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We are 1.2 Million Neighbors, Friends, and Community Leaders who come together to create positive, lasting change in our communities and around the world. 

For more than 110 years, Rotary members have been addressing challenges around the world. 

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Grassroots at the core, Rotary links 1.2 million members to form an organization of international scope. It started with the vision of one man — Paul Harris. The Chicago attorney formed the Rotary Club of Chicago on 23 February 1905, so professionals with diverse backgrounds could exchange ideas, form meaningful, lifelong friendships, and give back to their communities.

 

Rotary’s name came from the group’s early practice of rotating meetings among the offices of its members.

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"Whatever Rotary may mean to us, to the world it will be known by the results it achieves. "

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Paul Harris

Rotary Founder

Notable Rotarians
Rotarians are our neighbors, your community leaders and some of the world's greatest history-makers:
 

  • Warren G. Harding, U.S. president

  • Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer

  • Dr. Charles H. Mayo, co-founder of Mayo Clinic

  • Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor of the wireless radio and Nobel laureate

  • Thomas Mann, German novelist and Nobel laureate

  • Friedrich Bergius, German chemist and Nobel laureate

  • Admiral Richard E. Byrd, American explorer

  • Jan Masaryk, foreign minister of Czechoslovakia

  • H.E. Soleiman Frangieh, president of Lebanon

  • Dianne Feinstein, U.S. senator

  • Manny Pacquaio, Filipino world-champion boxer and congressman

  • Richard Lugar, U.S. senator

  • Frank Borman, American astronaut

  • Edgar A. Guest, American poet and journalist

  • Sir Harry Lauder, Scottish entertainer

  • Franz Lehar, Austrian composer

  • Lennart Nilsson, Swedish photographer

  • James Cash Penney, founder of JC Penney Co.

  • Carlos Romulo, UN General Assembly president

  • Sigmund Sternberg, English businessman and philanthropist

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