Tips for Raising Your Club's Profile

  1. Be active on Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t already, set up accounts with both social platforms. Include a few basics about your club—what Rotary is, when and where you meet, the service projects you’ve done over the past few years, and how to reach your membership chair or Club President.  Feature pictures of club members working on projects; as much as possible, show a variety of people (age, gender, race. Ask all your members to follow your club on Facebook and Instagram.
  2. Make your club website attractive to the public.  You can improve the visual appeal of your website homepage through short, bold headlines and big photographs; if using ClubRunner, choose a homepage template that features prominent visuals. Include links to follow-on pages where you can tell stories about your club and its activities through summary copy and photo galleries.
  3. Keep your website up to date. Make sure to post information about up-coming events/projects, and follow-up immediately after with stories about them, and those who benefit by them.
  4. Ask your members to help spread the word. Send emails to club members with summaries of club stories, asking them to post these on their social media pages.
  5. Post frequently on community Facebook groups. Every week or two, post brief updates and photos of club events, with links to the stories and photo galleries on your website.
  6. Write short articles about upcoming events and service projects. Include quotes from club members telling why they’re excited about the event/project and what it means to them.  Send these as press releases to your community newspaper, area magazine and radio station, as well as websites that cover local events. Make sure to include an offer for someone in your club to speak with a reporter.  Follow up with a call to the editor.
  7. Write follow-up articles. Include quotes from your club President about the success of your recent event/ service project, and from event attendees/project participants about their experiences.  Include 2-3 high resolution photos.
  8. Use action shots in your articles and posts. Show event and project participants having fun while doing something worthwhile. Avoid staged group shots—the public is not interested in seeing a line-up of people saying “cheese” or holding a giant check.
  9. Embrace an issue. Take a stand on something your members and your community care deeply about, such as education, social justice, or the environment. Partner with like-minded people and organizations to raise awareness and effect change where needed.
  10. Write letters-to-the-editor.  Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper thanking everyone who helped make your event/service project a success. Mention how much money your event raised, and the good work you’ll do with it, or how much you accomplished in your service project.
  11. Build relationships with the editors of local media. Thank them for their support if you write a letter-to-the-editor. Ask them out for coffee once or twice a year and talk about what your club is doing and the issue you are focused on; suggest ideas for issue-base articles and offer to write them.  Invite them to come to your club and speak about their paper/magazine/station, and plans they have for the year.  And always thank them, profusely, for every story or interview they run.
  12. Set-up Rotary information booths at community events. Make sure your booth has prominent visuals featuring club service projects. Include printed materials about your club or a QR code to your website that interested prospects can take away. Staff the booth with outgoing club members who can talk about what the club does and why they love being part of Rotary.