Rotary Foundation Update - Tony Beenham

9th November 2023 Foundation Awareness – Tony Beenham

Tony is a member of Church Wilne RC and serves on The District Foundation committee, responsible for awareness and training.  The primary objective for this evening was to provide a basic overview of Rotary Foundation and secondly dispel the fears of poor Foundation management, noting that all the information used is from the district website.

Our Foundation Fund was originally set up in 1917 by Arch Klumph and provides Rotary its core funding to support humanitarian projects at home and abroad. The fund itself is made up of member contributions deposited each year, invested for 3 years, then each year percentage of funds are allocated to the Annual Fund. These funds are then split between Global Grants, District Designated Grants, Disaster Recovery Grants, Global/Peace Scholars, Youth exchange and finally Polio Plus. 

Our Rotary request is “Every Rotarian Every Year” to contribute $100 equivalent to £72 + 25% HMRC relief (Gift Aid), alternatively there is The Sustaining Member Annual Direct Debit (approx. £18/quarter, again utilising Gift Aid).

For more information on District Grants contact Michael Longden (michaellongdon@sky.com). Applications are normally submitted by mid-May, with District Foundation committee reviewing submissions in July/August and distributes the funds in September.  

As a Club, VoB have done quite well with DDF grants for Dictionaries for Life project, Ukrainian project for example.

The Global Fund projects are more stringent with their conditions, cumbersome with lots of hoops/barriers to pass, making them more difficult to access, although apparently any project associated with Africa has a better chance of success.

 How is TRF managed, well for the 15th consecutive year, The Rotary Foundation has received the highest rating — four stars — from Charity Navigator, the independent evaluator of charities in the U.S.
The Foundation earned the recognition for adhering to sector best practices and executing its mission in a financially efficient way, demonstrating both strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency.

Specialists manage the fund with Rotarian support from end to end, it has the lowest costs of any charity, where every £1 deposited, 9p is deducted towards its operating costs. The Foundation fund’s net assets are approx. $1.3bn, with each day approx. $1m is utilised by humanitarian projects with over $3bn to date providing life changing support around the world

Tony fielded a number of questions about Polio plus, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, how decisions are made on DDF’s, GSE’s

Rob thanked Tony for his presentation, clarifying the current situation with TRF.  It has suffered some disquiet in the past with the lack of transparency and we, as a club, have clearly benefited and he asked the members to join him in a round of applause to thank Tony.                            AR