A Warm Thank-You to all of our D9685 Rotarians and Clubs.

We have now the final results for giving to the Rotary Foundation in the 2018-19 Rotary year and we can all be very proud and pleased with our continuing commitment to OUR Foundation.

Overall we donated $US 542,048 to the Rotary Foundation this year, and while less than the last two years, in Aussie dollars it is more than last year.  Clubs and individual Rotarians have given $A 764,000 in this last Rotary year.  This figure was helped hugely by your generous support for the End Polio campaign, including a very generous bequest of $100,000 through Belrose Rotary, the contribution from those clubs that supported Ride the Train organised by Mark and Dave Anderson from Rotary Beecroft, and our 5 screenings across the district of the Movie Bohemian Rhapsody in November.  Our End Polio giving this last year was $A 244,000 against $A 80,000 in the previous year

Unfortunately, our Annual Fund giving, which is fundamental to our ability to support club projects, both here and overseas, was down; $US 337,000 ($A 475,000) from $US 404,000 ($A 529,000) in 2017-18.  We believe it has been heavily affected by the huge club support for the Drought Appeal earlier in the year, when the generosity of clubs was just wonderful.  While many clubs were able to provide less support than in the past, there were a good number of clubs that gave more, and very generously.  Thank You!

We are thankful to the increasing number of personal donors, our Centurions, Paul Harris Society members (now 86 in the district) and in particular some very generous Major Donors who materially made a big contribution to our result.  For interest I have included a column in the club giving report that shows the percentage of clubs where there is a lot of personal giving vs the level of club giving.  It is interesting that across the district 70% of our giving is now personal.

Outside the Belrose bequest of $US 74,074, the three best donating clubs are the E-Club (US$ 67,599), Beecroft (US$ 42, 356), and Ryde ($US 20,332).  Best Annual Fund giving clubs per capita were E-Club ($US 1458), Beecroft ($US 860), and North Sydney ($US 411).  Thirteen of our clubs gave more than $US200 per head so thank you all very much for your great support.

Once again, a donation was received from every club in our district, so thank you all.  Please see the table below for a summary by clubs of giving during the year.

Our donations go to the engine-room of what Rotary is all about.  The Rotary Foundation’s funds go almost entirely into doing good in the world with a world-leading ranking in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, integrity and low cost of operation.  In particular it is the vehicle through which Rotary has made a huge and on-going commitment to ridding the world of Polio.

It was also pleasing to see a growing number of clubs using Foundation funds to support their humanitarian projects using District and Global Grants.  We would like more clubs to be active in applying for grants as they are a very efficient way for your club to enhance the money available to support your wonderful project work.

We look forward to all clubs continuing to give their generous support during this year ahead as PDG Bruce Lakin takes over as our District Rotary Foundation Chair.  I thank our District 9685 Foundation committee for their great work around the clubs and in their specialty areas, and I know Bruce will receive the same level of support and assistance from his team.  

PDG David Rands

D9685 Rotary Foundation Chair (2016-2019)