Palo Alto Rotary - Charitable Activities

Palo Alto Rotary Club Annual Charities, Inc., a publicly-supported charitable affiliate of the Rotary Club of Palo Alto (which this year is celebrating its 85^th year of service to the community), raises money for the direct support of non-profit or educational organizations whose activities benefit our local and international communities. Our annual fundraisers have provided more than three quarters of the funds we raise for these purposes, with the balance coming from the Club Endowment Fund and President’s Club contributions.

We provide roughly $15,000 each year for vocational scholarships for students at local community colleges, and fund and provide labor for a variety of community service projects.

We sponsor and provide support to the Palo Alto-Stanford Rotaract Club (an organization of young people 18 to 30 years of age), the Interact Service Club at Gunn High School, camperships to the annual Rotary Youth Leadership Awards training camp for young people, a Boy Scout troop and a Cub Scout pack, and Youth and Community Service club activities at local middle and high schools.

We annually provide funding, usually in partnership with other Rotary Clubs and Rotary International, for a variety of carefully selected service projects in the global community. International grants usually represents about 20 % of our total budget and are significantly increased through District matching funds and grants. In addition, we annually have an international “hands on” project where members travel to the host country to assist in a charitable project.

The largest single component of our charitable budget is for grants to local non-profit and educational organizations, selected on the basis of their grant applications. The total amount granted in any year will depend on the success of our annual fundraising event. In recent years the amount has been $40,000 to $50,000. Our current process solicits grants from a variety of non profit organizations in the community from April through January of the following year. In February, these requests are carefully evaluated by a committee of Rotarians, who choose four or five of the most worthy requests. The grants are then awarded to the winning applicants at the annual fund raiser in the mid March timeframe.