Rotary Clubs Recapture Their Glory Days, Just Not in the US
Despite declining interest among Americans, commitment to service and fellowship is driving membership growth among professionals in India.
Every Tuesday around 8 p.m., Kamal Sanghvi meets with fellow business leaders from across Dhanbad, India. High on the agenda is community service. Club members discuss the wide range of local programs they run, including a blood bank, a prosthetic limb center and a school for special-needs children. “There’s so many of these projects that everyone is involved in something,” he says.
Sanghvi and his cohort are members of Rotary International, the global service organization. Founded in Chicago more than a century ago as a fellowship of civic-minded professionals, Rotary has been fading in popularity for decades in the US. But in India people are clamoring to join: Membership in the country has more than doubled since 2005, to approximately 164,000. In the US it’s fallen 29% over the same period, to 272,000.