The Costs of Digital

Digital metrics promise a deceptively rosy picture: increased attendance, broader membership demographics, and streamlined project management. But these numbers mask how technology reshapes club culture away from Rotary's core mission of fostering fellowship as a basis for service. When members interact primarily through screens instead of handshakes and hugs, the vocational service and ethical business relationships that Rotary was founded upon become harder to develop and maintain.

The Four-Way Test and "Service Above Self" have guided Rotary for generations, asking us to consider the truth, fairness, and mutual benefit of our actions while building goodwill and better friendships. Yet in our rush to gain members through digital transformation, we risk undermining these foundational principles that have made Rotary a beacon of service for over a century.

The dangers are subtle but significant. As clubs embrace hybrid meetings, Zoom sessions and digital platforms, we risk diluting Rotary's fundamental emphasis on personal relationships and high ethical standards in business and community life. The classification system, designed to ensure diverse professional perspectives within each club, loses its networking value when spontaneous professional exchanges are replaced by scheduled online interactions.

As we use these new digital tools, we mustn't abandon our first principles. The challenge isn't to reject modernization but to ensure it enhances rather than replaces the ideals of truth, fairness, goodwill, and mutual benefit. Technology must serve these principles, not override them. Without this alignment, we risk creating clubs that may be more accessible yet ultimately less aligned with Rotary's foundational values—technically connected but ethically and socially diminished.