Why a Rotary club loses new members without a website

Here's how it usually goes. Somebody meets a Rotarian at a friend's birthday and hears about a book drive, or a blood donation day, or a partner club in Ghana. They think it sounds good. That evening they type the club's name into Google on their phone.

What comes up next decides whether they ever come to a meeting.

Most of the time, in my experience, it's a Facebook page last updated two presidents ago, a listing on the district site with a phone number nobody answers, and a photo from a 2019 gala. They don't send a message. They don't really decide anything, they just don't get round to it, and a week later they've forgotten the club's name.

The club isn't losing people at the meeting

When membership falls, boards usually look at what happens in the room: the meetings run long, the dinners cost too much, the same three people do everything. That's often true. But plenty of people never get as far as the room. They drop off between "that sounds interesting" and "I'll come on Thursday," and nobody counts them because nobody ever met them.

Rotary International has been saying for years that clubs should make it easy for prospective members to find them. My Rotary even has a lead system that forwards people who fill in the "Join" form on rotary.org to the local club. Not every club knows the system is there, or checks it. And a lead that arrives with only a first name is a lot harder to turn into a guest than someone who has already read what your club does.

What a guest wants to know (it isn't your mission statement)

I've built a club site and I'm president of a Rotaract club this year, so I've watched these questions come in many times. They're nearly always practical:

• When and where do you meet? Is there a fee for dinner?
• Can I come once without committing to anything?
• What do you actually do? Not "service above self," but last month, with names and photos.
• How old are the members? Will I be the only person under 50, or over 30?
• How much are the dues?

The Four-Way Test is a fine thing, but nobody has ever joined a club because they read it on the homepage. Put it on the About page. On the homepage, show the meeting time.

What a Rotary club site needs, at minimum

You don't need forty pages. A club site that brings in members usually has five things.

1. Meeting details on the first screen

Day, time, venue with a map link, and one line on whether guests are welcome (they are, so say so). If your venue changes, update it here first and on Facebook second.

2. Projects, with dates and numbers

"We support our community" doesn't tell anyone anything. "On 14 September we planted 300 trees in the park behind the station, with 22 volunteers" does. Each project gets a short page: what, when, how many people, a few photos, and who to contact if you want to help next time. This is also the page you send to sponsors.

3. A form that goes somewhere

The form should send applications to an inbox someone actually reads, ideally a shared club address rather than the current president's personal Gmail. When the Rotaract Moscow-East site went live with a working membership form, three applications came in during the first two weeks. Before that the club had no form at all, so I can't tell you how many people had given up along the way.

4. Faces

Photos of real members at real events, with names if people are happy to share them. Stock photos of handshakes make a club look like a bank.

5. Something that survives the handover

Every July a new board comes in and half the club's knowledge leaves with the old one. A website with its own domain, logins held by the club rather than one person, and a simple way to add a project page is the closest thing a club has to a memory. I'd honestly rank this above design.

"We have a Facebook page"

So does everyone. I'm not against it. It's good for photos from last night's event, and some of your members' parents are on it. But a Facebook page doesn't rank for "Rotary club near me," it's awkward to read without an account, and it buries anything older than a fortnight. Use it alongside the site. It doesn't do the site's job.

Same with the district website. Your club is one line in a list there, often with contact details from three years ago. That's still useful. Just make sure the line links to a page your club controls.

What it costs, roughly

On my non-profit rate a one-page club site starts at €790, if you write the text yourself. Most clubs take the next package, €1,090, which is up to six pages with the copy written for you, two languages and a project section. One way to pay for it is to ask a member who runs a business to sponsor the site, and put their logo in the footer.

Whoever builds it, ask them three things. Who owns the domain? Can we add a project page without calling you? What happens to the site if you disappear? If the answers are vague, keep looking.

If you're not sure

Try this tonight. Search for your club's name the way a stranger would, on your phone, logged out of Facebook. Then try "Rotary club" plus your town. Note what you find and how long it takes to get to a meeting time. If it's under ten seconds, you're doing better than most. If it isn't, you can see what a guest sees.

Short answers