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OCR for page 216
Page 216
The Role of Nongovernmental Approaches
to Business Development
Eileen S.Vergino
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Rotary was established in the early part of the twentieth century
by Paul Harris in Evanston, Illinois, as an organization to bring
leaders from the business community together to share fellowship,
friendship, and business strategies through the ideal of community
service, that is, “Service Above Self.” Rotary has
grown to be an international organization, operating in more than
90 countries worldwide. It contributes to projects ranging from
polio eradication to fellowships for graduate students in peace
negotiation and conflict resolution to group study exchanges
bringing together business leaders from different countries to
share strategies for business development and growth. All of these
efforts are supported through private contributions and foundation
monies raised from the members, not through any governmental
support programs.
We, the communities of Livermore and Snezhinsk, have been working
to bring Rotary to Snezhinsk, as an outgrowth of our sister city
relationship. Livermore and Snezhinsk are the third U.S.-Russian
nuclear sister city pair. Obninsk and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and
Sarov and Los Alamos, New Mexico, have been sister cities since the
mid-1990s. Livermore and Snezhinsk officially became sister cities
in 1998. The objective of our project was to work with the city
officials and business personnel in the city of Snezhinsk to
establish a Rotary Club, promoting community service and service to
youth in Snezhinsk. This effort was launched at the request of the
Russian side and was included in an agreement signed by Mayor
Oplanchuk and Mayor Cathie Brown in 1998, with the project to be
implemented through the organization Women of ZATO (Closed
Administrative-Territorial Zones) and the newly formed Snezhinsk
Club
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of Social Initiatives. Also involved in the project was the Livermore
Rotary Club, whose members were to help the group in Snezhinsk to
charter a new Rotary Club in their city. Community service is a
cornerstone of Rotary, and citizens in both cities support the concept
of promoting community service through the organization. Rotary is an
international service organization that provides linkages for its
members, leaders in their respective business communities, to the
greater professional community worldwide. We, in both cities, believe
that Rotary will serve as the cornerstone to foster greater
relationship between the youth of both cities, as well as a foundation
for other municipal activities.
In addition to forming the Rotary Club, we worked with the Women of
ZATO to develop and deliver women's leadership and entrepreneurship
training. Women in Russia, and in particular in the nuclear closed
cities and the scientific community, have not had the opportunity to
participate in leadership opportunities, either in the community or in
the workplace. However, with the expected changing employment
situation in the city of Snezhinsk, specifically the transition of
workers from the Federal Nuclear Center to the private sector, there
will be a great need for people, and particularly women, who are
typically underserved, to be prepared for the transition. We envision
that both efforts will encourage the citizens of Snezhinsk to help
develop, strengthen, contribute to, and utilize local community
resources to improve their quality of life and promote community
stability.
It is important to understand that Rotary is not a missionary
organization. In addition, the Russian Consul General in Seattle has
stated that the Russian government supports the extension of Rotary
into Russia, as they support the organization's ideals, believe in the
goal of community service, and feel that Rotary will promote business
exchange and understanding.
Sponsoring a new club requires approximately two or three years of
effort. A Russian charter club president needs to be identified and a
Russian city club needs to be selected for cosponsorship. Of course,
e-mail is most helpful in this regard. In the past, U.S. clubs have
sponsored their Russian counterpart presidents to attend district
conferences as a way of getting better acquainted with the
organization and its operations.
The next steps include identifying a friendship group, establishing a
regular time and place for meetings, and registering the organization
legally with the Russian government. Regular meetings should be held
with new members to review the manual and related procedures. Sponsor
training is also helpful in this regard. A club should have at least
20 members to be effective, and it also needs a worthy project on
which to focus its efforts. Youth exchanges are one possible idea.
In the next stage the new club should develop a three-year plan,
identifying key activities and setting deadlines for accomplishing
them.
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The plan should also aid in club fundraising efforts, possibly
involving attracting local sponsors. Approximately $35 per year per
member is needed, or about $3,000 per year total. These funds are used
to send club presidents to conferences and to purchase books, pins,
banners, a bell, and office supplies. Possible fundraising ideas
include selling Russian arts and crafts, promoting tours, or holding
children's art competitions or other events. A Rotary grant could be
used for a particular project, and U.S. counterparts could provide
advice on funding sources and help to develop plans for future joint
projects.
Unfortunately, Rotary is still viewed in some circles in Russia as a
“trade organization,” when it really should be considered
a “humanitarian organization.” In addition steps need to
be taken to ensure that the Snezhinsk Rotary Club is considered a
charitable organization and thus has tax-free status. Any equipment
being shipped for projects should be labeled as humanitarian supplies,
with the local customs office alerted ahead of time.
