Rotary Foundation overview

14th August 2025 The Impact of Rotary Foundation – Seamus Grant

Seamus gave us a bit of his background before his current 3 years in this role, with University of Leicester and Sheffield Polytechnic featuring. He explained that the Rotary Foundation was established by Arch Klumph 11 years after Paul Harris started Rotary. It can now be sustained by members for just donating £6/month plus Gift Aid or EREY (Every Rotarian Every Year$99pa) towards the Annual Fund (raising $152m in 2023/4). Noting that Foundation Income and Expenditure are kept entirely separately from Rotary International’s income and expenditure.

The supported activities are Polio Plus (which is the number1 priority), which in 2023/4 there were 51 grants with $145m including the Gates Foundation matching grant, with over $2.5bn raised and distributed since 1985.  Disaster Response fund covering floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, with an average grant of $2500. (In 2022 more than $5m devoted to refugee support costs in Ukraine. 1112 grants totalling >$38m to date. (Our visitor (John Bray) explaining that District is putting a schedule together on what District grants have been spent on.)

Global Fund, covering Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Nepal and India; Endowment Fund- Gifts are invested which can be specifically targeted, as per the request.  The Annual Fund is split 49% in the World Fund and 47% in District Designated Fund. With District Grants being smaller and shorter term (470 to 500 each year) 1424 Global Grants in 2023/4 amounted to $72.1m

Rotary Peace Centre Fellowships, e.g. 2025 Pathways to peace and Prosperity in Columbia

There are 7 areas of Focus:

Then he gave an analysis of The Vale of Belvoir contributions to Foundation, with Stan explain that some of the funding came from Events we organised, like Frog Races and Adrian’s Canal walks.

Seamus gave an emotional account of his experience when attending a Club in Vietnam, visiting oat the same time as they received a Grant for Congenital Heart Disease; followed by the eRanger Motor Bike ambulances in Uganda.  He finished with the facts that the Rotary Foundation is in the Worldwide top ten of Charities, with 16 years in a row as a top 4* charity

President Gail gave the Vote of Thanks adding how impressive were the facts that Seamus had presented in such an enthusiastic way and asked members to join him in the usual warm round of applause.                        AR