The Rotary Foundation transforms your gifts into service projects that change lives both close to home and around the world.
Since it was founded more than 100 years ago, the Foundation has spent more than $4 billion on life-changing, sustainable projects.
With your help, we can make lives better in your community and around the world.
Our mission
The Rotary Foundation helps Rotary members to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace by improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment, and alleviating poverty.
What impact can one donation have?
- For as little as 60 cents, a child can be protected from polio.
- $50 can provide clean water to help fight waterborne illness.
- $500 can launch an antibullying campaign and create a safe environment for children.
How the Foundation makes help happen
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The power of light
A grant helped a club in Durango, Colorado, USA, install more than 200 solar lights in remote, off-the-grid Navajo homes.
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Healing thousands
Rotarian and physician Pia Skarabis-Querfeld has spent years building a network of volunteer doctors to help refugees in Berlin, Germany.
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Rebuilding lives
Rotary clubs worked together to help Puerto Ricans rebuild their homes and hearts after Hurricane Maria.
Foundation history
At the 1917 convention, outgoing Rotary president Arch Klumph proposed setting up an endowment “for the purpose of doing good in the world.” That one idea, and an initial contribution of $26.50, set in motion a powerful force that has transformed millions of lives around the globe.
Financial structure
The Rotary Foundation is organized as a public charity operated exclusively for charitable purposes and governed by a Board of Trustees. The operations of Rotary International, a member organization, are overseen by its Board of Directors.
The headquarters of Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation are in Evanston, Illinois, USA. We have associate foundations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom.
Read highlights from the past year in our annual report
Learn about Rotary's investments
Your generous contributions to The Rotary Foundation are essential to securing and growing Rotary programs throughout the world.
