Incoming Rotary Foundation Trustee Speaks at Lander Club
Incoming TRF Trustee Speaks at Lander Club;
Encouraged by Giving During Pandemic
Despite the impact of the worldwide Covid pandemic, overall giving to The Rotary Foundation for the last six months of 2020 decreased just 2% from a year earlier. Directed giving, much of it for projects focused on Covid-related issues, was up 41%, Larry Lunsford, an incoming member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, told the Lander Rotary Club at its March 10 meeting.
Lunsford, a member of the Kansas City Plaza Rotary Club in D6040, said he was encouraged by the level of giving in the face of the pandemic. Thanks to continued strong giving and higher investment earnings, the Foundation was able to fund more than $32 million in Covid-related projects, Lunsford told the club.
Lunsford also was encouraged by recent “very strong momentum” in Rotary’s polio eradication campaign, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the only two remaining polio-endemic countries. [Thus far in 2021, only two cases have been reported there.]
The Rotary Foundation has achieved a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, a premier evaluator of charitable organizations, for 13 consecutive years, a feat matched by just 1% of all ranked organizations, he said.
Lunsford was D6040 District Governor in 2001-02. He served as a Rotary International Director in 2013-15 and will begin a four-year term on the TRF Board of Trustees on July 1. He is a former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar (Australia 1982) and is a recipient of the Service Above Self Award.
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