Service is at the heart of who we are as Rotarians, but the real magic happens when more of our members get involved. One of Rotary International’s priority goals this year focuses not on how many service projects we complete, but on how many of our members participate in them. District Action Plan Champion Bill Harvey explains what the Service Participation goal means, why it matters, and how your club can help District 5650 reach our goal.
This month we are covering Service Participation as one of the priority goals for clubs to work toward as identified by Rotary International.
This goal measures the number of unique members who participate in service projects. We are counting members rather than hours for this particular goal, and every member counts just once.
For example, you are a terrific and dedicated Rotarian, and you participate in 12 different service projects sponsored by your club throughout the Rotary year. You count as one Service Participant. Another Rotarian was only able to participate in one service project during the Rotary year. That member also counts as one Service Participant. The hope, of course, is to have every Rotarian in your Club participate in at least one service project during the year. Sometimes that is not feasible, but we all want to see as many Rotarians as possible out getting their hands dirty with the various good works that the Club is doing.
A great suggestion to keep track of this is to print a list of your members at the beginning of the Rotary year and check them off as they participate in projects throughout the year. If you add members during the year, add them to the list so you can check them off as well when they participate in service projects.
Our District Goal is to see Service Participation from 1,000 Rotarians (out of 1,574 Rotarians in the District) during this Rotary year. That means that we need to have 64% of Rotarians in the District participate in service projects one time during the year to meet this goal. We’d like to see your club target 75% (3/4) so that we have some room for clubs that don’t quite make it to the goal. If you have questions, or need help adjusting your service
participation goal to a number that is 75% of your active members, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks so much for everything you do for your Club and for Rotary!
Bill Harvey
Rotary District 5650 Action Plan Champion 2026-2027
District Governor 2027-2028
Bill.Harvey@RotaryDistrict5650.org
Cell (call or text): 402-676-5551