Our year
Rotary and the Gates Foundation extended our longstanding partnership to end polio, announcing a joint commitment of up to US$450 million over the next three years to support the global polio eradication effort.
The new Otto and Fran Walter Rotary Peace Center at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, Türkiye, welcomed its first cohort of Rotary Peace Fellows to learn about peacebuilding in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Symbiosis International University in Pune, India, was announced as the home of our next Rotary Peace Center. It will offer a one-year professional development certificate program for students of peace, conflict transformation, and sustainable development in Asia.
More than 900 Rotary members, program participants, partners, peace experts, and community leaders attended our presidential peace conference in Istanbul, Türkiye to learn how to be peacebuilders in a polarized world; the effect that technology, the media, and the environment have on peacebuilding; and how to make peace last.
We honored six People of Action: Champions of Peace whose exemplary work ranged from empowering farmers and refugees to healing postwar trauma.
When a polio outbreak was reported in Gaza in August 2024, Rotary committed US$500,000 for vaccination efforts, which helped protect more than half a million children from the disease — that’s 94% of the target population of children under age 10.
We selected the 2025 Programs of Scale grant recipient, Pathways to Peace and Prosperity in Colombia. This initiative, in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP-US), will receive US$2 million from The Rotary Foundation and US$1 million from WFP to promote sustainable community development by expanding access to economic opportunities and social welfare programs and by enhancing the ability of residents to break the cycle of violence, poverty, and food insecurity.
The 2025 Council on Legislation, which meets every three years, gathered in Chicago, Illinois, USA, to vote on important policy changes designed to move the organization forward.
Celebrating Rotary milestones
5 years of Programs of Scale. This multimillion-dollar initiative has supported large-scale, high-impact projects that make the most of Rotary members’ expertise, networks, and capacity to create lasting change. Our first award recipient, Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia, set out to reduce illness and death from malaria in 10 districts. One year after the program officially concluded in 2024, 94% of the 2,500 community health workers who received training continue to test for and treat malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia in their communities. The workers are sustaining the positive impact by providing health care closer to home and reducing the burden on overcrowded health care facilities.
10 years of partnership with the U.S. Peace Corps. Peace Corps volunteers serve in 60 countries, working alongside organizations, governments, and community members on locally prioritized projects. For more than a decade, Rotary members and Peace Corps volunteers have been collaborating on service projects and learning from each other.
20 years of Rotary Action Groups. Rotary Action Groups bring together Rotary members and participants from around the world who have expertise or experience in a specific humanitarian field. They form global networks and use their knowledge to help clubs and districts plan and implement service projects. Since Rotary Action Groups started in 2005, more than 50,000 members in 150 countries have supported more than 10,000 service projects and raised over US$10 million to fund club and district projects.
25 years of ShelterBox. What started as a project of the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard in Cornwall, England, to help a few dozen families a year has grown into an independent, internationally recognized disaster relief organization that has supported more than 3 million people with emergency shelter aid.
30 years of the Cadre. The Rotary Foundation Cadre of Technical Advisers offers oversight and technical assistance to clubs and districts as they plan complex, sustainable service projects. With over 600 advisers, each year the Cadre coaches thousands of our members, from Italy to Kenya. Cadre advisers share their expertise to help others deliver quality projects and steward Rotary Foundation funds.
50 years of Rotary Youth Exchange. Rotary Youth Exchange inspires young leaders to serve as catalysts for peace and social justice in their local communities and throughout the world, long after their exchanges end. The dedication and passion of the program’s hardworking leaders and volunteers, both Rotary members and nonmembers, have made life-changing experiences possible for tens of thousands of young people.