We have achieved our objectives for this project and are proud to say
that joint activities and projects for the upcoming year have been
planned and are well under way, including the first youth exchange
between Livermore and Snezhinsk, which is set for the late summer of
2001. The Snezhinsk Rotary Club is ready to be chartered (formal
completion is expected in the fall of 2001). The Snezhinsk Rotary Club
has established a leadership team and meets weekly. The new club is
being mentored by both the Livermore Rotary Club and the Yekaterinburg
Rotary Club, and the Yekaterinburg club has expressed strong interest
in developing joint projects in the Urals, serving those in need in
the region. In addition, the Yekaterinburg club was so excited by the
leadership training provided by the team from Livermore in Snezhinsk
that they have asked for similar training to be provided to their club
and community.
The membership of the Snezhinsk club has grown from a core of 10
members in June 2000 to 24 members today. The club has diversified its
membership from only 20 percent men to nearly 35 percent men. The city
administration is supportive of their efforts. Finally, they have
completed writing their formal charter and during the leadership
workshop in January-February 2001, they finished their strategic plan
as well as action plans for their first project. This is tremendous
progress, and we are all proud to be partners in this effort.
Both communities have expressed strong commitment to this
collaboration, as have the other social organizations in Snezhinsk
that were brought in as partners through the leadership training to
support the new Rotary Club.
The final activity for this project was the visit to Snezhinsk by a
team from Livermore to conduct a leadership workshop for the Rotary
Club
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and other social organizations in the city, with a special emphasis on
women's leadership in the community. Though the visit was postponed
twice during the fall of 2000, the trip finally occurred from January
29 through February 6, 2001. Members of the team included Cathie
Brown, the mayor of Livemore; John Shirley, former Livermore mayor,
retired veterinarian, decorated World War II veteran, community
business leader, and Rotary Club past president; Susan Gallinger,
director of library services for the City of Livermore and Rotary past
president; Lori Garcy, Livermore school superintendent and Rotary past
president; Ladonna Robson, management consultant and workshop leader
(and soon a member of the Livermore Rotary Club); and Eileen Vergino,
Livermore Rotary Club member, Snezhinsk Rotary Committee chair, and
board member of the Livermore-Snezhinsk Sister City Organization.
Eileen was accompanied by her son, Adam Vergino, who served as the
first student from Livermore to visit Snezhinsk. In addition to
conducting the workshop, the visitors solidified the sister city
relationship, planned future joint projects, and built new bridges of
understanding between the schools, libraries, and veterans of the two
communities.
Attending the workshop were 50 community leaders—40 women and 10
men—representing 12 community social organizations, along with
representatives of the mayor's office and the charter president of the
Yekaterinburg Rotary Club, Ibadulla Satybalov. Nearly one-half of the
participants were from the Snezhinsk Rotary Club, and all 50
participants remained with the workshop for the entire four days of
training. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together these
disparate groups to identify the key community needs and goals as well
as strategies for addressing these issues through Rotary (i.e., the
private sector, rather than seeking resolution through governmental
support). Next, participants strove to build consensus on the vision
and mission of the Rotary Club for addressing these community
concerns, establish a community constituency through collaboration
among the varied community groups, consolidate community leadership,
and, finally, unite the groups to work together on addressing
community issues. This was an enormous task, yet even with the
language barrier and some initial concerns voiced over turf, the group
worked together and developed a shared vision, mission (adopting the
Rotary International mission), values, and goals.
VISION
Snezhinsk Rotary is a club of trusted, dedicated, influential
people supportive of the Rotary ideals who solve the problems of
the city community through cooperation with nongovernmental,
business, and government sectors in their personal, professional,
and community life.
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MISSION
The mission of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of
service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to
encourage and foster
the development of acquaintance as an opportunity for
service
high ethical standards in business and the professions,
the recognition of the worthiness of all useful
occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's
occupation as an opportunity to serve society
the application of the ideal of service in each
Rotarian's personal, business, and community life
the advancement of international understanding,
goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of
business and professional persons united in the ideal
of service
VALUES
Rotary is designed to help other people with responsibility and
honesty who are committed to the goals of the organization. It
values the ability to work in teams, listen to others, display
flexibility, come to consensus, and exchange information freely.
Rotary recognizes the ability of every member to give power to the
club. Its members get great pleasure from working together. Every
member observes ethics and recognizes the abilities of others.
