Service organizations long have been a staple in the Spokane community, and despite dwindling membership numbers, they are still hard at work giving back to the community, with well over $500,000 in donations given in 2019. 

Representatives of each organization have their own ideas about why membership numbers are dwindling, ranging from misconceptions about the nature of an organization’s work to younger generations simply not having enough time to dedicate to such organizations.

“I think there was a time years ago that seems like it was a cloistered group, a secret society and wasn’t welcoming. It seemed mystical in some way,” says Paul Viren, president of Spokane Rotary Club 21 and owner and president of financial planning firm Viren & Associates Inc. 

He adds that the perception also is that most of the organizations are for “old men and their fathers,” which, while perhaps true in the past, isn’t necessarily the case anymore, with the age range of most groups members in the region of 30 to high 80s. Viren notes, though, that the 50-plus crowd still outnumbers the under 50 crowd.

Neal Buckaloo, board member of the Exchange Club of Downtown Spokane, adds, “That’s kind of the state of affairs. The common go-to is that those under 40 aren’t traditional joiners. They would commit to an event or a cause but not an organization. Which is interesting, in that some point, who is going to do the overall organizing?”

Patti Reeves, president of Spokane Kiwanis Charities, says, “Young families are in competition with their kids’ activities … young people are just pulled in too many directions outside their own careers.”

She adds that businesses, which used to sponsor memberships in such organizations, don’t do so as often anymore, a sentiment echoed by Buckaloo.

Volunteerism, grants, and scholarships make up the majority of each groups philanthropic work, to varying degrees. More than 30 service organization chapters operate in the Spokane region.

The 110-year-old Rotary 21 club is made up of local community and business leaders, Viren says, and is a nonpartisan, nondenominational group. Rotary has at least five different branches in Spokane County.

At its peak membership in 2004, Viren says the club had upwards of 400 members. It currently has 250 members. 

In 2019, Rotary 21 raised about $125,000, which, with the annual allocation of its endowment of $82,500, totals over $207,000 for the year. Rotary 21 doesn’t fundraise actively, Viren says. Instead, it raises money through donations from its current members. He adds that last year was a record fundraising year for the organization.

“We may be shrinking in numbers, but we’re certainly a very generous group of people,” he says. 

The $207,000 is put into the organization’s nonprofit arm, Rotary Community Service, and then doled out to the various committees that provide grants to disabilities services, veterans affairs, and scholarships, among others. 

It also hosts a Foster Kid Fest, in which the club hosts rent out the Mobius Science Center and brings together foster children with potential foster parents. 

In total, the organization has 25 committees, Viren says, 10 of which provide grants.

Viren estimates the organization gives out 50 grants a year, each $2,000 or less, and often has at least 10% of the funds left over at the end of the year.

“We’re always looking for grant opportunities,” he says. “We have this many to give away, and we struggle every year to find those worthy organizations that knock on our door to look for support for various things.”

Past grants provided by Rotary 21 include providing funds to purchase a portable transfer oven for Blessings Under the Bridge and a new copy machine for MyPlace.

Any leftover funds are funneled into the organization’s capital projects fund and are used either to maintain former projects, such as the club’s fountain at the main entrance to Riverfront Park or its picnic shelter in Manito Park, or to go toward new projects, Viren says.

Buckaloo says the Exchange Club of Downtown Spokane raised $67,000 in 2018 from its annual crab feed and auction event. The proceeds were divided equally between its three main partner organizations: Partners with Families & Children, the Children’s Home Society of Washington, and Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery.

Buckaloo estimates the organization raised upwards of $75,000 in 2019 during its annual event, which had roughly 400 in attendance.

When the organization launched in Spokane in 1948, roughly 150 members signed on, Buckaloo says. Now the Exchange Club has roughly 50 active members.

Beyond its work with organizations focused on preventing child abuse — one of its main causes, Buckaloo notes—the organization also provides between six and eight small grants a year that range from $500 to $1,500, as well as scholarships to students at four area high schools and alternative programs. 

