About Rotary
Who supports Rotary
Rotary does not work alone. Behind the largest programmes stand governments, UN agencies, foundations and companies — and the clubs are the part that does the work on the ground. Here is who Rotary works shoulder to shoulder with.
Since 1985
Eradicating polio around the world
One of the benefits of being a Rotarian is being able to feel proud of belonging to an organisation that really does change the world. Since 1985 Rotarians have acted as community organisers for the eradication of polio, mobilising international organisations, governments, the private sector, local communities and individuals into a shared, global fight for a world free of this disease.
The alliance
Who fights polio together with Rotary
Rotary began PolioPlus in 1985, and three years later that idea grew into the Global Polio Eradication Initiative — the longest-running public health alliance in the world.
World Health Organization
It leads the alliance and is responsible for the strategy for fighting the disease. Its home in Geneva is where the whole initiative is based.
UNICEF
It buys and delivers the vaccines, and talks to families in places where vaccination is not trusted.
CDC
The American public health agency: laboratories, epidemiological data and people sent wherever the virus comes back.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
It makes sure vaccines reach the poorest countries, and that a child vaccinated against polio also receives the remaining immunisations.
Governments and institutions
The alliance also includes the European Commission and the King Salman Centre. Without state budgets no vaccination campaign gets moving.
The Gates Foundation
The programme’s largest private funder — and the partner that multiplies the money clubs raise.
The largest partner
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Rotary’s best-known partnership began with a single promise: that nobody would raise money for polio alone.
1 : 2 the Gates Foundation multiplies every dollar Rotary raises by two
The agreement works like this: Rotary undertakes to raise 50 million dollars a year, and the Gates Foundation adds two of its own to every dollar. Together that comes to up to 150 million dollars a year for vaccinations, epidemiological surveillance and reaching children in places nobody else reaches. The latest extension of the agreement is a joint commitment of up to 450 million dollars.
For a club like ours this is not a distant statistic. When we raise money for PolioPlus, every złoty is multiplied by that same mechanism — and that is the shortest answer to the question of what a small club needs a large organisation for.
Not only polio
Partners on the other programmes
Polio is the best known, but not the only one. Rotary’s other areas of work have partners of their own — relief organisations, government agencies and foundations.
ShelterBox
A British organisation that delivers tents, tools and equipment to families left without a home by an earthquake, a flood or a war. An official Rotary partner since 2012; the agreement was extended in 2022 for another three years.
USAID
Rotary’s largest partnership outside polio: a joint budget of 18 million dollars for drinking water, sanitation and hygiene education. It covered Ghana, Madagascar, Uganda, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines — in Ghana alone 160 thousand people gained clean water.
Mediators Beyond Borders
An international organisation of mediators which in 2018–2024 was an official Rotary partner — bringing professional craft to Rotary’s work for peace and the resolution of conflicts.
The Dollywood Foundation
The Imagination Library programme, founded in 1996 by Dolly Parton, sends books straight to the homes of small children — more than 300 million have been given out already. Rotary works with it to promote early reading, and the artist herself has been named a Paul Harris Fellow.
Why this matters for our club
The club in Warsaw has a dozen or so members. On its own it will not vaccinate three billion children, nor buy vaccines for a whole country. But it belongs to a structure in which small amounts of money are multiplied, and small projects gain access to grants from The Rotary Foundation and to partner clubs in other countries.
It works the other way round as well. A company or a person who supports our project is not paying “into the club” — they are entering the same network in which the Gates Foundation, UNICEF and the World Health Organization stand alongside them. The report on every złoty is the same report demanded of projects worth millions.
Membership of Rotary gives a local club access to an international network of partners, to knowledge and to the grant mechanisms of The Rotary Foundation. Because of it a local initiative can become part of a far larger undertaking.
Local cooperation works the same way: a company, a foundation or a person supporting a particular project brings not only money, but also knowledge, services, materials, contacts or the work of their teams.
Local partners
Companies, institutions and private individuals can support particular club projects with money, in kind, with expertise or through employee volunteering.
Join those who already support us
You need neither a foundation nor a million. One project you stand with us on is enough.