ROTARY DISTRICT 9910
District Governor Keith Rogers

July 16 2007

Global survey judges Rotary a top partner

As New Zealander Bill Boyd steps down from his one year leadership of Rotary International, the organisation has been named as one of the top five non governmental organisations (NGOs) in a Financial Times/Dalberg survey.

Rotary is named with Lions International and three other United States environmental and agriculture organisations at the top of the list released in conjunction with the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in Geneva this month. All five are ahead of international agencies including the likes of UNESCO, Greenpeace, Save the Children or Earthwatch in the results.

The UN Global Compact and Dalberg Global Development Advisers say they created the ranking to assess the quality of NGOs and UN agencies with which private-sector, for-profit companies have established long-term working relationships.

Keith Rogers, newly elected District Governor for an area covering Auckland, North Shore and the Far North, New Caledonia and Vanuatu, says people sometimes lose sight of what Rotary does at home and around the world because it has been around for over 100 years.

“We might be seen as ‘part of the furniture’, but Rotary has raised billions of dollars from people over the years to fund help to those in need,” Mr Rogers says. “It’s worked hard on projects like eradicating polio, giving assistance to Aids programmes, bringing clean water to communities and helping with literacy, the environment and the development of young people.

“The criteria in the survey show Rotary can be trusted to make honest and efficient use of the money it raises.”

From a list of 20,000 companies, more than 800 corporate partnerships with NGOs were found, and of those companies, 445 were polled regarding their views on corporate-nonprofit partnerships. They were then ranked on accountability, adaptability, communication and execution and the average performance figure was calculated to provide and overall ranking.

The survey also shows the funds raised by Rotary International over the past two years have dropped slightly. Mr Rogers says Rotary in New Zealand also fights harder for donations and members in an economic environment where families mostly need two incomes to survive.

“A lot of people who want to help say they haven’t got time, but sometimes you just have to make time. People need help not only in third world countries, but right here at home, under our noses.”

ENDS

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