Rotary Endowment – a promise to tomorrow

The last quarter of the Rotary year is approaching, and it’s time to check our progress. In January a year ago, we set a series of fundraising goals, and this June, we will give ourselves a report card. What will it be?

As Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair, I am looking forward to telling you at the Rotary International Convention what we all most want to hear: that we not only met our goals, but exceeded them.

That’s because each of those goals corresponds directly to progress in each of our six areas of focus.

In 2017–18, we approved 1,300 global grants. Those grants funded large, international projects with measurable, sustainable outcomes. Some were to keep newborn babies alive. Some were to bring clean drinking water and sanitary toilets to communities. And some went to economic development in poor areas. But every dollar had an impact — the kind of impact that lasts.

But there’s something else just as important: making sure we can continue doing this long into the future.

That’s where our goal for the Endowment comes in. Our Rotary Endowment is our promise to tomorrow — that our service to humanity will continue, that we will never give up.

Our goal for the Endowment this year is $26.5 million in direct gifts, with an additional goal of $35 million in commitments. But that’s not all we’re aiming for. We also have a long-term goal: reaching $2.025 billion in 2025.

Bringing the Endowment to that level will ensure that the World Fund has annual income to fund Foundation programmes year in and year out. This money will go in perpetuity to the programmes you have determined to support through your gift to the Endowment. If each of us supports our Endowment, we can truly make Our Legacy, Rotary’s Promise.

Together, we can make our Foundation even stronger, so that we can do even more good in the world.

Ron D Burton
Foundation Trustee Chair