Page 6 - 2019-08-Rotary-on-the-Move-Newsletter-Zone-8

‘WHAT EVERY ROTARIAN SHOULD DO BEFORE THEY DIE’
Article by Euan Miller, Secretary and Director, Partnerships. Rotary Club of Norwood Inc

One of the greatest experiences of being a Rotarian, as we do good in the world, is to participate in
a Global Grant.
Most clubs never experience the delights and rewards of a Rotary Foundation Global Grant because
it is beyond their experience or beyond their budget.

However great opportunities are now available to do this. The millennial generation is now making up almost 50%
of the workforce and what’s more, is joining Rotary. Millennials are passionate about Rotary because it enables
them to do overseas projects. Furthermore the Foundation is flush with money, some of it you would have donated,
so why not use it?
So here are the six easy steps to make it happen.

1. Find a project Look at your club members and links they might have with developing countries. A
personal link makes it even more rewarding for your club and easier to manage if it goes slightly awry. If
you can’t make a link see if there is one in a neighbouring club that you may be able to share.

2. Find USD15,000 from club funds This is the minimum dollar amount for a project and a seemingly
insurmountable barrier especially for smaller clubs. Sharing the fundraising with other clubs is an
immediate solution. If you get enough clubs you can easily build a project with as little as $1000 each.
Corporate or private foundation support is another way to build your corpus because they get tax deductions
and you can add it to your funds, as long as the money goes through your club’s books.
3. Magically multiply your $15,000 by 3.5 times Through matches from both your district (and other
districts) as well as the Rotary Foundation you can make $15,000 become $52,500 with the stroke of a pen.
4. Write your submission This is done online and Rotary has tried to make this as simple as possible. If
you have had no experience in writing grant submissions it will still seem a struggle. Get somebody in the
club who has such experience to write it or get help from your District Foundation Committee. RI has just
appointed cadres this year to help as well Cadre@rotary.org
5. Three key submission points
a. Your project must fit one of the six Areas of Focus https://www.rotary.org/en/our-causes It may fit
into more than one but just choose one – it will be processed by RI much more quickly. It will take
around 6 weeks for approval and another 4 for the grant to arrive in your account.

b. It must be sustainable – you need to ensure that it will continue to be self-funding or otherwise
continue, after your grant runs out.
c. You need a partner club in the developing country to help with local management
6. When things go wrong One of the great learnings from a Global Grant project is how things work
differently in a completely different culture. Don’t get frustrated by this; just accept it as part of your
expanding life experiences. If you find things difficult with paperwork and bureaucracy, you can bet it will
be much more so for your partner club especially if they don’t speak English or their communication systems
are poor. On the ground management and reporting may not be up to the standard you would normally
expect either. There inevitably will be things that go wrong where your club will use its skills to fix. There is
provision in the grant to fund travel for your club to monitor the project. It is a good idea to include this in
the budget. Whatever does go wrong can be fixed. Every club has the wit and skills of its members to do
this. My club and I have a lifetime of stories to prove it, and so will you!

‘ROTARY CONNECTS THE WORLD’
RI President Mark Daniel Maloney, from Rotary News

Rotary allows us to connect with one another, in deep and meaningful ways, across our differences. It
connects us with people we would never otherwise have met, who are more like us than we ever could have
known. It connects us with our communities, to professional opportunities, and to the people who need
our help.

… All of us are in Rotary together, whoever we are, wherever we are from, whatever language we speak or traditions we
follow. We are all connected to one another — part of our communities and members not only of our clubs, but also of the
global community to which we all belong.
This connection is what lies at the heart of the Rotary experience. It is what brings us to Rotary. It is why we stay. Please
join your fellow Rotarians on this journey as Rotary Connects the World.

Rotary on the Move August 2019 Page 6