Garry Shearer - Foundation and Grants

Garry Shearer presented on foundation and grants.  

Where does all the foundation money go?  It goes into three buckets.

First is the fund for End Polio and goes straight into programs and efforts worldwide.  

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation partnered with Rotary and gave half a billion so far to the program thanks to partnership with Rotary International. However, this bucket is continually emptied and needs to be constantly refilled.  The reason we need to keep giving is we need to keep immunizing in order to ensure Polio stays suppressed.

Bucket two is the Endowment Fund. This fund is our savings account in Rotary. This money stays in the fund and the interest is used for Rotary programs.  Currently we have assets today of over a billion dollars. $350 million in cash generates about $15 million per year to go to the world fund to fund grants that clubs apply for. $650M is promised by way of assets pledged in the wills of active Rotarians.

The third bucket is our chequing account in Rotary called the Annual Fund. This bucket essentially funds all the grants that clubs apply for in the world. This bucket accumulates $120 million per year USD.

Rotary collects this money but doesn't spend it right away. They invest it for three years. Those returns are used to administer the foundation. Since Rotary is a volunteer organization 92 cents of every dollar given goes directly to programs. Compare this to some charities that may spend up to 75 cents on the dollar in order to administer themselves.

The $120 milliom invested for 3 years is then available for grants. It comes out split in two. $60 million goes back to the 538 districts worldwide for grants. The other 60 million goes to the World Fund. The World Fund is available for global grants. The amount available for districts isn't divided by 538 equally. It returns back to each district based on how much we gave as a district.

This year close to $140K in grants are coming back to our district for next year.

To the Annual Fund 3 years ago, $280K was given by our district. Now it comes back 3 years later and $140K comes to our district and  $140K goes to World Fund.

Now our district teams look at the $140K and splits that into $70k for district grants and 70k for global grants. To apply for an international grant there has to be a national border. District grants have to be used for local projects. However they can also be used for international.

Only Rotarians can apply for funds.

Often some Rotarians apply for District grants to fund global projects, the reason is global takes longer is because of international partnerships with the district is a complicated and timely process.

Our district policy is we will match 50 cents on dollar for local projects with all the money the club provides.

With global grants the district will fund out of the global fund 100 cents on the dollar.

There is greater leverage with global grants.  A $10, 000 investment will yield a match of $10K from the global grants portion of our district.

The World Fund will the match $10,000 again. And an additional 50 percent on the original $10k.

With a $30K club investment, global grants gives up to $20k and world fund gives up to $20k. Plus 50% on the original $30k (which would be an additional $15k).

Check out the Global grants website at http://www.matchinggrants.org/global/. These are all active global grants looking for funding in order to complete. It is recommended clubs apply together and pool resources, rather than tackle projects alone.

District cap for grant matching is $10k.

Only 27% clubs apply for grants each year. and money is actually sent back to foundation because of grant money left not applied for.

The moral of the story is there is tons of money available for clubs looking to sponsor projects in the community!