Rotary clubs support and facilitate the RYLA Conference by awarding young people the opportunity to participate in the conference, or, in other words, sponsoring them to participate. Through the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, Rotary clubs bring together of a diverse fellowship of young leaders from different home backgrounds, levels of education, religions, and areas of extracurricular involvement to collaborate, learn, grow, and take on the opportunities of their generation.

There are a number of important responsibilities that each club must assume as part of the process of sponsoring participants, including:

• Committing to sponsoring participants and paying their registration fee
• Promoting the conference to young people
• Recruiting and selecting participants
• Informing participants about the conference and ensuring that they complete their participant forms
• Ensuring that participants have transportation to/from the conference.

The Sponsorship Checklist outlines the steps clubs should follow to successfully sponsor a participant or participants. The 2008 Club Packet, the comprehensive resource for Rotary clubs, describes these steps in detail and contains background information about the conference as well as all of the forms and sample documents referred to in this section.

Next Step – Recruiting and Selecting Participants