Stewardship and reporting
The Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees recognizes that the funds received from Rotarians around the world are voluntary contributions reflecting hard work and dedicated support. As stewards of these funds, the Trustees stress the importance of stewardship and proper financial management, in any activities associated with Foundation programs. An essential component of stewardship is the preparation and submission of timely and accurate grant reports.
Reporting requirements
The Trustees require that club and district grant sponsors submit progress reports to the Foundation every 12 months for the life of the grant and final reports within two months of the project’s completion. Yearly progress and final reports must be submitted using the official Foundation report forms. Future Vision Grant reports are submitted through Future Vision pilot website, accessed through Member Access.
Foundation grants are considered up-to-date with reporting if it has been less than 12 months since the last report was accepted or the last payment was made. Clubs and districts can receive new grants as long as they are up-to-date on reporting for grants they have previously sponsored.
Reporting analysis
The reporting analysis tracks each district’s compliance with reporting requirements for Rotary Foundation grant projects and is conducted in July, October, January, and April. To update clubs and districts on the results of the analysis, two notifications (Report reminder letters and World reporting letters) are sent.
Report reminder letters
A series of reminder letters are sent to grant sponsors to help club and districts.
- Grant sponsors will first receive an email reminder from the Foundation two months prior to a report being due to encourage the timely submission of the report.
- If it has been more than 18 months since the grant was paid or the last yearly report was submitted, the grant sponsors will recieve an 18 month reminder letter.
- After 24 month, a second letter is sent out.
- If more than 30 months have elapsed since the grant was paid or the last yearly report was submitted, a third letter informs the sponors that if they do not submit a report within 30 days, the sponsor clubs may be recommended for termination to the RI Board of Directors.
Foundation staff works closely with the sponsors of overdue grants to help them successfully complete reporting requirements and avoid such termination. To ensure that clubs and districts do not get to this stage, it is crucial that grant sponsors respond to the Foundation immediately upon receiving a reminder letter and collaborate with their partners to successfully submit a report.
World Reporting Letters
To emphasize the importance of timely grant reporting, The Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees also initiated the world reporting letters, which update districts of their reporting compliance percentage for Foundation grant projects four times per Rotary year. The letter includes the district’s reporting percentage, a list of grants that make up the percentage, and the status of each grant. The grant coordinator’s email address is also included, in case the district has questions regarding a specific grant. The letter is addressed to the district governor and copies are sent to the district Rotary Foundation committee chair, district grants subcommittee chair, and the district governor-elect. The regional Rotary Foundation coordinators also receive a list of percentages for districts in their zones.
Districts and their member clubs are expected to be 100 percent current and compliant with grant reporting requirements, however, the Trustees set the minimum compliance requirement as 70 percent. If a district is below 70 percent in all four reporting analyses in one Rotary year and has more than one grant overdue in each of those analyses, it will be subject to suspension from Foundation grant programs. For more information about World Reporting, please view the frequently asked questions.