January, 2019

Foundation First

January, 2019

Dear Rotarians:

Happy New Year to everyone!  We’ve had some exciting things happening in District 5970 over the holidays, and we have lots of excitement coming up in the second half of our Rotary year:

  • An exciting matching gift challenge for our District PolioPlus fund

  • Grant Management Seminars to help you apply for over $90,000 in District Grant funds

  • Our annual District Conference in April 2019 at Clear Lake, Iowa

Thank you to each one of you for the service you’ve given to The Rotary Foundation in the first half of our year through your completion of grant projects, financial support of the Foundation, and promotion of the good work the Foundation is doing. Let’s keep it going in the second half!

Multiply the Impact of Your Gifts to PolioPlus!

Thanks to the incredible generosity of a Major Donor Rotarian in our District, you have a unique opportunity to match your gifts to PolioPlus 4 to 1!  Here’s how it works:

This donor will match a club’s total giving to PolioPlus 2 to 1, when that club reaches its PolioPlus goal for this year.  The maximum total match will be $100,000. When you add the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation matching gift of 2 to 1, effectively the match will be 4 to 1, and actually grow the original gift by five times!  

For example, if a club reaches its goal of $2,000, the gift would grow like this:

     $2,000        Original gift
     $4,000        2 to 1 Major Donor match
     $4,000        2 to 1 Gates Foundation match
     $10,000      Total gift

Even if your club has already met its goal, consider raising additional funds to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

Remember that gifts from individual Rotarians and gifts from a club count toward the challenge.  This is an incredible opportunity for our clubs to meet and exceed their PolioPlus goals in a significant way, which in the end, gets us closer to our ultimate goal of eradicating polio.  

Thanks to the following 18 of 52 clubs who have met their PolioPlus goals already this year (as of December 31, 2018):

  1. Anamosa
  2. Cedar Falls
  3. Cedar Rapids Sunrise
  4. Dubuque
  5. Ely
  6. Emmetsburg
  7. Estherville
  8. Forest City
  9. Guttenberg
  10. Hampton
  11. Iowa Falls
  12. Iowa Great Lakes
  13. Manchester
  14. New Hampton
  15. Pocahontas
  16. Rockwell City
  17. Spencer
  18. Webster City

We anticipate ALL of our 52 clubs will be on this list by the end of June.  Don’t miss this opportunity! Go for it!

  
ENDING POLIO
 

Grant Training Seminars

As mentioned earlier, our District will have around $40,000 more to distribute for District Grants this year than we did last year.  That means we’ll need plenty of clubs to apply for 2019-20 grants. We encourage you to begin thinking about projects your club can do in your community or globally.  To help you in your planning, your project needs to fit within at least one of the following activity types:

  1. Community development: general
  2. Community development: disaster recovery
  3. Community development: volunteer services
  4. Education: general
  5. Education: literacy
  6. Education: volunteer services
  7. Food/agriculture: general
  8. Food/agriculture: volunteer services
  9. Health: general
  10. Health: disease
  11. Health: volunteer services
  12. Water: sanitation
  13. Water: supply/access
  14. Water: volunteer services  

The Grant Training Seminars will be held at the following dates and times: 

  1. Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 10:00 am – 11:00 am     (Online only)

  2. Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 10:45 am – 11:45 am in the Best Western Hotel in Clear Lake, IA.   (This occurs during the District Conference. It is in person and online for those needing a makeup session.)   

To register for one of these two seminars, go to the District Website - www.district5970.org.  Under upcoming events, click on the session you want to register for.   
 
Don Meyer
District Foundation Chair

Donald Meyer

District 5970 Foundation Chair

donald.meyer@wartburg.edu