General Information

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Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.  In more than 160 countries worldwide, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 30,000 Rotary clubs.

Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional men and women.

The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.  A Rotary club contains a diverse group of professional leaders from the community that the club serves.  Rotarians take an active role in their communities while greatly enriching their personal and professional lives.

The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world.  Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence.  They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development.  The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.

Although Rotary clubs develop autonomous service programs, all Rotarians worldwide are united in a campaign for the global eradication of polio.  In the 1980s, Rotarians raised US$240 million to immunize the children of the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary year and the target date for the certification of a polio-free world, the PolioPlus program will have contributed US$500 million to this cause.  In addition, Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around the world.

The Four Way Test

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From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives.  One of the world's most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics is The 4-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy.  This 24-word code of ethics for employees to follow in their business and professional lives became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this simple philosophy.  Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The 4-Way Test has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways.

Rotary Recreational and Vocational Fellowships

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Do you like genealogy?  Music?  Fishing?  So do thousands of Rotarians in other countries.  Approximately 40 recreational fellowships, focusing on activities from amateur radio to yachting, attract an ever-growing membership. This allows Rotarians to get together with fellow Rotarians worldwide who share a common hobby.

Is your profession banking?  Medicine?  International trade?  Take advantage of Rotary membership to belong to an international professional organization with global contacts. Join one of the dozens of vocational fellowships that bring together Rotarians from countries around the world.

Whether recreational or vocational, Rotary Recreational and Vocational Fellowships unite Rotarians in friendship and service, the exchange of ideas, and the pursuit of international understanding.

Put yourself in the picture: You could be caravanning with fellow Rotarians to the Rotary International Convention, scuba diving with fellowship companions at coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean, learning from fellow lawyers or travel agents in other countries how they practice their professions, or calling on a fellow doctor to provide short-term service in a refugee camp.

The opportunities for fun, fellowship, and service are legion.

Recreational fellowships traditionally have used their hobbies to serve others:

·                    The Skiing fellowship donates profits from ski events to an organization that supports skiing for the disabled.

·                    The Flying Rotarians ferry medical personnel and supplies.

·                    The Canoeing Rotarians organize cleanups of polluted rivers.

For vocational fellowships, too, service has been a primary focus:

·                    The Ophthalmology fellowship organized a conference on eye surgery and prevention of blindness in developing countries.

·                    The Conflict Resolution fellowship helped to send a noted jurist to Northern Ireland to assist in regional mediation talks.

·                    The International Trade fellowship helped Rotarians respond to a disaster in the Philippines, assisting entry into the country of donated medical supplies and drugs.

With their international links, fellowships can provide unique service to the global community.  Their projects strengthen not only their own fellowships, but the image of Rotary worldwide.

Each fellowship has a forum through which members interact.  Every fellowship sends a newsletter to members at least once a year.  But other means of encounter differ widely, reflecting the nature of each fellowship:

·                    Computer Users communicate with each other on-line;

·                    Amateur Radio enthusiasts take to the airwaves;

·                    Rotary Pin and License Plate collectors spot each other everywhere.

Some of the best fellowship opportunities occur when members meet face-to-face. Among the most convivial are the mobile fellowships, such as Motorcycling, which plans dozens of rallies every year.  Adding zest to fellowship, the Golf fellowship holds an annual tournament, rotating it among the regions, allowing an ever-growing membership to meet and compete.

Although members keep active all year long, fellowships truly come into their own at Rotary's International Convention.  With Rotarians gathered from all parts of the globe, many fellowships take the opportunity to hold their annual meeting.  At their colorful booths and displays at the International Convention, they invite other Rotarians to learn about and join their fellowships.

Whatever your vocation or avocation, you are likely to find a fellowship to match it.  And if you do not find a fellowship that sparks your interest, you might want to start one.

