Dave Curry
Concept Eleven - Truly Diversifying Your Club - good souls
make good Kiwanians
We have all watched as "good Kiwanians" have left
our organization over the years. They leave for various reasons,
but for many it is because their experience of Kiwanis is
not meeting a personal need. We are quick to jump onto the
"we're not doing enough" bandwagon, which is partially
true, but what if we are sponsoring people who are joining
us for reasons other than being a humanitarian?
If I were to ask you what is the true spirit of our organization,
what would you say - local service, sponsored youth, humanitarian
efforts, a specific district program? All of these are true
and all offer an opportunity to serve if an individual is
interested. We have enough opportunities to serve, but we
need to sponsor individuals who are interested in that service.
In essence, we have all tried in our local clubs to encourage
other members, who seem not interested, to be involved in
community efforts. This disheartens both them and us. We need
to enhance our sponsoring focus by encouraging sponsorship
of the types of individuals that will immediately be drawn
to the programs we offer. And we can expand to new programs
when we expand our humanitarian ranks.
We're not talking about "pre-judging" folks. We
all know of individuals who became more humanitarian focused
after they joined us, but what I am encouraging is a new sensitivity
in our sponsorship efforts to make a special effort to also
bring in those individuals that we know who have good souls.
If approached right it also changes the dynamics of the sponsorship
"event". In essence if you tell an individual, whether
they join or not, that you are asking them to join because
you know they are a good soul and tell them specifically why
you feel that way, it becomes a very pleasant experience for
both of you.
Let me use a specific example. Four individuals in a row,
that I had sponsored, all left the organization within two
years. I got tired of sponsoring folks that were not interested
in what we were about, what we offered. So, the next four
individuals that I sponsored were based entirely on their
generosity with time or money in other efforts, and I told
them so. Those four individuals are not only still in our
club, the first one is District Administrator for Circle K,
the second is our Immediate Past President, third just finished
as Club Secretary, and the last is our President Elect. They
were interested in serving.
One more thing - and this is important, work with others
to bring in six. I need to digress for a moment and insert
one thought on the dynamics of diversification, whether to
good souls, younger members, gender, or any other diversification
that a club desires. I will use gender as an example, but
the concept applies equally to any type of diversification
desired. When our club decided to start accepting women members,
we had some long time members threaten to leave. Our club
President, Ken Baze, was undaunted and he and I decided to
make the transition as comfortable and welcoming as possible.
So, we encouraged the membership to get involved with a special
meeting soly for bringing in women members. This would create
an environment where the new members were not a "novelty",
and would immediately feel a part of our club. After that
meeting, six women joined our club, and as the others had
threatened, five members left. This was not only a net gain
of one, but this diversification has benefited our club many
times over. This same group sponsoring applies to humanitarians
as easily as to age or gender diversification.
Here are some additional considerations:
· Personal sensitivity to the concept is critical before
leading others. Practice what you preach.
· Training membership of the importance of a humanitarian
focus on member sponsorship and giving them ideas on how to
approach sponsoring is an education effort and is a vital
part of this concept.
· Don't discourage the regular sponsorship of anyone.
Being a humanitarian is a decision that has already been made,
or will be made in the future. Lets also grow humanitarians
in our organization.
Sometimes the most effective leadership is selling others
on looking at, and then changing, the dynamics of our organizations
core efforts. Our core is not only about serving the children
of the world, but also about finding others to join us in
that spirit of service.
For more information contact:
Name: Dave Curry
Address: 1204 W Woolman
 Butte,
MT 59701
Phone: (406) 723-8067
email: Dave Curry
Previous Concept Letter
| Next Concept Letter | List
of Letters
|
