By Carol Tichelman, endowment/major gifts adviser and member of the Fund Development Committee
When I joined Rotary 30 years ago, I did so because I was a bank manager, and I was expected to be involved in my community. At the time I really didn’t know much about the organization and spent a lot of time learning as much as I could.
As part of that discovery, I learned about The Rotary Foundation. The more I learned, the more passionate I became about the Foundation’s amazing impact. I committed early to be a regular annual donor to both the Annual Fund and to PolioPlus.
Everyone’s donation journey is different and changes with life circumstances. As my career advanced and my finances became more stable, I increased my giving and eventually created my own personal endowment to create a legacy that will live on beyond me.
Creating your own legacy and promoting Endowment awareness can be fun and creative. The Rotary Foundation has launched a global campaign to grow Rotary’s Endowment to $2.025 billion by the year 2025. A celebration will be held here in my home Zone 28, as we host the International Convention in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
And you can help us achieve this goal.
As an endowment/major gifts adviser for Zone 28, I participated in one innovative approach with fellow gift adviser Mary Shackleton from Zone 32 at a recent institute in Toronto. We sat at the registration table and distributed apples with QR code stickers linking to the District Guide to Growing the Endowment. This was a great way for the institute attendees to make a connection with the video “Your Rotary Legacy” where an apple tree is symbolically used to represent how gifts to the Endowment ensure our legacy carries on.
My colleague Senior Major Gift Officer Carolyn Ferguson also came up with the idea to run a challenge across our zone for each district to commit to a campaign in the Rotary year beginning 1 July 2023 to secure 25 new gifts to the endowment by 2025. These gifts of US$10,000 or greater can be outright, pledged, or planned gifts/bequests, and designated to what matters most to the donor. If each district in our zone achieves this, that would be $5 million towards the Foundation’s overall goal. Pretty impressive stuff!
I have challenged every district in my zone to participate in this campaign – and I now challenge every other zone and district to join us in growing Rotary’s endowment to do good in the world – and then come to Calgary in 2025 to celebrate our success!
It all begins with educating members in every club this year through the use of the materials on www.rotary.org/shareforever. It’s about explaining how most of our humanitarian work is funded, not only from your Annual Fund contributions but also providing evidence of the power of the earnings that come from our Endowment.
When you endow a gift through Rotary, your donation will “share forever,” leaving a legacy for your family, your Rotary friends, and your district. Like any other gifts to the Foundation, endowed gifts are credited to clubs and districts and if an endowed gift is directed to “SHARE,” it will provide annual spendable earnings that benefit your district forever.
Because it truly is about legacy: the story you want to share about your values and what is important to you in the work we do. It is the example you set and the memory you leave for those you love and those who love you.
https://blog.rotary.org/2024/02/20/creative-ways-to-promote-rotarys-endowment/