Special Paul Harris Gifting Opportunity in October

The following message was sent from our District Polio Chair, Vance S. Zavela.  What follows his message is the attached memo he references:

I am sending you the attached memo from The Rotary Foundation General Manager John Osterlund about the upcoming World Polio Day on October 24.  The key piece of interest is the fact that Rotarians can receive double Paul Harris Fellow recognition points for making contributions of at least $100 online to PolioPlus during the week of October 17.  As your PolioPlus Chair, I encourage you to participate only if you have made your commitment to the Annual Programs Fund or you will do it in addition to this contribution. 

Our priority during the End Polio Now campaign has been for Rotarians to be absolutely certain to contribute to the Annual Programs Fund (APF) so we can provide District Designated Funds (DDF) for the programs in which your club participates, including District Simplified Grants and Matching Grants.  We have been asking clubs to budget the $2,000 contributions (from club foundations and other sources) to PolioPlus this year or to fundraise in your communities so that individual members can focus on the APF.

Please consider having a speaker come to your club during the next few months to make a presentation on PolioPlus.  Colleen Bonadonna, who recently participated in a National Immunization Day in India, will be embarking on an effort to visit 200 clubs in 200 days.  Please contact her at cblens@cox.net to arrange for her to visit.  I also encourage your club to have PDG George Atwell to speak as he has participated in 3 National Immunization Day efforts.  He can be reached at geofatw@aol.com.

Thank you for all you do to help eradicate polio worldwide.

Sharing Rotary,

Vance S. Zavela D7610 PolioPlus Chair ROTARY INTERNATIONAL OFFICE COMMUNICATION TO:             Rotary International Board of Directors                    The Rotary Foundation Trustees                    International PolioPlus Committee                    Rotary’s US$200 Million Challenge Committee                    Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinators                    Zone Challenge Coordinators CC:             Ed Futa, General Secretary, RI FROM:        John Osterlund, General Manager, The Rotary Foundation DATE:         20 September 2010 SUBJECT:  2 for 1 recognition credit for online contributions to PolioPlus Sunday, 24 October 2010 is World Polio Day as determined by the UN.  Rotarians around the world are planning events in celebration of this day. In San Francisco, approximately 2,000 people are expected to walk the Golden Gate Bridge along with President Ray.  A lighting of the Ferry Terminal with END POLIO NOW is planned for the evening.  For the week leading up to this event, The Rotary Foundation will be offering 2 for 1 recognition credit for every contribution of US$100 or more made to polio on-line.  The strategy is to encourage Rotarians to experience our on-line giving application in the hopes that they will find it simple and easy and come back to it again and again.  On-line contribution processing is much less expensive than processing checks through the bank lockbox.  The opportunity would be open to all Rotarians worldwide for one week. We have done an operational analysis to determine if our servers can accommodate the high volume of traffic anticipated. For such analysis, we assumed a total of US$1 million in contributions over the course of the week.  At the end of the week President Ray will communicate the results during the event in San Francisco. We will also announce the results on the Rotary web-page.