What is Rotary?

Rotary is an organization of professional and business leaders united worldwide, who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Rotary is the world's first service club. The first Rotary club was founded in Chicago, Illinois USA on February 23, 1905.

Rotary is some 1.2 million service-minded men and women belonging to more than 31,000 Rotary clubs in virtually every nation in the world.

Rotarians meet weekly for fellowship and interesting and informative programs dealing with topics of local and global importance. Membership reflects a wide cross-section of community representation.

Rotarians plan and carry out a remarkable variety of humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs that touch people's lives in their local communities and our world community.

Rotary is The Rotary Foundation, which each year provides some $90 million for international scholarships, cultural exchanges, and humanitarian projects large and small that improve the quality of life for millions of people. Rotary is widely regarded as the world's largest private provider of international educational scholarships.

Rotary is Polio Plus, Rotary's commitment to work with national and international health organizations on the goal of polio eradication by the year 2005, Rotary's 100th anniversary. More than one billion children in developing nations have been immunized against polio through Polio Plus grants.

Learn more about Rotary. Read the Rotary Basics Brochure provided by Rotary International.