Page 6 - English Edition 2002

An Excerpt of

FOCUS FOR THE YEAR

In Sri Lanka, about 2,000 children are born every year with a congenital heart defect that needs
an operation so they can survive to become adults. Treatment existed, but it was not always
available or effective. So local Rotarians put together a plan to solve this urgent problem.
Seventeen Rotary districts from around the world contributed District Designated Funds [DDF],
matched by our Rotary Foundation, to provide a total global grant budget of US$365,000, and
they created the first and only human heart valve tissue bank in the entire country.
I’m sure you are aware of our first Programs of Scale grant, which was awarded to Partners
for a Malaria-Free Zambia, a program led by Rotarians that is building more capacity in
the health system to protect 1.3 million people in Zambia from malaria. It is already over
halfway to its goal of training and integrating health workers into the Zambian health system
to provide effective diagnosis and treatment for communities heavily impacted by malaria.
I am a huge fan of our Endowment Fund, which will provide the long-term certainty that
Ian H.S. Riseley our Rotary Foundation needs to sustain itself.
Foundation Trustee You know that we have a goal of $2.025 billion by 2025, and we need an inflow every year
Chair 2022-23 to take us toward that target. This is made up of cash and what we call expectancies, which
are bequests.
For annual giving — and remember, this is the figure that comes back for grants and
programming in three years’ time — we are aiming for $135 million, a slight increase on
this year’s goal.
To take our total contribution for PolioPlus to $50 million, we need to have transfers,
including DDF, etc., to polio of $15 million to add to our cash of $35 million. That $15
million is not cash, so let’s put it below the line here and put our $35 million cash and the
$100 million Gates Foundation grant that we receive up here in the cash inflow section.
This gives us cash inflow of $355 million.
This gives us a fundraising target grand total for 2022-23 of $430 million. An exciting figure!
The disruption to all societies around the world caused by COVID-19 makes budgeting
difficult, but I am confident that the Rotarians of the world, under your leadership, will
meet these targets and ensure the great work of our Rotary Foundation continues to flourish.
In the 2019-20 Southern [Hemisphere] summer, a combination of prolonged drought, global
warming, and adverse weather conditions meant that much of Australia was threatened with
wildfires — what we call bushfires — and the impact was catastrophic. Images of the fires
appeared on television screens around the world, and the need for assistance was obvious
and substantial. In Canada, themselves no strangers to wildfires, Rotarians wanted to help,
so they made contact. Of course, as we all know, the best way to help in a substantial way is
through The Rotary Foundation, and clubs and districts in Taiwan, India, and several other
countries joined in. As a result, three global grants totaling over $280,000 were undertaken
to improve the economic resilience of farmers affected by fire and drought.
We are waiting to learn the final outcome of these three projects, but I want to share with
you one of the many letters we have received from the farmers helped by these grants:
Our farming community members who have received help were so grateful that a Rotary
Foundation global grant supplied funding for our remote rural farming districts. They were
in disbelief that Rotary clubs from Canada and other countries abroad would step up and
help our relatively small farming region.
They were very grateful and honored to be considered worthy of such aid.

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