3 tools to reverse membership losses

3 tools to reverse membership losses

Jan 27, 2025 | Club building, General interest | 0 comments

These ACE resources provide answers for Kiwanis clubs that are losing people. 

By Tony Knoderer

Clubs lose members. It’s a fact of life. People move away or their jobs become more demanding — or other circumstances arise that don’t necessarily signal a lack of interest. But when a Kiwanis club is losing more members than it’s gaining, the reasons are usually larger than these individual causes.

The good news: Kiwanis International offers resources that can help reverse membership losses. In fact, three of our Achieving Club Excellence (ACE) tools are designed for your club to build a culture that keeps members engaged:

  • Member survey. What makes the club experience valuable for members? With this tool, specific questions and activities can help your club find the answers — and provide the kind of experience that inspires people to stay. 
  • Club vision. What does your club do, and why does it exist? This tool helps your club create a vision that guides its leaders and inspires its members. And that helps make everyone more enthusiastic about persuading other people to join.  
  • Club excellence plan. In addition to vision, your club needs shorter-term goals and milestones that help members see the progress they’re making. This tool helps create them, along with a plan to reach them. 

Don’t forget: All these resources can be found on the ACE tools webpage, which includes other common concerns clubs face — and pairs them with the tools that help address those issues. 

Microgrants help kids get ahead 

Microgrants help kids get ahead 

Jan 24, 2025 | General interest, Kiwanis Children's Fund, Service projects | 0 comments

From October through December, smaller clubs made a big impact through the Kiwanis Children’s Fund.

By Erin Chandler

In October, November and December 2024, Kiwanis clubs around the world received Kiwanis Children’s Fund microgrants. Available for clubs with 35 members or fewer, microgrants recently helped clubs complete projects that brought clothing and other essential items to people facing weather adversity, books to community libraries and classrooms, and more. These projects might be smaller in scale, but they will make a big impact. The following three projects highlight some of the ways Kiwanis clubs are using microgrants to help young people in need keep up with their peers in the Kiwanis cause areas of education and literacy, health and nutrition, and youth leadership development.  

Health and nutrition
Kids’ Fun Zone
The Kiwanis Club of the Coast Fork, Oregon, U.S., plans to promote the physical and emotional health of some of the most vulnerable kids in their community. A Children’s Fund microgrant will help purchase a swing set, sandbox, monkey bars and more play equipment for a local center that serves people recovering from homelessness. Club members will take part in installing and inspecting the equipment. The “Kids’ Fun Zone” will let the kids at the center play, exercise and socialize in a safe and stable environment.  

Education and literacy
Library and reading center
Many students at Escuelo Nuevo Belén in Panama feel the effects of their community’s high poverty rate in their educational attainment — some struggle with reading and writing, while others never complete their primary or secondary education. By transforming part of the school into a library and learning center, the Kiwanis Club of El Águila De Panamá hopes to change approximately 2,500 of these students’ futures. A Children’s Fund microgrant will help to remodel the space, with new tables, chairs, bookshelves and other furnishings. The club also plans to clean and paint, install new lighting and air conditioning, purchase books and train teachers and volunteers to jumpstart kids’ love of reading and learning.  

Youth leadership development
Suited Seniors
When the Kiwanis Club of Duluth-Norcross, Georgia, U.S., learned that students who lack financial resources and mentorship are less likely to pursue career opportunities requiring interviews, they did something about it. In partnership with local businesses, the club will donate professional clothing items for approximately 50 students across five local high schools. They will also organize workshops on interview techniques, résumé writing, personal branding, goal-setting and other tactics to build students’ confidence and readiness as they enter the next phase of their lives. 

How you can help  
To learn more about Kiwanis Children’s Fund microgrants, visit kiwanis.org/microgrant-program.    

If you want to help the Children’s Fund provide grants like these that reach children around the world, you can make a gift to The Possibility Project. Your club can also apply for a grant to help kids in your community today.  

Telling your club’s Kiwanis story 

Telling your club’s Kiwanis story 

Jan 17, 2025 | Club building, General interest, Service projects | 0 comments

There are many ways to show how your club serves kids — and we have resources to help. 

By Tony Knoderer

Facts and figures have their uses. But when it comes to showing what it’s like to be a Kiwanis member, you can’t beat the simple act of sharing the experience. Every time you do, you’re telling a story about what Kiwanis service means — to the kids who benefit from it and the members who provide it. 

In fact, storytelling is the most effective way to inspire and inform people. But what does it mean to tell your Kiwanis club’s story?  

It happens whenever you help people understand what Kiwanis is like — when you talk about your club with another person or in a presentation to a group or community leader, but also when you’re simply sharing photos of a service project on social media.   

It’s important — and that’s why Kiwanis International has resources to help. Check out “Tips and Tools to Tell the Kiwanis Story,” our downloadable booklet with best practices for everything from messaging and public relations to photography, social media and more. 

It’s just one of the resources we make available on our branding and marketing webpage.  

Remember: Whenever you communicate about your club and its service with people outside Kiwanis, you’re telling the Kiwanis story. And it’s the kind of story people want to be part of — because it’s about changing children’s lives, improving communities and giving members a sense of fellowship.