The Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees also serves without compensation, and is comprised of eleven members chosen by the Board of Directors of Rotary International along with the four most recent past presidents of Rotary International.* Each serves a four year term, and the senior Past President of Rotary on the Board serves as Chairman is his last year of service. The current Rotary Foundation Chairman is RI Past President William B. Boyd of New Zealand. Other members of the Trustees currently are from USA, Ghana, Korea, India, Japan, Brasil, Taiwan, Australia, Scotland and Canada.

In 1917, RI President Arch C. Klumph proposed that an endowment be set up “for the purpose of doing good in the world.” Rotarians were appointed to “hold, invest, manage, and administer all of its property as a single trust for the furtherance of the purposes of RI.” The Foundation made its first grant of a modest $500 to the International Society for Crippled Children. Created by Rotarian Edgar F. Allen, this initial recipient later became the Easter Seals organization.

The first permanent Foundation program, the forerunner of Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarships, was established to honor Rotary’s founder, Paul P. Harris, after he died in 1947. In 1965-66, three new programs were launched: Group Study Exchange to foster professional development and friendship between the peoples of the world, Awards for Technical Training, and Matching Grants. The Health, Hunger and Humanity (3-H) Grants program was launched in 1978-79, and Rotary Volunteers was first funded as a part of that program in 1980. The global commitment to the eradication of poliomyelitis, PolioPlus, was announced in 1984-85, and the next year Rotary Grants for University Teachers was introduced.

The first peace forums sponsored by Rotary were held in 1987-88, leading to the establishment of the Foundation's Peace and Conflict Studies programs. In addition to providing the resource base of Annual Fund contributions for Rotary Foundation Humanitarian and Education Programs, and to meeting the most recent $200 million Challenge from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotarians have committed to securing US$95 million in funding for the six Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution in Japan, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Australia and the United States. This program, already in its seventh year of operation, is enabling Rotarians around the world to help foster world understanding and peace through the education of our next generation of conflict resolution leaders.

PolioPlus, the most ambitious program in Rotary’s history, is the volunteer arm of the global partnership dedicated to eradicating polio. In 1985, there were over 350,000 new cases of polio throughout over 130 countries annually and millions of crippled young and old alike struggled with withered limbs and damaged lungs and muscles. Although the last wild polio virus case in the United States occurred in 1969, most of the world at that time still suffered from the scourge of this crippling disease. For more than a quarter century now, Rotary has led the private sector in the global effort to rid the world of polio. In addition to providing financial and volunteer support, Rotary works to develop support from other public and private sector partners.

The campaign to eradicate polio begun by Rotary in 1980, followed in 1988 by the official cooperative support of WHO, UNICEF, The Children's Fund, the CDC and USAID of the Rotary initiative. With the addition of dozens of national health agencies and with the added major financial support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the END POLIO NOW campaign is recognized worldwide as a model of public-private cooperation in pursuit of a humanitarian goal.

But it has been the inspiration and effort of hundreds of thousands of Rotary volunteers who have mobilized the world to immunize literally billions of children since 1985. “As an international community, we have few opportunities to do something that is unquestionably good for every country and every child, in perpetuity. Polio eradication is one of these opportunities,” says Dr. Margaret Chan, World Health Organization Director-General.

Rotary began as a simple idea more than a century years ago. Today, Rotary flourishes worldwide. The world's first service club of its type, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed on 23 February 1905 by attorney Paul P. Harris, who wished to capture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. Rotary's popularity spread rapidly, and by 1921 local Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents. The organization adopted the Rotary International name a year later.

As Rotary grew, its mission soon expanded beyond serving club members’ professional and social interests. Rotarians early on began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve their local communities in need. It is now estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 different service projects are undertaken by the 34,000 local Rotary clubs each year. As volunteers, no Rotarian takes a salary and all contribute their time, energy, resources and funds that go far beyond the small proportion of the effort devoted to large scale officially-funded few thousands Rotary Foundation service projects.

Rotary and the United Nations have a long history of working together, sharing similar visions for a more peaceful world. In 1942, looking ahead to the postwar era, Rotary clubs from 21 nations organized a conference in London to develop a vision for advancing education, science, and culture after World War II, a precursor to the founding of UNESCO.

In 1945, 49 Rotary club members served in 29 delegations to the UN Charter Conference, amongst them Carlos P. Romulo of the Philippines, a past Vice President of Rotary International and later President of the UN General Assembly. Rotary and the UN have been close partners ever since, a relationship that is recognized through the annual RI Day celebrated at the Nations Headquarters in New York.

Rotary currently holds the highest consultative status offered to a non-governmental organization by the UN’s Economic and Social Council, which oversees many specialized UN agencies. Rotary maintains and furthers its relationship with a number of UN bodies, programs, commissions, and agencies through its representative network. A score of Rotary International representatives today are assigned by the President of RI to the United Nations and its affiliate organizations to actively participate in UN conferences and deliberations. They not only provide information regarding Rotary’s established policies, programs and activities, but also act as a catalyst for mobilizing Rotary resources for projects to meet the humanitarian needs and conflict resolution and peace initiatives throughout the entire world.

Rotary's contribution to the global peace effort has been recognised for most of the 20th Century. US Secretary of State Edward Stettinius justified Rotary's participation in the establishment of the United States: "The invitation to Rotary International to participate in the United Nations Conference as consultant to the United States delegation was not merely a gesture of good will and respect toward a great organization. It was a simple recognition of the practical part Rotary’s members have played and will continue to play in the development of understanding among nations. The representatives of Rotary were needed at San Francisco and, as is well known, Rotarians made a considerable contribution to the Charter itself, and particularly to the framing of provisions for the Economic and Social Council." Later, former Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain declared in response to a question of Rotary's continued role in world affairs. “Few there are who do not recognize the good work which is done by Rotary clubs throughout the free world.”

Rotary representatives continue to serve each and every year without compensation at the UN offices in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Roma, Berne, Paris, Strasbourg, Bangkok, Beirut, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Kampala, Santiago, and at the Organization of American States, PAHO, and World Bank in Washington.

Rotarians’ contribution to the betterment of the world condition is so vast as to be virtually immeasurable.....
.....Who else but Rotary volunteers have been able to generate ceasefires of armed conflicts in Angola, Somalia, Sudan, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Colombia, Peru, Kashmir and elsewhere to administer polio vaccine to children?
....Who else could mobilise over a hundred thousand volunteers in a single day in India and inspire an entire nation to immunise over 150 million children in that day?
.....Or, to do so twice a year every year since the early 1990s?
.....Or to do so in 130 countries?? All without a farthing of salary paid to Rotarians???

Of additional significance are the more than one million individuals, overwhelmingly Rotarians, who have been recognized as Paul Harris Fellows to date – people who have given at least $1,000 to The Rotary Foundation’s Annual Programs Fund or to PolioPlus or other dedicated programs - or who have had that amount contributed in their name. Such strong, sustained, dedicated internal financial support, along with active Rotarian involvement worldwide, can only underscore the ongoing commitment of Rotarians to ensure a more secure future for our children and grandchildren. With or without public recognition, one fact is certain: