2020-2021

Overview

        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. Members of a Rotary club are part of a diverse group of professional leaders working to address various community and international service needs and to promote peace and understanding throughout the world. Our members are our most important asset. They are the force that allows Rotary to carry out its many humanitarian efforts and achieve its mission.

        The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are non-political, non-religious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.

        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.

Service Above Self - The Rotary Motto

        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 Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes world understanding through international humanitarian service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and others who share its vision of a better world. Since 1947, the Foundation has awarded more than US$1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated and administered by local Rotary clubs and districts.

The Four-Way Test

        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. It asks the following four questions:

          1.) Is it the Truth?

          2.) Is it Fair to all Concerned?

          3.) Will it Build Goodwill and Better Friendships?

          4.) Will it be Beneficial to all Concerned?

Object of Rotary

The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

FIRST - The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;

SECOND - High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;

THIRD - The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;

FOURTH - The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

RI Mission Statement

        The mission of Rotary International is to support its member clubs in fulfilling the Object of Rotary by:

          A.) Fostering unity among member clubs;

          B.) Strengthening and expanding Rotary around the world;

          C.) Communicating worldwide the work of Rotary; and

          D.) Providing a system of international administration.

Declaration of Rotarians in Businesses and Professions

        The Declaration of Rotarians in Businesses and Professions was adopted by the Rotary International Council on Legislation in 1989 to provide more specific guidelines for the high ethical standards called for in the Object of Rotary.

As a Rotarian engaged in a business or profession, I am expected to:

        Consider my vocation to be another opportunity to serve;

        Be faithful to the letter and to the spirit of the ethical codes of my vocation, to the laws

                of my country, and to the moral standards of my community;

        Do all in my power to dignify my vocation and to promote the highest ethical standards in

                my chosen vocation;

        Be fair to my employer, employees, associates, competitors, customers, the public, and

                all those with whom I have a business or professional relationship;

        Recognize the honour and respect due to all occupations which are useful to society;

        Offer my vocational talents: to provide opportunities for young people, to work for the

                relief of the special needs of others, and to improve the quality of life in my

                community;

        Adhere to honesty in my advertising and in all representations to the public concerning

                my business or profession;

        Neither seek from nor grant to a fellow Rotarian a privilege or advantage not normally

                accorded others in a business or professional relationship.

Rotary International History

        The world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, Illinois, USA, was formed on 23 February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to recapture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The name "Rotary" derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices.

        Rotary's popularity spread throughout the United States in the decade that followed; clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents, and the organization adopted the name Rotary International a year later.

        As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving the professional and social interests of club members. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its principal motto: Service Above Self. Rotary also later embraced a code of ethics, called The 4-Way Test, that has been translated into hundreds of languages.

        During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly involved in promoting international understanding. A Rotary conference held in London in 1942 planted the seeds for the development of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and numerous Rotarians have served as consultants to the United Nations.

        An endowment fund, set up by Rotarians in 1917 "for doing good in the world", became a not-for-profit corporation known as The Rotary Foundation in 1928. Upon the death of Paul Harris in 1947, an outpouring of Rotarian donations made in his honor, totaling US$2 million, launched the Foundation's first program - graduate fellowships, now called Ambassadorial Scholarships. Today, contributions to The Rotary Foundation total more than US$80 million annually and support a wide range of humanitarian grants and educational programs that enable Rotarians to bring hope and promote international understanding throughout the world.

        In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all of the world's children against polio. Working in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and national governments thorough its PolioPlus program, Rotary is the largest private-sector contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized hundreds of thousands of PolioPlus volunteers and have immunized more than one billion children worldwide. By the 2005 target date for certification of a polio-free world, Rotary will have contributed half a billion dollars to the cause.

        As it approached the dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked to meet the changing needs of society, expanding its service effort to address such pressing issues as environmental degradation, illiteracy, world hunger, and children at risk. The organization admitted women for the first time in 1989 and claims more than 90,000 women in its ranks today. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were formed or re-established throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Today, 1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 30,000 Rotary clubs in more than 160 countries.

Rotary Milestones

1905    First Rotary club organized in Chicago, Illinois, USA

1908    Second club formed in San Francisco, California, USA

1910    First Rotary convention held in Chicago

1912    First club outside US formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

1917    Endowment fund, forerunner of The Rotary Foundation, established

1933    4-Way Test formulated by Chicago Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor

1945    Forty-nine Rotarians help draft United Nations Charter in San Francisco

1947    Rotary founder Paul Harris dies; first 18 Rotary Foundation scholarships granted

1962    First Interact club formed in Melbourne, Florida, USA

1965    RI launches Matching Grants & Group Study Exchange programs

1978    RI's largest convention, with 39,834 registrants, held in Tokyo

1985    Rotary announces PolioPlus, immunizing children of the world against polio

1989    Women join Rotary

1989    Rotary clubs chartered in Budapest & Warsaw (first time in almost 50 years)

1990    Rotary Club of Moscow chartered first club in Soviet Union

1991    Preserve Planet Earth program inspires 2,000 Rotary environmental projects

1994    Western Hemisphere declared polio-free

1999    Established RI Centers for International Studies in Peace & Conflict Resolution

2000    Western Pacific declared polio-free

2001    30,000th Rotary club chartered

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - much of the above has been excerpted from the Rotary International website.