Celebrating Rotary Foundation Month

November is Rotary Foundation Month in the Rotary International annual calendar of monthly themes. The Rotary Foundation is probably more widely known than Rotary International. The Rotary Foundation is to Rotary International what M-PESA is to Safaricom in Kenya.

To commemorate the November theme, Rotary Club of Nairobi has deliberately organized a number of activities around TRF.

One of the activities is to contribute to the financial resources of The Rotary Foundation. Our Club has donated $25 for each of its 43 active members making a total donation of $1,075 to the polio plus account. It has been quite appropriate to donate to The Rotary Foundation (TRF) at this time when there is a challenge from the Bill Gates Foundation to match every donation given at the rate of 2:1.  This means the $1,075 donation is now turned into a significant $3,225for the polio disease eradication.

As Rotarians, we are lending a hand to the efforts to eradicate polio disease from the face of the earth.

Our club is also raising awareness of the financial resources that are available from The Rotary Foundation to do a lot of good in our communities and improve the quality of lives.  On November 9^th we had a presentation on what is needed to participate in Global Grants. The members were informed on requirements such as finding a partner Club from another District, having a written commitment in form of a MOU with our own District for good financial stewardship, declaring all perceived and/or real conflict of interest in projects and being up to date in reporting all previous projects among other things.

Members were also informed that a GG must be at least $30,000 as TRF puts emphasis on high impact projects. The aim of getting more participation was achieved with members volunteering to join as Project committee members in the proposed Global Grant Projects.