3212 published an eight-page color supplement in the Hindu, a newspaper with a circulation of 1.45 million. The January 2009 supplement featured materials from Humanity in Motion and www.rotary.org. “Rotarians, even veteran ones, appreciated the wealth of information contained in the supplement,” said Satheesh Kumar, 2008-09 public image chair for the district.
In New Zealand, District 9910 localized Humanity in Motion images by adding district contact information to billboards. The district, which also covers New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, and Vanuatu, also landed free advertising in all bus shelters in New Zealand’s populous Auckland Region.