Vision
The vision of Rotary founder Paul Harris was of a club that would kindle friendship among members of the Chicago business community. He wanted to find in the large city the kind of friendly spirit and helpfulness that he had known in the small towns where he had grown up -- the spirit to reach out in service to others less fortunate. Through the subsequent spread of the Rotary movement, the spirit of friendship and service evolved quite naturally into a focus on helping to build goodwill and peace in the world.
It was also Harris's thought that the first club should represent a cross-section of the business and professional life of the community. From this idea developed Rotary's Classification Principle. Admission to Rotary club membership is by invitation, and accepting the invitation represents a personal commitment of the Rotarian to exemplify high ethical standards in one's own vocation or occupation.
As the entity representing the global association of all Rotary clubs, Rotary International's mission is to assist Rotarians and Rotary clubs to accomplish the Object of Rotary, emphasizing service activities by individuals and groups that enhance the quality of life and human dignity, encouraging high ethical standards, and creating greater understanding among all people to advance the search for peace in the world.
What is Rotary?
Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. In more than 160 countries worldwide, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 30,000 Rotary clubs.
Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional men and women. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.
The main objective of Rotary is service - in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development. The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.
Although Rotary clubs develop autonomous service programs, all Rotarians worldwide are united in a campaign for the global eradication of polio. In the 1980s, Rotarians raised $240 million to immunize the children of the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary year and the target date for the certification of a polio-free world, the Polio Plus program will have contributed $500 million to this cause. In addition, Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around the world.
Object of Rotary
The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:
FIRST. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
SECOND. High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
Four Way Test
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?
