Rotary Club of Keighley

Foundation Committee

                                                             Foundation Committee

The Rotary Foundation is Rotary's own charity established in 1917 and supported by contributions from Rotarians and the public. Indeed it has grown to be the largest charity in the world. The charity originally had a simple aim - "to do good in the world" - and today the mission is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education and the alleviation of poverty. This sounds rather grand so how is it done?

In June 2008 for example, the Rotary Foundation received $245 million in contributions which went into one of three main funds:-

Annual Programs Fund - this provides grants through the Foundation programs

Permanent Fund - this is an endowment from which only a portion of the earnings are spent on Foundation programs thus ensuring the viability of the Foundation

PolioPlus Fund - supporting Rotary's goal of a polio-free world

The contributions received each year fund the humanitarian, educational and cultural programs. Rotary clubs apply for grants to carry out various projects throughout the world furthering the aims of Foundation e.g. within the Annual Programs Fund there are the following programs:-

Educational Programs

Ambassadorial Scholarships - which provide support for abot 800 university-level students each year to serve as ambassadors whilst abroad. The scheme is the world's largest privately funded scholarship program.

Rotary Word Peace Fellowships - awarded to individuals for study in masters degree programs at one of seven worldwide Rotary Centres for International studies in peace and conflict resolution. The University of Bradford is one of these centres.

Group Study Exchange - this is an opportunity for non-Rotarian professionals between the ages of 25 -40 to experience a short-term cultural and vocational exchange program between Rotary districts in different countries

Humanitarian Grants Program

This another program which enables Rotarians to support and participate in international service projects. These projects cover providing water supplies, medical care, literary classes and other essentials to people in need.

PolioPlus

This fund and Foundation program is perhaps more well-known and is in fact the first objective for Rotary Foundation. The campaign to eliminate polio was announced in 1985 and since then 2 billion children under the age of 5 have received the polio vaccine, 5 million people who may have been paralysed are walking today and 500,000 new polio cases are prevented each year. The number of polio cases has declined by 99% worldwide but the aim is 100% and the END POLIO NOW campaign has recently been launched by Rotary. The campaign is supported by Bill and Melinda Gates ( of Microsoft fame) who in 2007 gave $100 million to the program and this year a further $255 million has been given with the challenge that Rotary raises $200 million by 30th June 2012 - a challenge being met by every Rotary club in the world.

 

 

 

The committee members for 2012/2013 are as follows:-

Chairman                                          Past President Jim Staton

                                                            Past President Tony Ainley

                                                            Past President Scowen Mogg

                                                            Rotarian Eric Harrison

                                                            Rotarian Leslie Bancroft

                                                            Past President Keith Bennett