No doubt, we Rotarians are people of action! Around the world, we’re connecting with each other and third-party organizations to make impactful change. RAGCED’s goal is to help facilitate such impactful change in the form of community and economic development projects for Rotarians worldwide. To accomplish this, we’ve undertaken the following five initiatives:
#1: Summit with ESRAG at the Rotary Convention in Calgary
An important way we Rotarians are producing impactful change is through Rotary Foundation global and district grants. The problem is, they are hard to implement—a key reason there aren’t more projects. How can we make it easier to do these projects? RAGCED and ESRAG (the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group) are jointly sponsoring an all-day summit on Friday, June 20th, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, immediately before the Rotary Convention.
You and your fellow club members should attend because we’ll be discussing not only ways to create more sustainable, more impactful, and easier-to-implement economic development projects—especially ones connected to the environment—but also how to make it easier for the average Rotary Club to participate. The good news is there are literally hundreds of potential projects we can do; but the bad news is there are literally hundreds of potential projects we can do. One of our goals? Create a handful of impactful, sustainable, and easier-to-implement economic development projects. Our thinking is that with a handful of highly impactful, but easy-to-participate-in, projects, more Rotary Clubs will participate.
#2: Project with World Vision in Uganda
A perfect example of how to make it easier is the global grant project that RAGCED is implementing in Uganda, along with World Vision. In total, this will be a $780,000 USD project to implement village savings groups. It’s a huge project, so how could this possibly make it easier for the average club? It’s easier because we’ve divided the project into 13 portions of $30,000 USD each. A club or district can commit to a single portion. The administration is being handled. All your club needs to do is contribute money and/or DDF. We take care of the rest!
This is a great example of providing Rotary Clubs a way of being part of a highly impactful project without having to do a huge amount of administrative work. We hope to get more projects like this done in the future.
#3: Making It Easier for Individual Rotarians and Clubs to Connect
When an individual, club, or district decides it wants to get involved, how else can we make it easier? RAGCED is working on three additional ways to make it easier to get involved:
(a) By Creating Non-English Speaking Clubs
Like so much of Rotary, RAGCED has been English-language-centric for a long time. How do we make it easier for those who speak another language? By creating language chapters. Recently, we chartered our first Spanish-speaking chapter in Latin America, and we’re about to do the same for French. We have plans for chapters focused on Portuguese, Arabic, and other languages. In short, we don’t want language to get in the way.
(b) By Connecting with District International Service Chairs in Each District
Many Rotary districts around the world have International Service Chairs (DISCs). Under the leadership of Robin Steele, RAGCED is seeking to connect with each of the International Service Chairs around the world to help facilitate connections with local clubs.
(c) Through Our Ambassador Program
At the same time, RAGCED’s Membership Committee, under the direction of PDG Peter Verbeeck, is appointing RAGCED Ambassadors. Each Ambassador is a Rotarian who can provide information, including programs, about the work of RAGCED at the district level. If you’d like to connect with an Ambassador or look into being one, please contact PDG Peter at rotarianpeterv@gmail.com.
#4: Rotary IT Fellowship
A key aspect of economic development is vocational training. How can RAGCED make it easier for clubs and districts to get involved in vocational training? One of the strategic initiatives of RAGCED this past year has been to sponsor the creation of the Rotary Fellowship for Information Technology Professionals. RAGCED did this in part to help foster vocational training. The IT Fellowship has initiated a series of training courses on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. These courses are a key element of economic development.
If you are an IT professional, or you know someone in the field seeking additional training, I encourage you to visit their website at itrotaryfellowship.org.
#5: ProofHub Software Platform
Lastly, to help improve the service we offer to Rotary Clubs and districts in developing global and district grants, RAGCED is implementing a new software platform called ProofHub. We believe this will make it easier for us to do a better job of tracking projects.
The leadership of RAGCED believes each one of these initiatives will make it easier for Rotarians either to undertake or get involved in high-quality, impactful economic development projects. To learn more about this, please visit ragced.org.