WHAT IS ROTARY

Local & Global Impact

Rotary is a global network of 1.4 million neighbors, friends, leaders, and problem-solvers who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change – across the globe, in our communities and in ourselves.

Solving real problems takes real commitment and vision. For more than 110 years, Rotary’s people of action have used their passion, energy, and intelligence to take action on sustainable projects. From literacy and peace to water and health, Rotary is always working to better our world, and we stay committed to the end.

The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise, encouraging and fostering:

  • The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service
  • High ethical standards in business and professions
  • The ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business, and community life
  • The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service

7 Areas of Service

Rotary members believe we have a shared responsibility to take action on our world’s most persistent issues. On global level, our 46,000+ clubs work together on 7 Avenues of Service:

      • Promote peace
      • Fight disease
      • Provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene
      • Save mothers and children
      • Support education
      • Grow local economies
      • Protect the environment

The Rotary Foundation

Since 1987, Rotary has been on a mission to eradicate polio, a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. A virus that spreads from person to person, polio typically is contracted through contaminated water and can attack the nervous system, causing paralysis. In Southwest Michigan, we have Polio survivors.

As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Rotary has reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent. Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease.

Today, there are only a few polio cases in the world, but it is crucial to continue working to end this crippling disease. The bigget contributors to Rotary is the Gates Foundation, which stands behind the symbolic positioning that we are ‘This Close’ to ending polio.

The 4-Way Test

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings.

Of the things we think, say, or do:

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?