Community Loses When Altruism Wanes
August 8, 2004, Star Telegram (Ft. Worth, TX)

By O.K. CARTER

Some time back, I joined a local Lions Club at which more than 100 members met weekly. The organization funded an astonishingly generous variety of good deeds planetwide, and also coughed up cash for scholarships and youth camps. If there was any child in Arlington who couldn't afford eyeglasses, members paid for them.

I spoke to that same civic club recently in a smallish room at a local restaurant. Attendance was 21.

Likewise, one of the city's largest Rotary clubs once conducted meetings at which more than 100 members showed up. That membership has declined to about 65. Repeat that scenario at Rotary chapters nationwide, and a significant problem emerges. It was Rotary, for example, that through a worldwide immunization campaign virtually wiped out polio. Achievements like that must rank high on the get-into-heaven list.

In Arlington, one Rotary club guarantees college scholarships to every at-risk student at a particular elementary school who successfully completes the public education process -- an astonishingly generous commitment.

Such organizations still do an enormous quantity of good deeds, of course, but if their membership continues to decline, the resources dwindle, and the negative impact grows into an enormous problem.

The above problems are not unique to Arlington. There's a growing reluctance for people to indulge in what sociologists call "civic engagement," loosely defined as voluntary participation in public life as measured by activities such as voting or, in this instance, membership in civic clubs.

Arlington does not escape this national trend, although there may be factors that worsen it. For example, according to the census, the most transient state is Nevada, where 65 percent of the population had another address five years ago. In Arlington, that percentage exceeds 70 percent. People who plan to move on tend not to develop community commitments.

Part, but not all, of the problem is the giant baby boomer population, the older leading edge of which will be 65 years old in 2011.

Consider a Harvard study on baby boomers and civic engagement released last month.

The study concluded that compared to their parents' generation, boomers have done less by every measure of civic engagement, including joining community groups.

Add to that another woe cited by the study: "Conventional wisdom holds that individuals volunteer in greater numbers and greater frequency after they retire, when they have time on their hands. ... As a general rule, the percentage of people who volunteer reaches a peak in mid-life -- not in retirement -- then gradually declines."

Clearly the statistics show that the most fertile area of civic club involvement should be the 30-to-50 age bracket, but therein lies another problem.

Longtime civic participant Dorothy Rencurrel, a longtime Altrusa Club member, has witnessed this particular component of civic-engagement decline. In the 1980s, Altrusa had about 50 members. Today, the number is less than half that.

The problem she sees other than the detachment by aging phenomenon?

"More women are working, and clubs are often the first activity to be cut as women look for ways to spend more times with their families," Rencurrel said.

She also notes a growing reluctance by employers to pay for memberships that they once encouraged and to allow time for members to attend meetings.

Rencurrel's observations are echoed by Brandi Wade, president of the Junior League of Arlington.

"Sixty percent of active members of Junior League are mothers, and more than 75 percent work outside the home," Wade said.

She said Junior League membership has stabilized at about 200 members, down from 250 four years ago -- and that's for a nationally recognized volunteer organization with an exemplary record of civic contributions, with a membership demographic precisely in tune with the Harvard study recognized as the most active volunteer age group.

Membership decline is sometimes so gradual that civic organizations don't recognize the problem until it's difficult to do anything about it.

Longtime Kiwanis member Dick Bessenhoffer notes that the equivalent of a kiss of death is to have a majority of club members near the same age.

"You have to have some old-timers who have a sense of history and purpose, affluent middle-agers with good management skills and some youthful members with lots of enthusiasm and energy," he said. "That means you have to recruit constantly and balance membership."

This isn't always easy. Bessenhoffer's club recently lost three of its most active 20- or early 30-somethings for the same career mobility reasons: They moved on to new jobs at other cities.

"People just change jobs more often these days and that definitely affects membership," he said.

Rencurrel, while optimistic that civic club participation will boom again, isn't certain that it's realistic to expect more future involvement by the 20-to-early-30s set.

"The young adult just starting a job or a family will not get involved as much in volunteering or civic clubs anymore," she said, flatly.

Rencurrel believes that increasing emphasis on developing a sense of value in volunteerism, particularly in higher education entities such as the University of Texas at Arlington, will pay dividends. She also theorizes that as baby boomers retire, they will be healthier, more energized and more affluent than past generations of their age -- and, if recruited, ready to spend more time in civic engagement.

Area nonprofit groups provide labor, goods for many projects

Contributions to the community made by civic groups often go almost unrecognized, but nevertheless make significant contributions to the quality of life in a community. Here's just a small sample of the accomplishments of such groups: