Increasing our impact

One of 4 priorities of the Rotary Action Plan: Increasing our impact

Service is the core of what we do. We’re committed to making a positive difference in communities all around the world.

End Polio Now

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the World Health Organization’s South-East Asia Region being certified as polio-free. But even as we recognize the tremendous progress we’ve made in the fight against polio, our work continues. For example, we’re investing in wastewater surveillance, which is playing a pivotal role in polio eradication. This testing helps public health workers quickly detect an emergence of the virus and respond accordingly, and it holds vast potential for use against other diseases.

Polio by the numbers:

• There were 46% fewer reported cases of illness caused by the wild poliovirus in 2023 than there were in 2022.
• For World Polio Day 2023, more than 4,200 clubs registered activities to raise awareness about polio eradication. And we raised US$836,000 in online contributions — 10% more than the year before.
• Nearly 1 billion doses of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) have been administered since March 2021. In Nigeria, nOPV2 helped reduce variant poliovirus cases by 85% in the last three years.

Fighting cervical cancer in Egypt

In July, we announced that United to End Cervical Cancer in Egypt would receive the 2023 Programs of Scale award. The program is using the US$2 million award to reduce the number of cervical cancer cases in the Cairo region. The data collected through this program will inform an evidence-based strategy that the Egyptian government can use throughout the country.

Your donations make it possible

Our Foundation funds life-changing projects around the world. This Rotary year, as of April, we’ve provided US$29 million in district grants, as well as US$50 million in global grants. The global grants were distributed as follows among our areas of focus:

• Peacebuilding and conflict prevention: US$1 million
• Disease prevention and treatment: US$26 million
• Water, sanitation, and hygiene: US$7 million
• Maternal and child health: US$4 million
• Basic education and literacy: US$4 million
• Community economic development: US$6 million
• Environment: US$2 million

Thanks to our generous donors, the Disaster Response Fund received more than US$1.6 million in donations as of April 2024. The Give the Gift of Rotary campaign raised more than US$11.3 million in 2023, a 7.5% increase from 2022, to support life-changing projects in our areas of focus. And on Giving Tuesday — 28 November in 2023 — donors gave more than US$1.3 million to The Rotary Foundation, 9% more than they gave in 2022. With over US$287 million raised as of April 2024, we continue to work toward our fundraising goal of US$500 million.