By David Dippie
I saw this announced as a ribbon on TV as I had breakfast. Later while cleaning my teeth, I smiled and thought: I helped to do that! My ego is not that big…1.2 million mates helped. On reflection, there are a lot more than this, as many great contributors are no longer with us. Rotary also has some wonderful partners in the struggle, so we can’t claim that Rotary eliminated Polio, but we can rightly claim that we caused it to happen.
Sadly, life is not a one-hour television episode…it takes a long time to make major changes. We have had a major victory, but we still have a way to go. It may be repetitious and a little boring, but we still need to continue with our financial support for a little longer.
PolioPlus is an excellent example of Rotary working at its most effective. Identifying a problem that was not being addressed, finding the world’s best practice solution, taking action and encouraging others to help. This method should be our focus.
It may be a little boring and every new board wants to make its mark and do something different, but because you have supported a top-quality project for a few years, this is not a reason to change. Unless a new project is going to be more effective, why change? We agree that everyone in need is equal and deserves our help, but a Rotary club can’t help everyone. If every club and District concentrated their efforts on where they can be most effective, collectively more people will be helped.
It saddens me when Rotary clubs are seduced into financially supporting less efficient organisations that spend a fortune on advertising. We can be much more effective supporting a smaller number of quality Rotary projects.
Let’s use our natural advantages and work where we can be most effective. If you visit Donations in Kind in West Footscray, you will find comparisons between Australia and our neighbours on maternal and child deaths. It’s a pleasant task to change the posters, as those differences continue to fall, and it is particularly noticeable when you see where Rotary clubs have helped to ship significant amounts of medical equipment and supplies. Our neighbours have small populations—a relatively small amount of support can lead to major change.
Money is going to be tight this year and it will be particularly important for logic to rule over emotion. It’s easy to be swayed by urgent pleas in the media, but let’s think carefully about where we can be most effective, before we spend our hard-earned fundraising dollars.