The Origin of Kiwanis

"My name is Browne, Allen S. Browne, " says the intense bespectacled man on your doorstep. "I want to discuss with you the possibilities of organizing a group of business and professional men in a fraternal club, with a sick benefit feature."

What do you do with him?

If you tell him you're hot and tired and not interested, you've missed the chance of a lifetime - the chance to become the first Kiwanian. Joseph C. Prance invited Browne into his shop to discuss the proposal.

Out of that conversation in August 1914, between a professional organizer and a respected but otherwise unremarkable tailor came one of the great service organizations of the world: Kiwanis International.

Together, these two men began recruiting new members. Browne, as the professional, would receive the $5 membership fee from each man - and keep it for his trouble. Prance was the first to sign up.

But he was not yet the first Kiwanian, for the name that Browne had chosen for the group was truly in the spirit of the times - the Supreme Lodge Benevolent Order Brothers. (Kiwanis it was not . . .)

The growing membership soon fixed that. They quickly grew tired of belonging to an organization known as BOB for short. With a helping hand from Detroit's official historian, an Indian phrase - "Nunc Kee-wan-is" was adapted as a name.

During a club meeting in the first week of January 1915, Kiwanis was approved as the new name for this club, which had attracted nearly 200 members in only six months. The corporate charter was returned by the state of Michigan, dated January 21. That date has been the birthday of Kiwanis ever since.  

The name translated as "We trade". A more thorough check later revealed that a truer meaning is "We have a good time - we make noise."

With the founding of the Kiwanis Club of Detroit Number One, Kiwanians discovered that they were having a good time and that they could make a noise in the world. But not by scratching each other's backs in business. They could do it by rendering important community service without thought of personal gain.

Yet trouble loomed. The founding club of an organization that in 1988 embraced 310,000 Kiwanians in 8,378 clubs in 72 nations and geographic areas faltered - and nearly failed - only six months after it had so proudly adopted its new name.

The cause? Allen S. Browne. Or, more specifically, club members who did not like Browne or the financial arrangement Kiwanis had with him.

The membership fee - collected and kept by Browne - was up to $10 by mid July, 1915. And Browne legally "owned" Kiwanis. During a club meeting, accusations were made against Browne. They are now known to be untrue. But a furor developed that left the first Kiwanians watching helplessly as the first Kiwanis club disintegrated  before their eyes.

Afterward, Joe Prance wrote, "Everyone started talking at once, all 175 of them. When the smoke cleared, we had about 50 members left. Secretary Ottle Robertson and Allen Browne, disgusted, left for Cleveland to organize a Kiwanis Club there."

It was a wise move. Browne and Robertson started a club in Cleveland that boasted a membership of 135 in ten weeks. The Cleveland Kiwanians enthusiastically began building other clubs. It was in Cleveland that Kiwanis service and its special concern for children took firm root. The new club started a nursery school for underprivileged children. 

Meanwhile, Detroit president Don Johnston diplomatically pulled his club together. More important, he eagerly supported a membership drive to bring the club to full strength.

Kiwanis had stumbled during the summer of 1915. But it did not fall. Now with major clubs in Detroit and Cleveland and with others on the way, it was back on its feet - stronger than ever.

Those first Kiwanians sensed the destiny of their small, but vigorous, organization. And they knew what to do when a spark ignites a fire. They fanned the flames by calling the first Kiwanis convention in Cleveland for May 18 and 19, 1916. The delegates elected officers, adopted a constitution, and returned home believing, as the first Secretary, Albert Dodge, would declare at the Detroit convention a year later, "We belong to a wonderful organization."

The delegates gathered in Detroit in 1917 represented more than seventy clubs and more than 5,700 Kiwanians in two nations. Two nations? That's right. The club that made Kiwanis international - Hamilton, Ontario - was organized on November 1, 1916. 

During the next two years, Kiwanis marched on. The district concept came into being, the first issue of Kiwanis magazine appeared (known as the Kiwanis Hornet), and Kiwanis grew.

At the 1918 convention in Providence, Rhode Island, Secretary Albert was pleased to report that 83 Kiwanis club existed - with 10,000 members.

Yet within the organization a fire still smoldered. When Allen Browne's contract was brought up for discussion in Providence, the fire flared. Many Kiwanians were uneasy - even angry - that their organization was owned for profit. Finally, after much fervent discussion, the contract was calmly reviewed, revised, and approved - for one year only.

Then, during the May 21st morning session of the 1919 convention in Birmingham, Alabama, the "Browne matter" was settled for all time. A new contract with Allen Browne came up for review. Its terms were simple: Kiwanians could buy their organization from Allen Browne for $17,500 - provided they did it within 24 hours.

The delegates were thunderstruck - and immensely pleased. The Kiwanis Club of Baltimore put up the first $500. The rest was raised in an hour.

It was an historic moment. Kiwanis was free to chart its own future in growth and service, restrained only by the imagination and energy of its members.

During the following year, something important crystallized for Kiwanis. Something that inspired Roe Fulkerson, the gifted editor of Kiwanis magazine, to propose two simple words - "We Build" - as the Kiwanis Motto.

It was the coining of that Motto -  after five years of painful and exhilarating growth - that put Kiwanis into its stride. In their hearts, Kiwanians had always known why they were Kiwanians. Roe Fulkerson put it into words.

These two words, "We Build," became the guiding force and inspiration for the important work of Kiwanis. They promised then - as they do now - that for Kiwanis, the best is yet to be.