The Kiwanis float at the 1953 Portland Rose Festival.
Courtesy Kiwanis Club Of Portland
In the 1970s, Connie Shipley met a Kiwanis Club member who she would eventually marry. He told inspirational stories about organizing camps for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and repainting buildings for the St. Mary’s Home for Boys.
She helped out with breakfasts at a different club, the Rose Festival Court, “So I called the lady that was in charge of it and said: ‘I’d be glad to come on down and help you with those centerpieces.’ And she says: ‘Oh no Connie, you have to be a Kiwanian to work on this committee.’”
Like putting a velvet rope outside a club, the message was clear: Kiwanis membership was where it was at.
“By the third year of offering to help her with those centerpieces and being turned down, I said: ‘Okay, I’m ready to be a member,'" said Shipley.
Back then, the Kiwanis Club of Portland had traditional ways of doing things and a lot of rules about membership and who could volunteer for what. But it was considered the premier place to network and raise money in Portland.
It was also very successful. Members donated large sums to the Doernbecher Children’s Cancer Program and the Salvation Army. They even paid for 20 anti-aircraft guns during World War II.
This fall, however, the club shut down after 101 years. There were only a couple dozen members left and they struggled to find new members. So they donated their remaining funds to Doernbecher and the Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp, then called it quits.
Connie Shipley, the club’s final president, said “It’s the end of an era.”
She said the club struggled to get new members because it was expensive, a large time commitment and there were a lot of rules. On top of the $120 yearly dues, members were expected to attend lunch at the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland, every Wednesday.
Connie Shipley is the last and final president of the Kiwanis Club of Portland, "It's the end of an era."
Kristian Foden-Vencil
“When my husband was the president of South Riverside Kiwanis, his boss told him don’t worry about work. You focus on Kiwanis for a year. We’ll take care of your job,” said Shipley. “The corporations were really supporting the organization to be successful and that’s kind of just gone away.”
Corporations are still giving, but not through the Kiwanis as much. Since the 1970s, charitable giving has grown at a pace about one-third that of the stock market.
But Kiwanis membership in the Pacific Northwest has dropped 60% from a peak of more than 15,000 members in the 1970s.
One of the biggest problems for the Kiwanis is that people have changed the ways they donate. Shipley thinks it started when the federal government stopped allowing businesses to write-off employee membership as an expense.
“The corporations started saying ‘well gee, I don’t know if I want you to spend an hour driving to the meeting, and hour at the meeting and then an hour driving back to the office.’ That’s too much time,” said Shipley.
Shipley is grateful for her time in the Kiwanis and enjoyed its traditions. But said the networking aspect of the club has been taken over by social media outlets like LinkedIn and Facebook.
“You can live and work and communicate in a community of people that are thousands of miles away from each other but interested in the same types of issues,” said Jim White, a fundraising expert with the Nonprofit Association of Oregon.
He said social media means club membership isn’t necessary for networking anymore. He said people are changing the way they like to donate, too, “Young people definitely are more episodic in their giving,” said White.
They like to donate based on what they see in their news feeds, rather than focusing on just one organization.
Jim White, the executive director of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon said the way charities raise money has changed since the Kiwanis were in their heyday.
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He said Oregon has also lost a number of Fortune 500 businesses, which has affected charitable giving. And Oregonians have a reputation for volunteering, rather than donating, “We’re ranked third in the country in volunteerism of all the 50 states,” said White.
The Kiwanis Club of Portland is far from the only service organization experiencing recruitment problems. Bob Strader, president of the East Portland Rotary Club, said he’s trying to figure out how to use social media to boost membership. But he believes the idea of community service is alive and well, “If you talk to any recent college graduate; they want to save the world,” said Strader.
While the Kiwanis Club of Portland is closing, other Kiwanis clubs are just getting started.
Joyce Handa opened a new Kiwanis club chapter in Lake Oswego this spring. She said her club voted to get rid of several Kiwanis traditions.
“Saying the pledge of allegiance, an invocation, and they sing the US and Canadian National Anthems. We don’t do any of that,” said Handa.
The new club started just before the pandemic, so it’s hard to know if it’ll be successful. But Handa said they’re trying to be more inclusive than in the past, like having an application form with a non-binary gender option, and reaching out to people in the LGBTQ community to serve as mentors in local schools.
She said they’re also focused on networking through social media like LinkedIn and Facebook, rather than at long lunch meetings, “So we are brand new. We’re trying to think outside the box,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Kiwanis still has more than 6,000 members in the Pacific Northwest, with chapters everywhere: from Cedar Hills to Redmond.
During the war, the Kiwanis of Portland invited thousands of children with disabilities to a Christmas party. This one was held in 1943.
Courtesy of Kiwanis Club of Portland