Taking Rotary to the Public

The Public Relations teams are active with every District Governor appointing a PR team with a chairman, co-chairman and members. They are taking advantage of every opportunity to introduce Rotary to the public by making sure club or district activities like service projects, Rotary Days or recognition of teachers on Teachers Day are published in local newspapers along with the photographs and also make use of the social media such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to publicise the good that Rotary does.

Coordinators and assistants are busy addressing Rotarians at various district, multi-district and city forums to inform and educate them about the available visual identity guidelines and the importance of brand building, new logo and to maintain a uniform voice in telling our Rotary story.

Rotary Public Image Coordinator (RPIC) Sam Patibandla addressed the Rotarians of District 3020 on August 10, 2014 at Visakhapatnam at the District Membership Seminar and he stressed on the significance of effective public relations, creating Rotary awareness that would enhance membership growth.

He also had an opportunity to address Rotarians of District 3201 at Cochin on August 30, 2014 where he got a boost from the chief guest RID P.T. Prabhakar  to encourage and motivate the Rotarians to talk about all the good things we do in Rotary, either at club level, district level or national level. The features of Rotary Club Central, the new RI tool, were discussed and clubs were requested to positively register with Rotary Club Central by October 31, 2014.

ARPIC P.M. Bhansali addressed intercity forums at Bangalore and Kundapur and the importance of enhancing public image to membership growth was emphasised.

A few of the Indian corporate houses are actively participating in improving the communities around as  part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Now the Indian Government has mandated that at least two percent of the average net profit made during the immediately preceding three financial years, with certain conditions, must be spent on CSR projects. This is an opportunity for us to associate ourselves with corporate houses to introduce Rotary to the business world and to combine our expertise with their funding to implement much bigger projects which would result in the much needed Rotary awareness.

Coordinators and assistant coordinators are approaching various business houses in their locality with presentations and we have started feeling the impact.

ARPIC Dr. Pattabhi Ramaiah has successfully tied up M/s KCP Ltd., with Rotary clubs of Vuyyuru, ­Challapalli and Kuchipudi in District 3020 to provide 2,000 tree guards at ₹ 2,000 each for a total cost of ₹ 40 lakhs. Rotarians will plant trees along National Highways 9 and 214 and protect them with tree guards with Rotary name printed on its three sides, on the entire stretch of 150 km.

Dr. Pattabhi and DG Mohan Prasad were also successful in convincing ONGC to join hands with Rotarians from Rotary clubs of Rajahmundry, Rajahmundry River City, ­Kakinada, Kakinada Golden Jubilee and ­Amalapuram in District 3020 to adopt 20 villages to make them ‘Happy ­Villages’ at a cost of ₹50 lakhs.

Rotary clubs of Vijayawada, ­Vijayawada Midtown and Vijayawada Central in District 3020 have adopted and would maintain traffic islands in Vijayawada. Rotary would be highlighted in the form of boards bearing the Rotary club’s name displayed prominently at each traffic island.

ARPIC V.G. Nayanar is negotiating with PVS Hospitals, part of KTC group, a leading industrial house in Kerala and they have shown interest to work with Rotary in one of our focus areas — ­disease prevention and treatment.

We are publishing ‘Reflections,’ a monthly e-bulletin edited by ARPIC Dr. Ulhas Kolhatkar with articles and messages from senior leadership, RID P.T. Prabhakar, RIDE Manoj Desai and RPICs with snapshots of public relations activities from Rotary districts across the country.

Brand Strength leads to membership increase which in turn leads to increased Foundation giving that would enable performance of significant projects by Rotary clubs that would have a great impact on the communities, which again helps us to strengthen our brand. Success builds on success. PR exercise should be a very important part of Rotary activities as it is a chain process.

“Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad,” says the successful business magnate, Richard Branson. Our PR excercise would be such as to make Rotary a house-hold name.

With inputs from PDG Sam Patibandla, RPIC Zone 5