I don’t use PowerPoint. In the Pacific Northwest I used a flip chart, and I drew a ladder, because a ladder is a shape I can draw and everybody already knows what it’s for.

One side of the ladder is attraction. In North America our attraction rate is 15.3 percent.

The other side is attrition. Ours is 16.7 percent.

That’s it. One and a half points, give or take.

It doesn’t look like a crisis on a chart, and that’s exactly why it’s been allowed to run for years. It’s the silent killer. It sneaks up on you like your wedding anniversary and then arrives all at once.

Net Is the Word Everyone Skips

Our board has set a goal of 25,000 net members on the way to Chicago and 1.25 million Rotarians.

Every time I say 25,000 to a room, people hear: go find 25,000 people.

That isn’t what net means. With attrition where it is, netting 25,000 means recruiting far more than that and watching the difference walk out the back door while you do it.

You can run the best membership drive of your life and finish the year flat. Plenty of clubs have. Most of them concluded they’d failed at recruiting.

They didn’t. They succeeded at recruiting and lost at arithmetic.

Engagement Is Real, and It Isn’t Enough

You’re going to hear a lot about irresistible clubs and engagement, and I believe in every word of it. It belongs at the top of the ladder.

But I want to be honest about its ceiling.

Nothing you can design will out-engage a life event.

I have to take care of my father. My job changed. We’re moving one county over.

You can’t make your meeting good enough to beat that. Clubs that try end up blaming themselves for something that was never a quality problem.

So split attrition in two.

Uncontrollable attrition is death and felonies. That’s the list. That’s all of it.

Controllable attrition is everything else. And everything else is most of it.

An Individual Engagement Plan

When I described what I was building at home, I got told it sounded like an IEP. An individual engagement plan, for the member most at risk of walking out.

That’s exactly what it is.

So sit down with that person and ask a different question. Not how do we keep you, which is about us.

Ask: at this moment in your life, what does Rotary look like for you for the next six months? Can I build that?

You can. That’s the entire point of having rungs. A ladder isn’t about promotion. It’s about making sure there’s always something between a member and the door.

Why This Counts Twice

One more thing, because most of us were never told this part.

There are 34 zones in the Rotary world and 17 directors on the board. The only thing that determines how those seats get allocated is membership. Not foundation giving. Not service hours. Not good works.

Membership, and membership alone.

In 1905 North America was 100 percent of Rotary. We’re now about 25 percent. Seven years ago this region held seven seats in that boardroom. We’re heading into four.

I’m not telling you that to frighten anybody.

When we talk about growing your club, we’re usually talking about your community, and that’s right. That’s the reason that matters most.

Just know it counts twice.