The mission of the Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education and the alleviation of poverty. November is Rotary Foundation month.
The Rotary Foundation transforms your gifts into service projects that change lives both close to home and around the world. During the past 100 years, The Rotary Foundation has spent $3 billion on life-changing, sustainable projects. With your help, we can make lives better in your community and around the world.
Why should I donate to The Rotary Foundation?
Your donation makes a difference to those who need our help most. More than 90 percent of donations go directly to supporting our service projects around the world.
How does The Rotary Foundation use donations?
Our 35,000 clubs carry out sustainable service projects that support our six causes. With donations like yours, we’ve wiped out 99.9 percent of all polio cases. Your donation also trains future peacemakers, supports clean water, and strengthens local economies.
What impact can one donation have?
It can save a life. A child can be protected from polio with as little as 60 cents. Our partners make your donation go even further. For every $1 dollar Rotary commits to polio eradication, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed a $2 to $1 dollar match to end polio. Here are just some of the ways our Rotary Foundation dollars are used to support Rotary initiatives in the six areas of focus.
- Promoting Peace and Conflict Resolution
- Conflict and violence displaced more than 68 million people last year and half of those are children. We refuse to accept conflict as a way of life. Rotary projects provide training that fosters understanding and provides communities with the skills to resolve conflicts.
- Fighting Disease and Promoting Disease Prevention
- Disease results in misery, pain, and poverty for millions of people worldwide. That is why treating and preventing disease is so important to us. We lead efforts both large and small. We set up temporary clinics, blood donation centers, and training facilities in underserved communities struggling with outbreaks and health care access. We design and build infrastructure that allows doctors, patients, and governments to work together. Our members combat diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and polio. Prevention is important, which is why we also focus on health education and bringing health care services to people including but not limited to hearing, vision, and dental care.
- Saving Mothers and Children
- We expand access to quality care, so mothers and children everywhere can have the same opportunities for a healthy future. An estimated 5.9 million children under the age of five die each year because of malnutrition, inadequate health care, and poor sanitation — all of which can be prevented.
- Supporting Education and Literacy
- Our goal is to strengthen the capacity of communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education, and increase adult literacy. We support education for all children and literacy for children and adults.
- Clean Water and Sanitation
- Clean water, sanitation, and hygiene education are basic necessities for a healthy environment and good health. Rotarians continue to undertake project initiatives worldwide to ensure communities have access to clean water, proper sanitation, and hygiene.
- Growing Local Economies
- Our members and our Rotary Foundation work to strengthen local entrepreneurs and community leaders, particularly women, in impoverished communities. Nearly 800 million people live on less than $1.90 dollars a day. Rotarian collaborate and partner with a multitude of governmental agencies and universities to provide sustainable solutions to alleviate poverty and improve the quality of life.
