THE ROTARY FOUNDATION IN NUMBERS

1

Rotary only has one charity and it is the Rotary Foundation. There are many other charities that Rotary and Rotarians support such as ShelterBox and Mercy Ships, but the Rotary Foundation is our only official one.  It was started by Rotary’s sixth President Arch Klumph as an endowment fund to provide an ongoing and sustainable income for Rotary to do good in the world

2

Donations to Foundation usually go into the annual fund, and are split with half going to District funds and half to world funds.  The half that goes to District funds is used to pay for Foundation, Club and District projects, that club and district officers choose.

Foundation uses the World Fund to pay for grant and program opportunities available to all Rotary Districts including PolioPlus, Rotary Peace Centers, Program of scale grants, Global grants etc.

Each District may use up to half of the money they receive as a District Designated Fund to fund projects where matched funding is requested from clubs for projects, they are supporting, with the remainder of the money to be
used for Global Grants, donated to PolioPlus, the Peace centers or another District.

3

Any money that is donated to Foundation is invested for 3 years and then money comes back to the District as District Designated Funds. IE the money that District has to spend in the next Rotary year is money that was donated to Foundation in the year 2021/22.  Money donated in the next Rotary year will be available to spend after 1 July 2027

7

To obtain a Global Foundation Grant, the application needs to support one or more of Rotary’s seven areas of focus

• Peacebuilding and conflict prevention
• Disease prevention and treatment
• Water, sanitation and hygiene
• Maternal and child health
• Basic education and literacy
• Community and economic development
• The environment

30

The 30th June 2024 is the date by which all clubs need to apply for District Grants for the next Rotary year. All applications will be reviewed in July and then District will apply for the funds from Foundation in America to be distributed to the clubs on receipt.  The project cannot be started until the funds have been received by the club.

50

As each Foundation grant awarded is a matching grant, each club will need to provide a minimum of 50 percent of the money towards the project, If requests for funds to District from clubs exceed the amount of money that is available in that Rotary year, clubs may not receive all the money they request.

80

This is the amount in pounds ($100) that if donated by an individual Rotarian to Foundation each year makes you a sustaining member.  If you are a UK taxpayer the donation is also eligible for tax relief which means the true nett cost could be under £6 per month.

92

This is the percentage of donated funds that are used for program awards and operations. This means that only 8% of the donations is used for administration and fund development.  Many international Charities' administration expenses range between 20 and 40 percent.

Oxfam for example spends 81p in the pound on projects, the Red Cross 73p in the pound and Cancer Research UK 80p in the pound.

Rotary Foundation is excellent value for money.  From 2008 onwards the Rotary Foundation has received the top 4-star rating from Charity Navigator which is the world's most trusted charity evaluator (there is not a 5 stars rating).  This rating is only achieved by one percent of all charities.

Now we are getting to the big numbers
800,000

Over £800,000 a day is provided in Grants by the Foundation to support projects led by Rotarians.
Global Grants Program.

2 Billion

This is the sum that the Foundation has donated to the polio eradication effort, including matching funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who currently match our donations two to one.  An enormous number.
Any money donated by our District to Polio Plus are also matched by the world fund at 50% and then again by the Gates Foundation. In simplistic terms a £20,000 donation from District attracts a £10,000 world fund match and then this is matched again by the Gates Foundation which turns the original donation into a £90,000 towards polio eradication.

Since 1988 when Rotary began working with its partners in the Polio Global eradication initiative, there were over 350,000 polio cases per year in over 125 different countries. Since then we have helped to immunize over 2 Billion children and the incidence of polio has decreased by 99.9 percent.

We are nearly there with our efforts and we must not give up on the fight!

4 Billion

Since its founding this is the amount of money that Foundation has spent on life changing sustainable projects.