The Rotary Foundation (often shortened to TRF) is Rotary’s charitable foundation: it collects voluntary donations and turns them into grants and programs that Rotary clubs and districts can use to fund humanitarian, education, and peace-building work - rotary.org 
# Where it came from
The Foundation traces back to 1917, when Rotary leader Arch Klumph proposed an endowment “for the purpose of doing good in the world”, and the organisation grew from that early endowment idea into today’s large-scale global grantmaker - rotary.org
# What it funds in practice
In day-to-day Rotary life, the Foundation is the “engine” behind structured giving and grantmaking: districts and clubs can apply for and deliver Foundation-backed projects, and align them with Rotary’s cause areas (like water and sanitation, education, disease prevention, peace, and others) - rotary.org - rotary.org
# Polio and big shared missions
The Foundation is also tightly linked to Rotary’s long-running global effort to help eradicate polio, with the PolioPlus program acting as a focal point for donations and campaigning across the Rotary network - rotary.org
# How money flows from donations to projects
A simple mental model is that Rotarians give into shared funds, those funds are stewarded and allocated through Foundation rules, and clubs then collaborate (often across countries) to deliver projects that can be larger, more reliable, and more accountable than ad-hoc fundraising alone - rotary.org
# Recognition and culture of giving
Rotary has donor recognition traditions that help normalise generosity in a friendly, community setting, including the Paul Harris Fellow recognition (historically linked to $1,000 of giving, or giving in someone’s name) - rotary.org - rotary.org
# Stewardship, governance, and transparency
Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation are separate entities with separate reporting requirements, and Rotary publishes annual reports and audited financial statements as part of its transparency and stewardship commitments - rotary.org - rotary.org
# Why this matters to local clubs
If a Rotary Club is a local team with local energy, the Rotary Foundation is the shared global infrastructure that lets that team scale impact: it provides trusted grant pathways, consistent program design, and a way for small local contributions to combine into serious projects without losing accountability - rotary.org