Richard McDonald introduced Mark Anderson, senior Co-Ordinator Rotary Foundation. Mark has been involved in Rotary since 1976. He is married to Lyn and has 3 children and 6 grandchildren. He is a member of Beecroft Rotary Club and is also a malt whiskey collector.
Mark talked about Rotary Foundation which helps Rotary members increase their Impact through service, scholarship and training. The Rotary Foundation has moved to Norwest and the Vision Statement on wall at the office is “People of Action”.
Mark said that Rotary appears to the public to have become the fundraiser for other charities rather than project driven. He advised that 76% of donations to the Rotary Foundation comes from individuals. Mark posed the question, “Are we a fund raising organisation or a Humanitarian Services Organisation”. Our members were 50/50 in their response.
He believes the public are generally unaware of what other things Rotary undertakes other than what they see – running Bunnings BBQs and otherwise fundraising.
Mark said that the Beecroft Club looked into developing community services. He advised we need to expand our reach and expand our effort and should be project based rather than fundraising based. He talked about the benefits of increased understanding, building relationships, trust, participation and community involvement. Community Assessment Tools can be downloaded from the Rotary Website and is of great assistance. Beecroft Club has increased its membership and now has many younger members and a more diverse group of members. The club did an assessment of the community and developed their projects based on community need. The money they raise is spent in Beecroft and the surplus sent to Rotary Foundation to go towards Rotary grants.
Richard McDonald thanked Mark for his informative talk about the Rotary Foundation, which gave us a lot of food for thought.
