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Rotary International

Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. The mission of Rotary, as stated on its website, is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through [the] fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders".[1] It is a non-political and non-religious organization.[2] Membership is by application or invitation and based on various social factors. There are over 46,000[3] member clubs worldwide, with a membership of 1.4 million individuals, known as Rotary members.[4]

"Rotarian" redirects here. For the ship, see SS Rotarian.

Formation

February 23, 1905 (1905-02-23)

Evanston, Illinois, United States

  • Global (except Cuba, Greenland, Guinea, Iran, North Korea, Vietnam, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and some Arab countries)

1.4 million

English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish

Gordon R. McInally (July 2023 – June 2024)

John Hewko (CEO & General Secretary)

The Rotarian

(1923)[25]

Netherlands

Belgium (1923)

(1926)

Finland

Austria (1938)

Italy (1939)

[26]

(1940)

Czechoslovakia

Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Yugoslavia and Luxembourg (1941)

Estonia

Hungary (1941/1942)

Developing leadership skills and personal integrity

Demonstrating helpfulness and respect for others

Understanding the value of individual responsibility and hard work

Advancing international understanding and goodwill

Publications[edit]

Rotary International publishes an official monthly magazine now named Rotary in English (first published in 1911 as The National Rotarian). From April 1923 to August 1928, the official magazine was managed and printed from the same building – the Atwell Building – as Rotary's office and headquarters;[19][20] the building was designed for Atwell Printing and Binding Company by famed Chicago architect, Alfred S. Alschuler.[65]


Other periodicals are independently produced in more than 20 different major languages and distributed in 130 countries. One of them is Rotary Norden which is distributed in four language editions in five countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.[66]

Honorary-Member of the , Portugal (2 February 2005)[67]

Order of Merit

List of Rotarians

Charles, Jeffrey A. (1993). . University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0252020155.

Service Clubs in American Society: Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions

Goff, Brendan. Rotary International and the Selling of American Capitalism (Harvard University Press, 2021); emphasis on the international aspects of Rotary International.

Lewis, Su Lin, "Rotary International's 'Acid Test': Multi-ethnic Associational Life in 1930s Southeast Asia," Journal of Global History, 7 (July 2012), 302–34.

Official website