What is the Rotary Club?

The Rotary Club is an international service organization with a stated purpose of bringing business leaders together in order to promote goodwill and offer humanitarian services. As of 2014, it has a worldwide membership of 1.22 million spread across 34,282 clubs worldwide.

The Rotary Club was founded by Paul P. Harris in 1905. The name chosen for the organization came from the practice of rotating the meeting locations among the offices of the members. In 1911, the first Rotary Club outside the United States was chartered in Dublin, Ireland. The original motto for the Rotary Club was "one profits most who serves best;" it was later changed to "service above self."