Past District Governor Craig Gillis visited our club for Rotary Foundation Month to inform our members about The Rotary Foundation.
November is Rotary Foundation Month and Craig began by giving us some warm-up questions to test our awareness of the Rotary Foundation and our role in it. 
 
The Rotary Foundation (TRF) mission is to "advance world understanding, goodwill and peace through improvements in health, support of education and alleviation of poverty. " 
 
Every year TRF has a top rating from Charity Navigator.  It has a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation matching 2 to 1 agreement and has careful oversight by Rotary International. 
 
Many new rotarians aren't aware of the way TRF and Rotary International (RI) are organized and the different ways we can contribute.  TRF has 3 funds: Polio Plus, the Annual Fund and the Endowment Fund.
 
Polio Plus funds the End Polio Now campaign.  Funds are spent annually for polio eradication. Each polio vaccine costs only 60 cents. In October 2020 there were only 129 wild polio cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. in 1988 there were 850,000 known cases. 
 
The Endowment Fund  earns interest which is added to the Annual Fund. The principal is never spent.  It comes from member bequests. 
 
The Annual Fund  is invested for 3 years and the interest is used for global grants and district grants. 
 
Harbourside has a goal of $19,000 USD this year.  To date we have raised $720,000.  We have 69 Paul Harris Fellows ($1,000 USD), 12 Paul Harris Society members ($1,000 per year) and 7 major donors ($10,000 +)  , 8 Rotary Direct donors and 8 EREY ( pledging $35 per year). 
 
He ended with "Craig's List" of easy steps to contribute to TRF by logging on to your Rotary account.  
https://my.rotary.org/en/