I am in Boston today, but a special friend offered his insight on my comments last week. With his permission, I offer the thoughts of Past RI President Cliff Dochterman.

Hi Steve:

Reading your message today brought back some interesting memories of “turning points” in the life of The Rotary Foundation.

1. Most people are not aware of the fact that for the first 20 years of the Foundation, the only program was to give Ambassador Scholarships.  Districts were selected each year to determine which ones received the resources to give a scholarship.  Then Districts received one every other year; as more funds were raised, each District finally had one scholarship every year.

2. Few people are aware that The Rotary Foundation would have nothing to do with the Polio Plus program when we started raising funds in 1985. The Foundation Trustees said that is not one of our programs.  The Polio Plus office was set up in a different office building in downtown Evanston – and there was no connection with the Foundation.  Finally, the legal people said that Polio Plus could not collect money for Rotary, because The Rotary Foundation was the legal corporation within Rotary International.  So, in 1987, The Rotary Foundation reluctantly accepted Polio Plus as a program.  Today, the Foundation takes full credit for Polio immunization!  Really, who cares who gets the credit.  But at the outset, the Trustees would have none of it.

3. About 1965, people began talking about using some Foundation funds for humanitarian projects.  That gradually was accepted as we developed “matched districts” and created international partners to help some of the poorer nations.

4. Few Rotary leaders recall the tremendous opposition when the Health, Hunger and Humanity program was initiated in 1979. There was an amazing division in the Rotary world.  Many were convinced that all Rotary projects must be at the club level – and we should not have “corporate projects”.  There were debates on the floor of the R.I. Conventions opposing 3-H projects. Many friendships were destroyed over that issue relating to the idea of The Foundation giving large corporate grants.   However, Polio Plus is now our greatest example of a Rotary International corporate project and people ask, “What’s next?”

5.When I was President in 1992-93, Rotarians in Europe asked that we try to help the refugees fleeing from the civil war in Bosnia into Croatia.  I asked if money could be contributed to The Rotary Foundation for war relief to buy food, clothes, blankets, medicine.  The Foundation said that it did not fit into the 3-year investment program and there was no way to have funds flow in-and-out of the Foundation immediately.  So, I had the Rotarians in Austria set up a private bank account and ask Rotarians around the world to send their money to Graz, Austria.  About $8 million arrived in 5 weeks!  The United Nations said that Rotary’s refugee effort actually saved one hundred thousand lives.  Next to Polio Plus, the Bosnian War effort has been Rotary’s largest humanitarian project.

6.Few recall that the District leaders never had one single voice in how their Foundation contributions were spent until 1981-2 when a committee, called the “New Horizons Committee” suggested that each District would have some portion of their funds under their direction.  This concept was revolutionary at the time – because the Trustees, up till then, had control of every dollar contributed to the Foundation.

So, I’ve seen the Rotary Foundation stand at the cross roads many times.   And, it will be many more times, I’m sure.

Best regards,

Cliff