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Rotary is an organization of
business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian
service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill
and peace in the world. In more than 160 countries worldwide, approximately
1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 30,000 Rotary clubs.
Rotary club membership
represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional men
and women. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical,
nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.
The main objective of Rotary
is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world.
Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's
most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the
environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for
youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students,
teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development.
The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.
Although Rotary clubs develop
autonomous service programs, all Rotarians worldwide are united in a
campaign for the global eradication of polio. In the 1980s, Rotarians
raised US$240 million to immunize the children of the world; by 2005,
Rotary's centenary year and the target date for the certification of a
polio-free world, the PolioPlus program will have
contributed US$500 million to this cause. In addition, Rotary has provided
an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days
in polio-endemic countries around the world.
The Rotary Foundation
of Rotary International is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes world
understanding through international humanitarian service programs and
educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported solely by voluntary
contributions from Rotarians and others who share its vision of a better
world. Since 1947, the Foundation has awarded more than US$1.1 billion in
humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated and administered
by local Rotary clubs and districts.
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The Object of Rotary is to
encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise
and, in particular, to encourage and foster:
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FIRST
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The development of
acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
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SECOND
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High ethical standards in
business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful
occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an
opportunity to serve society;
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THIRD
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The application of the ideal
of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
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FOURTH
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The advancement of international
understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business
and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
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From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were
concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional
lives. One of the world's most widely printed and quoted statements of
business ethics is The 4-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian
Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to
take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy. This 24-word code of
ethics for employees to follow in their business and professional lives
became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations with
dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this
simple philosophy. Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The 4-Way Test has been
translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of
ways. It asks the following four questions:
"Of the things we think,
say or do:
1. Is
it the TRUTH?
2. Is
it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will
it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will
it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?"
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