Expanding our reach

One of 4 priorities of the Rotary Action Plan: Expanding our reach

To grow our organization and inspire others to join us, we continually focus on reaching new audiences and raising awareness of Rotary and our people of action.

Growing Rotary

We understand the importance of creating clubs that meet current and potential members’ needs. From Canada to Singapore, clubs are using innovative approaches to create environments that people want to be a part of. Through these efforts, 510 Rotary clubs and 493 Rotaract clubs have been chartered this Rotary year, and we’ve welcomed more than 115,000 new Rotary members. We have made great progress toward our goal of chartering 1,000 new clubs and welcoming 150,000 new members this year.

As part of our ongoing efforts to integrate Rotaract more fully into Rotary, Rotaractors will soon be able to use Rotary Club Central to track their goals and plan for their clubs’ future. And we’re pleased to report that the first Rotaract-sponsored global grants have been awarded to projects in Nepal and Mongolia.

Global partnerships

Through our partnership with Bahçeşehir University, we opened a new Rotary Peace Center in Istanbul, Turkey, for Rotary Peace Fellows who are focusing on peacebuilding in the Middle East and North Africa. With its first cohort starting in 2025, this new center will further our long-term goal of extending the Rotary Peace Centers program into additional key geographic regions.

We also announced a new strategic partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that will help Rotary members clean, protect, and monitor waterways. These local efforts are crucial to protecting the environment on a global scale. The partnership complements our existing initiatives to improve access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene with the Rotary-USAID Partnership and our WASH in Schools Target Challenge with UNICEF.

Raising public awareness

In Brazil, the Rotary community — from Rotaractors and Interactors to Rotary Brasil magazine staff members — joined together to create a polio awareness campaign called Together Against Polio, which designed a wide array of Rotary-branded materials for clubs’ use. Nearly 2,000 people attended the September launch of the campaign in person, and more than 800 joined online. Since then, clubs across the country have been using the campaign’s materials on everything from billboards and posters to T-shirts and balloons, spreading a unified message: Together, we end polio.

We organized nearly 30 sessions at the 28th United Nations climate conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They highlighted community-led solutions and partnerships, as well as our members’ involvement in environmental preservation and protection, to COP28 delegates.

Last August was the one-year anniversary of a major update to the Brand Center, our online hub for the public image resources that members use to raise awareness of Rotary. After the update, visits to the Brand Center increased by 35% and downloads by 33%. Among the most popular items are People of Action materials, which members use to show their communities what makes Rotary unique.