Rotary Happenings: The business of Rotary business
Our club meeting this week pretty much focused on our Rotary Trust Fund Board and the processes involved in receiving and distributing the funds deposited in the Sanibel-Captiva Trust Fund account.
Just to clarify a bit, the club functions with two Boards; a Club Board of Directors that oversees the club workings, both administrative and fundraising, and the Rotary Trust Fund Board charged with the responsibility to oversee our club endowment fund managed by Rotary International Trust Foundation and oversees the distribution of funds received as proceeds of club fundraising activities and additional funds designated for special projects.
Just to confuse us a little bit more, fundraising monies are generally deposited directly into the Board Bank Account and then transferred to the Trust Fund account. The Trust Fund Board then has the responsibility of managing how the funds are distributed. The club yearly receives a large number of requests from non-profits and worthy organizations for funding of special projects. Our eight Fund Board Trustees, the majority currently are past-presidents of the club, meet regularly to review these requests and decidedly look for projects that help communities locally and globally to make a contribution to the health and well-being of women and children, literacy and education, the health of the environment/water, promoting peace, disease prevention and promoting peace.
Rotary’s most successful and sustainable projects and activities tend to fall within these areas. Beyond that, Trust members will consider other worthy projects that they believe will benefit the communities that they serve. Last year the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Trust supported over forty different various projects with grants of $180 to $6,000. From time to time a review of how the Trust is processing these requests is made and specifically the need to redesign the request form and clarify how the requests should be presented to the Trust Board.
Basically the finding from the Trust is that the forms are pretty much straightforward and can be found on the club’s web site; sanibelrotary.org-under Charitable Grantsor through any Sanibel-Captiva Rotary member. The request will now be assigned a club member to guide the request through the process from correct information on form to final report back to Rotary on completion of project. A new emphasis will now be on the completion report; no completion report within specified time period, no consideration for additional requests.
The Trust Board has also made a determination that this Rotary Year- July 1, 2014 to July 1, 2015; it will try and maintain a 50/50 split between local and global projects. A proposed budget for the year has been established with line items for our college scholarships, some multi-year commitments, designated funds established and using past giving request figures as budget elements. There is flexibility within the budget and as the year unfolds new requests will be considered and determinations will be made by our Sanibel-Captiva Trust Fund Board members.
If any non-profit or organization has a project they need funding for, please review the guidelines for grants mentioned in the third paragraph above, go to our web site sanibelrotary.org-click charitable giving, fill out form, and submit. If that is not possible, e-mail Rotarian Lee Almas at lawoodman222@embarqmail and he will get you a copy of the form to you. All requests are discussed by the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Club Board with their recommendation given to the Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Trust Board, where all grant submissions are reviewed and voted on.
The Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Club meets every Friday morning at 7 a.m. at the Dunes Golf & Tennis Club, Sanibel. Guests are always welcomed.