In recent years Rotary has created a set of membership categories aimed at helping our clubs grow and, at the same time, meet the needs of the individual Rotarians we wish to attract.
The Corporate Membership is one such category. This article will help explain what a corporate membership is and how it can be implemented by your club.
For every new class of membership, whether it be traditional, Corporate, Family, Passport or Global Passport, they are all based on the principal started in 1905 by Paul Harris that individuals are the core of our organization. Every member must be an individual.
So how does a "Corporate Member" fit into this definition? It boils down to how the club wants to set it's parameters as defined by two prevailing models as detailed in this document.
In general, a Corporate Membership can mean that
- A single person has joined with an RI member registration and he or she may be represented at the club meeting by his or her self or by somebody else from the same corporation, or
- Multiple people have joined the club as individual members from the same business.
Within those broad definitions, adopted by the club board, there are questions related to attendance and dues paying. For example, a club may decide under Model A that the club bills the corporation for the dues and/or meals for one member and whoever shows up at the meeting from that company is covered.
In the case of Model B maybe the club decides to give an across-the-board discount to dues for multiple members from the same company. In this case, the club board would have to understand that a dues discount would not apply to district or international dues and that subsidies that this class would get would be offset by more money other club members would pay to balance their books.
In the end, clubs can define membership categories and how members of those categories will pay club, District and Rotary International dues based on their individual member count. At the same time, clubs are free to invent or comply with any definition of membership category they wish as long as in the end both District 6330 and Rotary International provided with individual member names.