Speaker Stephen Ellis PHF PDG - Rotary Foundation

A synopsis of the talk that Stephen gave on The Rotary Foundation (TRF) was:

TRF spends over $1 million a day on: -

• District grants
• Global grants
• Disaster recovery grants 

Over $4 billion has been spent to date since the charity was first formed by Arch C. Klumph in 1917.

TFR has exceptional financial management and gets a top 4 star rating and is in the top 1% of charities. It only spends 9p in pounds on management.

The programmes run by TFR are: -

• Scholarships both global scholars and peace scholars
• Polio
• Youth Exchange
• Vocational Training 

To date more than $2 billion has been spent on polio eradication including donations of matching funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Since 1979 when Rotary became involved in trying to eradicate polio worldwide the number of cases have dropped from over 370,000 to 99 in 2024 which were in just 2 countries Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Money is currently being spent on opening a new peace Centre In Turkey.

$130 million is spent each year on global grants for large-scale projects.

District 1040 currently has $140,000 that it has not spent on global grants. New rules introduced recently meant that $67,000 of this would have to be sent back to Rotary International if the money wasn’t spent soon. So District is now working on 3 grants that will use up this money: -

• A Cleft palate project in Beirut
• Upgrade the I.T. facility in 2 schools in Darjeeling India
• Recycle plastic in Ghana

Grants must meet one of Rotary’s 7 areas of focus: -

1. Peace and Conflict Prevention / Resolution. 
2. Disease Prevention and Treatment.
3. Water and Sanitation.
4. Maternal and Child Health.
5. Basic Education and Literacy.
6. Economic and Community Development.
7. The Environment