It also has its GiveAKidAFlag program, through which members hand out flags to those in attendance during the Flag Day parades in the town of Fairfield and at Spokane Valley’s Valley Fest. The Exchange Club also gives out various community awards.

At the Kiwanis Club of Downtown Spokane, Reeves says the 100-year-old organization works with numerous nonprofits, such as the Spokane Parks Foundation, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center, Campfire, and Ronal McDonald House.

Kiwanis has 13 branches in the Spokane region, Reeves says.

The downtown chapter of the organization has donated $390,400 since 2007, which averages out to about $32,500 a year, she says.

Kiwanis provides between 15 and 17 scholarships a year, each for about $1,500. The club currently is ramping up its scholarship season, with the deadline at the end of March, she says.

The organization also is diving back into traditional fundraising efforts, with its next event on March 14 at the Panda Express on Highway 2, she adds.

In 2019, members in the organization and outside volunteers worked just over 190 hours of volunteer service, she adds. 

The Kiwanis downtown branch currently has about 40 members, Reeves says, a 78% drop since she joined in 1982, when the club had 184 members.

The Knights of Columbus Spokane donates to organizations that help the sick, disabled, and needy such as Annis House and Joya Child & Family Development, says George Czerwonka, a past Knights of Columbus state deputy and current secretary for the Spokane council.

Currently, the Catholic fraternal organization has 182 members in the Spokane branch, he says, and roughly 1,200 in Eastern Washington. Internationally, the Knights of Columbus organization has nearly 2 million members, and in 2018 donated roughly $186 million.

Czerwonka adds that the Knights of Columbus organization overall has seen growth as the younger generations join. He does note that some councils in the state have seen shrinkage, but overall the organization is growing.

Funds are donated by the members and through the organization’s insurance company, Knights of Columbus Insurance.

The organization also partners with the Special Olympics, the Global Wheelchair Mission, and Habitat for Humanity on a global scale, as well as its own Food for Families program and Coats for Kids.

Beyond these programs, locally, the organization does fundraisers at big box stores where members hand out tootsie-rolls for every donation given, and the organization matches the donations, Czerwonka says. It also chooses 35 families every Christmas season to purchase presents and dinner for, he adds.

Both Rotary Club of Spokane South and Spokane Masonic Lodge 34 are more focused on volunteerism efforts than fundraising, say the organizations’ respective representatives.

Rae-Lynn Barden, spokeswoman for Rotary Club of Spokane South, says, while the organization does provide grants and scholarships — in its 40 years, the organization has donated over $655,000 — the members are more focused on service with its work at Union Gospel Mission, fall and spring highway cleanup events, various building painting events, and fundraising for the Spokane Youth Sports Association.

It also gives out scholarships and provides funding for the south Spokane elementary schools holiday season support program through which four students in need are identified and given $100 gift cards, and the Roosevelt Elementary Summer Book program through which students pick out two books to own, she adds.

Lucas Walsh, spokesman for Spokane Masonic Lodge 34, notes that the lodge is more of a fraternal organization than a service organization, but he says that volunteerism is about 75% of the lodge’s work, while about 25% is donations.

There are nine Masonic fraternities in the greater Spokane area, says Walsh.

The roughly 50-member organization works with Second Harvest and Tom’s Turkey Drive each year, Walsh says. Its other community efforts vary from year to year, depending on who holds the leadership position. This year, the organization is planning facilities upgrades for the Compassionate Addiction Treatment Center, in addition to its other programs.

Overall, there are roughly 150 members in the various lodges in Spokane, Walsh says, and about 14,500 freemasons in the state.

Walsh says membership numbers at the lodge have stabilized in recent years following several years of declines. 

On why membership rates are declining, he says, “We all ask each other this every year. I think its just the swing of the pendulum … and the way successive generations view our organization.”

He adds that the organization has made concentrated efforts over the past 10 years to provide more accurate information on the organization and its work.