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Foundation rotary

Main details

• Established:

  1917

• Main functions:

  Fundraising money for projects

• Official website:

  https://www.rotary.org/myrotary/en/rotary-foundation

Some impressive projects grow from very small seeds. The Rotary Foundation has such a humble beginning. In 1917, RI President Arch Clumph told delegates at the Atlanta Rotary Congress "it seems undoubtedly appropriate to accept donations in order to do good in the world." The response was polite and favorable and the fund was slowly coming to fruition. One year later, the Rotary Endowment Fund, under its original name, received its first donation of $ 26.50 from the Rotary Club of Kansas City, Missouri, USA, which was the balance of the Kansas City congressional bill after the annual meeting in 1918. In addition, small sums were donated each year, after six years the donation fund reached only $ 700. A decade later, the Rotary Foundation formally founded the Minneapolis Congress in 1928. Over the next four years, the Foundation's fund raised up to $ 50,000. In 1937, a goal of $ 2 million was announced for the Rotary Foundation, but those plans were interrupted and abandoned at the outbreak of World War II.

In 1947, after the death of Paul Harris, a new era began for the Rotary Foundation after donations began to fall in memory and honor of the Rotary founder. The Rotary Foundation has since achieved the noble goal of continuing "understanding and friendly relations between peoples and different nations." By 1954, for the first time, the Foundation had received half a million dollars in donations in one year, and in 1965 it received $ 1 million.

It is astonishing to imagine that, from this humble beginning, the Rotary Foundation today receives more than 65 million dollars each year for educational and humanitarian activities around the world.