Membership in the fellowships is open to all Rotarians.  But whether joining or starting a fellowship, keep in mind membership obligations as well as advantages.  Fellowships must satisfy criteria for recognition by Rotary International, including:

·                    A valid purpose stated in a constitution or bylaws;

·                    The publication of a newsletter or other forum;

·                    Membership drawn from three or more countries.

Most fellowships require minimal dues to defray expenses.

The Rotary Foundation

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The Rotary Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation that supports the efforts of Rotary International to achieve world understanding and peace through international humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs.  It is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.

The Foundation was created in 1917 by Rotary International's sixth president, Arch C. Klumph, as an endowment fund for Rotary "to do good in the world."  It has grown from an initial contribution of US$26.50 to more than US$73 million contributed in 2000-01. Its event-filled history is a story of Rotarians learning the value of service to humanity.

The Foundation's Humanitarian Programs fund international Rotary club and district projects to improve the quality of life, providing health care, clean water, food, education, and other essential needs primarily in the developing world.  One of the major humanitarian Programs is PolioPlus, which seeks to eradicate the polio virus worldwide.

Through its Educational Programs, the Foundation provides funding for some 1,200 students to study abroad each year.  Grants are also awarded to university teachers to teach in developing countries and for exchanges of business and professional people. Former participants in the Foundation's programs have the opportunity to continue their affiliation with Rotary as Foundation Alumni.

Here is a sampling of what some Rotarians, Foundation alumni, and others who have worked with the Foundation have said about the international work of The Rotary Foundation:

“Rotary set me on a course that I am still continuing.  If I had not gone to the United States as an Ambassadorial Scholar, I don’t think I would have pursued the study of International Relations.” 

Sadako Ogata
Former United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees
Foundation Scholar, 1951-52

“Rotary International’s masterpiece is The Rotary Foundation.  It transforms our dreams into splendid realities . . . it is the most generous expression of Rotarian generosity — a generosity that not only brings benefits but also brings help and cooperation to solve the problems that affect mankind.  The Rotary Foundation achieves the best that mankind can possibly achieve.”       

Paulo V.C. Costa
President, Rotary International, 1990-91

“We always wanted to do something through Rotary.  Our decision was based on six years’ involvement with Matching Grant projects in Haiti, Mexico, India, and South Africa.  We were extremely impressed with the way the program reaches and touches people with much less administrative problems and costs than any other international humanitarian organization.”

Frank and Mildred Branscombe
Rotary Club of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
donors of an endowed fund to support the Matching Grants program

“From Seattle to Santiago, from Bogota to Bombay, and everywhere in between, the children of the world are waiting.  They are the hope of the future, and you are their hope that the future will be bright.  I thank you, Rotary, for alleviating the suffering of children.”       

Audrey Hepburn
Actress discussing the PolioPlus program on behalf of UNICEF

“In Warsaw, Woijeich Sierpinski, a Rotary club president, took me on a tour I will never forget.  We visited his parent’s house — where they lived during World War II.  There in the kitchen, under a dusty stack of crates was a secret wooden panel in the floor. Woijeich removed the panel to reveal a tiny room underneath the kitchen floor where his parents hid their neighbors — a Jewish family — during the war.  As I stood speechless, listening to Woijeich describe how they evaded the Nazis, I realized the full value of the Group Study Exchange program.”      

Ian Oxman
Group Study Exchange team member from California, USA
describing part of his trip to Warsaw, Poland

“The Rotary Foundation’s programs are all the more important because we live in world of sharp contrasts: fear and hope, illness and good health, poverty and wealth.  Worse, we live in a world in which inequalities of income, unemployment — and presumably exclusion from well-being — have sensibly increased in the last fifteen years, not so much between countries, but within countries, developed and developing alike.  In such a situation, the role of The Rotary Foundation is of the utmost importance.” 

Bertrand Rene Munier
Professor of Economics
Ecole Normal Superieure, Cachan, France
Ambassadorial Scholar 1967-68

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