Rotary District 5950 and The Rotary Foundation Annual Fund

                Our District continues to be one of the most active and generous districts in the world when it comes to fundraising.  This year we will see an increase in TRF annual fund giving of at least 8% over the previous excellent year, and will break $730,000!  Our per capita giving will exceed $255, which is still short of  our goal of averaging $365 per Rotarian per year, but heading in the right direction. 

                There remains a significant percentage of Rotarians in our district who give nothing to The Rotary Foundation.  Although we do not have final numbers yet, as the year isn’t over and analyzed, my general sense is that we did not succeed in getting the non-givers to give; rather the increase in giving came from those who were already giving at a high level – higher, in fact than our aspiration of $365 per year.  I am really at a loss of understand how someone could be part of Rotary and not give anything toward The Rotary Foundation, which is the engine of our global service and what we are all about.  If we can just get these Rotarians to give even $100 per year – 30 cents a day!  -- we would see our district contributions to the annual fund top $1,000,000 annually.  We must continue to work on this, and I know we will. 

                We have been blessed with some great leaders at the district level who have encouraged and helped club foundation chairs do their job.   PDG Sandy Schley deserves immense credit for putting together a dedicated and talented team whose mission is to raise contributions to TRF.  Bob Halagan spearheads the entire fundraising effort and Jim Dwyer has led the annual fund efforts for the district.  A key component of our success as a district has been the increase in Paul Harris Society members with the leadership of Carolyn  Pratt.  The Paul Harris Society consists of Rotarians who have committed to give $1,000 per year to TRF as long as they are able.  We started the year at 109, and ended it at 178 – an increase of over 60%!  This is a fantastic start toward our goal of eventually getting to 300 PHS members.