Some of us remember getting Green Stamps from the grocery store when went shopping with our mom.  Remember licking them and sticking them into a special book so Mom could turn in the books full of stamps to get a new toaster, flat iron or some other household item she wanted replaced.  

That was back in the 1940s and 50s.  Fade out to 2019 when you and I save up airline points to get money off or upgrade on our next flight to somewhere fun.

Rotary Foundation has a similar scheme called Rotary Foundation Recognition points. For every dollar you donate to the Annual Fund or Polio Eradication you get a TRF Recognition point.  Most Rotarians don’t know much about these points and what you can do with them. Turns out you can do a LOT of things with them in your effort as a good Rotarian to “do good in the world”.  (Click HERE for more information on TRF Recognition Points and what you can do with YOUR’s.)

But this is a story about TRF Recognition points that our club owns.  You will see that they are exactly the same as our points. First, a little back story you may not be aware of.

In 2015 Rotary Charities donated $250,000 to Eradicate Polio.  It was a spectacular gift, demonstrating our collective commitment to rid the world of this dreaded childhood disease. Rotary Charities was awarded 250,000 TRF Recognition points. These points sat in the Rotary Charities points account until last January (2018) when I requested that some points be transferred to District 6290 to facilitate a spring program to encourage more donations to the Rotary Foundation.  At this point, Marsha Smith transferred the entire account of 250,000 points to our club for use as our board saw fit. I moved my request from Rotary Charities to our club board and they agreed to give the District up to 50,000 points as I requested.

You will be interested in the power of my request.  Every spring for the past 8-ish years District 6290 has run a promotion awarding 500 TRF points to any Rotarian in 6290 who donates $500 to The Annual Fund or to Eradicate Polio between April 1 and May 15.  The 2018 gift of 50,000 points enabled donations of $42,000 in donations that never would have happened had this promotion not been funded by points from the TC Rotary Club. All $42,000 of those donations (along with all your donations throughout the year) will come into the Rotary Matching Grant program that turns good club projects into GREAT club projects each year.  Our club benefits from matching grant funds every year, sometimes exceeding $50,000 on top of the funds we put into these projects ourselves. You already know that matching grant funds are a big deal, and our gift of 50,000 Rotary Foundation Recognition Points leveraged district giving by some 15% last year so more matching grant funds were available for club projects.

On the strength of this success, I visited with the Board on Monday, February 4 with the same request as last year.  Pleased with the impact our Recognition Points had in 2018 to do good in the world, the Board quickly granted another 50,000 points for the same promotional program for this spring.

Rotary Foundation Recognition Points are a little-known benefit of donating to our Rotary Foundation every year.  I thought you would be interested to know how our Board’s wisdom is enabling our remarkable pot of points to continue Traverse City Rotarian’s work of doing good in the world, changing lives in communities here and around the world, one community at a time.

Thanks for listening.  I hope this was helpful.

Al Bonney