Give a little, give a lot

 

 

$250 helps provide a playground. $500 helps provide a braille typewriter.

Patti O’Donoghue, of North Carolina, USA, likes having a “vehicle to share what we have with people around the world.” Don Goering, of Iowa, USA, is moved by images of people with polio in developing countries. And Giancarlo Moretti, of Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, wants to honor his wife’s memory. They’ve each translated their hopes and dreams for the global community into donations to The Rotary Foundation. And they’ve found ways to give that fit their budgets and philanthropic values, benefiting the Annual Programs Fund, PolioPlus and PolioPlus Partners, and the Permanent Fund.

Patti O’Donoghue
Annual Programs Fund

There are no tycoons living in Mount Olive, N.C., USA. The biggest game in town is the Mount Olive Pickle Company, at the corner of Cucumber and Vine streets. Aside from that, there’s farming, a small college, and the businesses on Center and Main streets – a hardware store, a couple of insurance brokerages, an old-fashioned drugstore where they still make the orangeade from scratch.

It’s a typical small American town, and like many of its 4,567 residents, Patti O’Donoghue, a 68-year-old writer and former president of the Mount Olive Chamber of Commerce, is involved in her community. But as a Rotarian, she also has a global outlook and a generous spirit. She is a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow and a contributor to the Permanent Fund. And since 2000, O’Donoghue, of the Rotary Club of Mount Olive, has made regular donations to the Foundation’s Annual Programs Fund, which supports humanitarian and educational projects in 163 countries on seven continents.

The Every Rotarian, Every Year initiative, which was launched in 2004 to benefit the Annual Programs Fund, has a US$120 million annual goal. That seems quite ambitious until you consider the more than 1.2 million Rotarians out there. Think of each one donating just $100 to the fund, and the goal suddenly seems attainable.

The Foundation “gives me the opportunity to help people I will never see,” says O’Donoghue.

As 2002-03 president of the Mount Olive club, O’Donoghue asked every member to contribute every year to the Annual Programs Fund. With help from donors in Mount Olive and many others like them, the fund reached $102.5 million in 2006-07, topping the $100 million mark for the first time in the Foundation’s history.

“It’s so easy and painless,” says O’Donoghue, who gives monthly through a system that enables donors in North America to electronically transfer funds to the Foundation from their checking, savings, or credit card accounts. “Once I signed up to have the donation taken from my account, I did not miss the money.”

Learn more about the Every Rotarian, Every Year effort and the Annual Programs Fund.

Don Goering
PolioPlus and PolioPlus Partners

Don Goering and his wife, Doris, still live in the three-bedroom, ranch-style home where they raised their two children. It’s a modest place suited to a retired couple who’d prefer to safeguard their nest egg. Goering’s mother lived to be 103, and Goering, a 71-year-old member of the Rotary Club of Ames, Iowa, USA, is planning to do the same. Since he retired from Iowa State University Extension, where he was an agricultural and youth-training specialist, the couple has covered expenses with pension and Social Security payments.

Yet the Goerings donate to the Foundation, giving small gifts whenever they can. Over the years, those contributions have added up. In 2003, the couple became Major Donors, a designation reserved for those who have given US$10,000 or more.

“We’ve not given big chunks, but we’ve given continuously. I don’t have the big chunks to give,” says Goering, a Rotarian since 1959 who has served as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

He says he’s moved by images of people in developing countries who are unable to walk because of polio. That’s why some of his donations have gone to PolioPlus, which funds polio surveillance and immunization programs, and PolioPlus Partners, which sponsors mobilization efforts that get the word out. Even minor gifts to PolioPlus Partners allow Rotarians in endemic countries to buy banners, fliers, and newspaper advertisements – small items that remind countless people to immunize their children.

Since 2003, Goering has chaired the District 6000 PolioPlus Subcommittee and served on the PolioPlus Partners Task Force. In 2002-03, he chaired the district’s polio eradication fundraising campaign. In May, the Foundation presented him with its 2006-07 Regional Service Award for a Polio-Free World.

As members of District 6000’s Paul Harris Society, the Goerings give $1,000 a year to the Foundation. They also are members of the Bequest Society, meaning they have committed to giving at least $10,000 to the Foundation in their estate plans. In addition, they’ve contributed on behalf of their children, their children’s spouses, and three grandchildren, all of whom are Paul Harris Fellows.

Not bad for a couple of folks who’ve been living off their pensions.

More on PolioPlus and PolioPlus Partners.

Giancarlo Moretti
Permanent Fund

Retired electronics engineer Giancarlo Moretti spends his days in Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, a medium-sized town on the outskirts of Florence. Here, nature and industry accommodate each other, with major corporations fueling prosperity just a short distance from the bucolic hills of Tuscany. For Moretti, it’s a comfortable existence – the sort he had come to expect after spending a career with Finmeccanica Group, the nation’s second-largest industrial firm.

But at 73, this member of the Rotary Club of Firenze-Sesto Calenzano is concerned about the future. He wonders how tomorrow’s children will fare. And he wants to know that the Foundation will remain a viable force for good in the generations to come.

“I contributed to help children in every part of the world, to relieve the next generations of the crises in their lives,” says Moretti, mindful of the Foundation’s mission of improving health, supporting education, and alleviating poverty. “I really think that the Permanent Fund will always be the major way to keep the Foundation strong.”

The Permanent Fund enables Rotarians like Moretti to combine their gifts into a significant force for addressing the world’s future needs. It’s an endowment composed of contributions that the Foundation invests. A portion of the return is spent on programs, and the remainder is added to the principal, so gifts to the Permanent Fund will grow and continue to support the Foundation for years to come.

In June, Moretti became a Major Donor. “I decided to honor the memory of my wife, Grace,” he says. “I believe that The Rotary Foundation is the best way to help humanity.”

Moretti has held that belief since becoming a Rotarian 37 years ago. Early on, he periodically contributed to the Annual Programs Fund and received Multiple Paul Harris Fellow Recognition. As president of his Rotary club in 2004-05, he encouraged members to support the Foundation. And during the Rotary Centennial in 2005, he participated in one of his favorite Foundation programs, leading a Group Study Exchange team to Brazil.

“I am 73 years old,” Moretti says. “But I’m always ready to go and help anybody.” More on the Permanent Fund.