The principles of the organization are to reward and encourage
personal growth
useful initiatives
application of knowledge and personal experience
growth of competency
learning
increase of image
charity work for/from all
personal charity
GOALS
The following top-priority goals were set by the Snezhinsk Rotary:
1. youth
2. the elderly
3. health
4. international linkages
5. management
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6. unificiation with and assistance to all community service
organizations in the Snezhinsk community
The club went a long way towards developing action plans for at least
three of the goals. First, the action plan for youth exchange is
already under way, and there are currently two exchange students
funded by the Livermore Rotary Club who arrived in Livermore on August
20, 2001, and will be staying with families in the community through
June 2002. While in Snezhinsk, we met with more than 20 youth in the
community, and they expressed interest in both youth exchange and
development of an Interact (youth Rotary) club. Such a club would
foster the expansion of community service from the adults in the
community to the youth and build a bridge between the business
community and youth, the future of these communities. Second, through
the leadership workshop, a bridge was built between the Rotary Club
and the other community organizations, and all have committed to
working together rather than continuing to compete for scarce
resources.
Action plans were developed for joint projects as a direct result of
the leadership workshop held in Snezhinsk. These plans lay out our
joint plans for youth exchange, joint fundraising, and membership
recruitment. Members from the Snezhinsk Rotary Club, Livermore Rotary
Club, and Yekaterinburg Rotary Club who have been assigned to the
action plans have already begun their work. To support the joint
projects, the Livermore Rotary Club has been auctioning craft items
provided by the Snezhinsk Rotary Club. To date, more than $1,500 has
been raised. Finally, the Yekaterinburg Rotary Club and the Snezhinsk
Rotary Club have agreed to work together on joint recruiting
strategies and communication of their successes.
It was energizing and gratifying for the American team to have the
opportunity to participate, as the Snezhinsk Rotary Club was empowered
to serve as the unifying nongovernmental organization that will play a
central role in helping to prioritize and seek resolution through
nongovernmental support for key social issues in the community. It was
especially rewarding to watch the emergence of the Snezhinsk Rotary
leadership in the community and to help enable this to occur. Two
Rotary meetings were held, one with the current members of the Rotary
Club and another with the Businessmen's Club for the purpose of
recruiting new members. The three Livermore Rotary past presidents
participating as part of the delegation (including a former mayor and
retired veterinarian, the school superintendent, and head librarian)
did an outstanding job of describing the value Rotary brings to the
business community and the entire local community as a whole. At least
six members of the Businessmen's Club expressed interest in joining
the new Rotary Club.
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However, it is not all a good news story: The Livermore and Snezhinsk
Rotary Clubs were partnering together to acquire neonatal monitoring
equipment for the hospital in Snezhinsk, which a joint U.S.-Russian
medical team had identified as a community need. This project required
that the Snezhinsk Rotary Club complete their formal chartering
process. As of February 1, 2001, two cardiac monitoring units for the
hospital in Snezhinsk were received: one for pregnant women and one
for infants. Both six-bed units are served by state-of-the-art central
monitoring stations. The cost of refurbishing, installing,
calibrating, and purchasing the first supplies to operate the two
units comes to approximately $40,000. Added to the approximately
$9,000 cost of shipping the equipment to Snezhinsk, the total cost of
the project is around $49,000. We had already begun the fundraising
necessary to accomplish this project (including pursuing a matching
grant with Rotary International), with the Livermore Rotary Club
working to raise approximately one-fourth of the $49,000, or $12,250.
The new Snezhinsk Rotary Club is working (with help from the Livermore
Rotary Club) to raise approximately $1,000, and $9,000 has been
committed from another source. However, because of the inability of
the medical team to receive Minatom authorization to visit the city of
Snezhinsk, not as nuclear tourists, but as members of an assessment
team, this equipment has been lost for at least one year, and possibly
permanently.
What are the key points to highlight from our experience?
This partnership was made possible by support from the
Snezhinsk City Administration and the commitment of a
leadership team within the city of Snezhinsk that supports
this effort.
This effort is one mechanism that allows the community to
leverage support from the business community to address
community social needs while also providing support to the
business community itself, that is, networking
opportunities.
We heard a good deal about the need to target youth and
link to youth in the communities, and this is one way to
do just that.
Internship opportunities through the private sector are
both supported and encouraged.
No government financing is required, just concurrence.
These programs are independent of the whim and whimsy of
governmental funding and require only the commitment of
the communities.
In the end, building a stronger social sector can only
strengthen business and the environment for business to
grow.
It's about people!
Representative terms from entire chapter:
snezhinsk rotary
