4 Growth Areas were identified during the 2020-2021 Rotary year. One of them was "Growing the Public Image" for all of our District 7430 clubs and helping each club to tell its Rotary stories in better and different ways.
 
Our Rotary D7430 Public Image (PI) team was formed during this year and has embraced this goal and identified four major focus areas for its efforts: 
 
  • Rotary Branding
  • Club Runner (website, newsletter, calendar - integrated functions)
  • Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and others)
  • Video
We have recruited specialists in each of these areas to join the PI Team and now have many club PI Chairs contributing and sharing in a private D7430 Facebook work group.  We welcome additional participation from any club or interested Rotarians to help share the Rotary message not only within our clubs, but especially, outside the clubs.
 

It’s important that Rotary and Rotaract clubs tell their stories in ways that help their communities understand what Rotary does and why our work matters so as to inspire others to get involved. Appointing a club public image chair can increase your success at making the club’s communications consistent and unmistakably Rotary.

Why your club should have a public image chair

When a club promotes itself and its work, they are increasing Rotary’s awareness in the community. But it’s also difficult for those club members who are organizing service projects to be responsible for marketing them too. A public image chair can help with all of that. They can manage the club’s public relations, press, and marketing in a coordinated and consistent way throughout the entire Rotary year, across projects.

What a club public image chair does

The chair is responsible for coordinating the many aspects of public image: flyers and posters,  press releases, the website, the club’s social media presence, and making sure the club logo is used properly and consistency. Ideally, the club public image chair would lead a team of motivated Rotarians working together to showcase the club and its members as "People of Action".

What qualifications are needed

The chair should be motivated and computer literate;  experience in marketing, journalism, copywriting, or digital media are big pluses. Photo or video creation and editing is a valuable skill, although these can be taught.  A PI Chair job description can be found at this link.

Available resources to help the Chair succeed

The Rotary Brand Center contains templates that are extremely helpful. 

Log into myrotary and view some of Rotary’s online public image training and resources: 

The best place to start is with the Club Public Image Committee Basics Learning Plan on the Rotary Learning Center – this 8 course plan covers the essentials such as role as public image chair, how to tell Rotary’s story to the public, ways to effectively promote your club’s projects and activities and can be effectively completed in a little over two (2) hours cumulatively.
 

Rotary’s YouTube channel — Inspiring and informational Rotary videos you can show at events

Rotary’s Flipboard — A collection of Rotary news coverage in a magazine format

If you or someone you know would like to join our Facebook conversation and benefit from our library of resources, email the D7430 PI Chair or search for "Rotary 7430 Public Image Workgroup" on Facebook and request access.  
 
Share Your Rotary Stories!  
Your D7430 Public Image Team, 2021-2022
 
Lou Bottitta (Chair), Marlene Heller, Amy Sheller, Janet Kolepp