A gentleman by the name of Arch Klumpf joined the Cleveland Rotary Club in 1911. He fell in love with Rotary and went on to become one of Rotary International’s most famous individuals, becoming President of Rotary in 1916. He established something that has become synonymous with the good work Rotary is able to do by suggesting Rotary create an endowment “for the purpose of doing good in the world.”
This initial proposal led to the official establishment of the Rotary Endowment Fund, which later became The Rotary Foundation in 1928. It all started in 1917 when, during the Rotary Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, he formally proposed the creation of an endowment to support charitable, educational, and community development initiatives. The Kansas City, Missouri Club made the very first donation of $26.50 – which was money they had left in their budget at the end of the year.
Donations were slow to come in those first few years, but that didn’t stop the idea of what the Foundation could do, and eventually, in 1929, a Board of Trustees was established, with Arch Klumph serving as the first trustee chair. The Foundation made its first gift that year -- $500 to the International Society for Crippled Children.
But money was still slow to come in and it wasn’t until 1947, when Paul Harris died, that very substantial contributions to the Foundation were made from all over the world in his memory, significantly boosting the Foundation's resources. This period also saw the launch of the Foundation's first program, Graduate Fellowships, later known as Ambassadorial Scholarships.
The Foundation continued to evolve, launching various programs like Matching Grants, Health, Hunger and Humanity (3-H) Grants, PolioPlus, and supporting peace and conflict studies programs.
Recognition programs for donors were created along the way to encourage Rotarians to give to the Foundation, such as the EREY – Every Rotarian Every Year, which was set up to encourage ALL Rotarians to contribute something to the Foundation every year.
In 1957, the Foundation created the Paul Harris Fellowship program for contributors of $1000 to the Foundation. And over the past several years Rotary has established different giving levels with designations, such as a Major Donor – someone who has donated $10,000 to the Foundation and the Polio Plus Society.
Because Arch Klumpf was such a strong proponent of the Foundation for so many years, and because he was considered the Father of the Rotary Foundation, in 2004 RI set up a very special level of giving in his name to honor those individuals who have, over the course of their Rotary lives, donated $250,000.
Arch Klumpf died in 1951, but his legacy of the Rotary Foundation lives on every single day when members and clubs need to access funds to do good work in their local communities or around the world.