District Governor Doug's November Message
It’s all about the heart. Four years ago I had the pleasure to serve as the SAG for Foundation with a great bunch of folks under the tutorage of then-Governor Scot Clifford (in spite of his blind allegiance to UCLA) continues to be a man I admire and respect. The approach that year was different. Instead of “open your wallets” it was instead a challenge to the Foundation team: Tell the story, grab the heart and let it dictate each Rotarian’s commitment to our Foundation.
We darn near doubled the contributions from previous years.
That is still my philosophy today. No one should give a thing to our Foundation out of a sense of obligation but instead should make it a viable choice for their charitable giving based on knowledge and appreciation for what it accomplishes.
It is the lifeblood of all we do and yet there are so many hearts we have yet to grab. Fewer than half of the District’s 2,000-plus members have contributed this year! Or, for the glass-half-empty folks, that’s 50% plus of us within 5280 that have yet to feel the desire to give even a penny!
I’d like the think that’s based just on a lack of knowledge and awareness. Certainly we all know about our efforts to eradicate polio. The importance of this has lost some of its zip because of our success. Simply put: too few cases reported from too few areas erase the disease from our minds. But recently in one of the former Russian provinces about 460 new cases broke out in rapid fire succession. This is in an area previously free of polio for decades. How did it happen? Simple: the virus was carried from someone visiting from one of the few regions in the world where polio has yet to be eradicated. It could have just as easily occurred here. We are so close and we need to continue the job.
Millions of dollars each year flow from our Foundation to our clubs and back to our communities. This year alone we will award close to $500,000 to the clubs in this District for community and international projects.
Lives have been saved, changed, enhanced in all areas of human dignity, yes, all over the world, but also and continually right here, in our neighborhoods as a result of funding from our Foundation. Families eat, children and adults have learned to read, have benefitted from needed surgeries and have been given sight, hope and a future, because of you, because of The Rotary Foundation.
Give us a shot-call on me or one our Foundation leaders (TRF chair and PDG Rick Mendoza can guide the way) to see if we can grab a heart or two.
I’m betting we can.
-Doug