The mission of The Rotary Foundation 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. The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.
All Rotarians are asked to contribute to The Rotary Foundation. The sums collected are considerable, amounting to many millions of pounds annually, and are fully used in funding the various projects carried out by the Foundation.
In 1980, in celebration of Rotary’s 75th anniversary, the 3-H programme was set up. This has brought many Rotarians into a new sphere of major projects concerning problems of health, hunger and humanity. Major immunisation programmes in the Philippines and a huge project to alleviate hunger in Ethiopia came out of 3-H.
The success of the 3-H immunisation projects led to the idea of controlling polio throughout the world by 2005. This evolved as PolioPlus, Rotary’s programme to help rid the world of polio and five other contagious childhood diseases. Vast funds were raised for PolioPlus and these are now being used on major projects aimed at meeting Rotary’s objective.