Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.

Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional men and women. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.

The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development. The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.

Although Rotary clubs develop autonomous service programs, all Rotarians worldwide are united in a campaign for the global eradication of polio. In the 1980s, Rotarians raised US$240 million to immunize the children of the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary year and the target date for the certification of a polio-free world, the PolioPlus program will have contributed US$500 million to this cause. In addition, Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around the world.

The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes world understanding through international humanitarian service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and others who share its vision of a better world. Since 1947, the Foundation has awarded more than US$1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated and administered by local Rotary clubs and districts.

Rotary began with the formation of the Rotary Club of Chicago, Illinois, USA, on February 23, 1905. The club was started by a young lawyer, Paul P. Harris, and three of his friends. He wished to recapture the friendly spirit he had felt among business people in the small town where he had grown up. Their weekly meetings "rotated" among their offices, providing the new service club with its name. As an organization of business and professional leaders, Rotary provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and builds goodwill and peace in the world. Today, Rotary flourishes with some 27,000 clubs and 1.2 million men and women as club members, providing community service in virtually every nation in the world. Rotary is an opportunity to build lifelong friendships and experience the personal fulfillment of providing volunteer service to others.

The Object of Rotary?
The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster: First, the development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service; Second, high ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society; Third, the application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business and community life; Fourth, the advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

The Avenues of Services 1. Club Service: providing service to the Rotary club to enable it to run efficiently in the spirit of fellowship.
2. Vocational Service: putting high standards of conduct into practice in the business and professional lives of Rotarians.
3. Community Service: identifying needs in the Rotary's club's community and addressing these needs with service projects.
4. International Service: working for international understanding and peace by promoting goodwill between all people.

Membership
Rotary International is the association of Rotary clubs around the world. Rotary clubs select their own service projects based on local needs and requirements. Clubs work on projects relating to health, hunger, environmental concerns, literacy and vocational assistance, drug abuse, and assisting senior citizens and young people. Club members support projects internationally, through their own contacts with Rotarians in other countries, and through participation in the programs of The Rotary Foundation. Membership in a Rotary club is by invitation and is on the basis of one representative of each business and profession. This classification system ensures a wide cross section of community representation. Clubs meet weekly for fellowship and interesting and informative programs dealing with topics of local and global importance. The real work of Rotary takes place before and after the meetings, when Rotarians plan and carry out a remarkable variety of humanitarian and educational service projects that touch people's lives in their local communities and our world community.

Rotary In Action...The list could go on, for there are as many different service projects as there are Rotary clubs to undertake them. In addition to local club projects: Rotary Youth Exchange sends some 7,000 high-school age young people abroad each year.
World Community Service matches Rotary clubs in two or more nations to support a community service project.
Interact and Rotaract are service clubs sponsored by Rotary clubs which provide service opportunities for teenagers and young adults.
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) recognize and develop young leaders.
Rotary Village Corps and Rotary Community Corps enable people to improve the quality of life in their communities.
Fellowship Activities bring together Rotarians from around the world with common recreational and professional interests.
The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International provides an opportunity for Rotarians to work for international understanding and peace. Established in 1917, The Rotary Foundation is supported by voluntary contributions of Rotarians and friends of Rotary. Through their Foundation, Rotarians sponsor international scholarships and cultural exchanges, and create humanitarian projects large and small that improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world. Through their foundation, Rotarians sponsor PolioPlus, Rotary's commitment to work with national and international health organizations on the goal of polio eradication. More than one-half billion children in developing nations have been immunized against polio through PolioPlus grants.

Four Way Test From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives. One of the world's most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics is The Four-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy.

This 24-word test for employees to follow in their business and professional lives became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this simple philosophy. Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The Four-Way Test has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways. It asks the following four questions:

If you would like to find out more information about Rotary International, you can view the Rotary Website at www.rotary.org.