Rotary Voices

Membership attraction and engagement are crucial for Rotary’s success. In this two-part series, we’ll hear from four women in Rotary leadership positions who have successfully achieved membership growth in their U.S.-based clubs or districts. In episode one, RI Membership Growth and Engagement Specialist Taylor Evans Ghosal sits down with Julie McKinney, a club membership chair and past club president from California, a...

Solutions journalism, which delves beyond “bad news” to examine what people are trying to do about it, can be traced back to a 2010 column in The New York Times called “Fixes.” The column, co-written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tina Rosenberg, investigated solutions to social problems, covering what worked and what didn’t. Chicago journalist Mark Caro sits down with Rosenberg, who co-founded t...

Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate, shares her journey of self-discovery in a new memoir titled Finding My Way. At just 15 years old, Yousafzai was thrust onto the public stage after the Taliban's attack on her life — a failed effort to silence the young activist. Today, she continues her work of empowering and educating girls around the world through her nonprofit, Malala Fund. The senior producer...

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally, but it’s also highly preventable. Rotarian, surgical oncologist, and author Dr. Richard Godfrey has traveled the world making cervical cancer prevention more accessible. His forthcoming book, Medical Moonshots: Winning the Cancer War, talks about his lifesaving work. Niala Boodhoo recently sat down with Dr. Godfrey to discuss his career,&n...

In 1996, the Rotary Club of Stratford in Ontario took a more than 2,000-year-old Chinese tradition and turned it into a fundraising event that has raised well over $1 million for the club and its projects. Last year, Craig Thompson directed a documentary called The Ripple Effect that highlights the community impact of the Stratford Rotary Dragon Boat Festival. Chicago journalist Jerome McDonnell sits down with Craig and club presid...

The Rotary Club of Roswell, Georgia, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary, is growing rapidly. In this episode, Tom Gump, chair of the Rotary International Membership Growth Committee, and Jose Gonzalez, supervisor of Membership Growth & Experience in the U.S. and Canada, sit down with Trummie Lee Patrick III, the club’s president, to discuss the club’s secrets to success, membership retention, and club culture...

Dr. Marc Schulz and his co-author Dr. Robert Waldinger lead the Harvard Study of Adult Development: ongoing research into the psychosocial predictors of healthy aging that began in 1938. In 2023, Dr. Schulz and Dr. Waldinger published The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Chicago broadcast journalist Jerome McDonnell sits down with Dr. Schulz to discuss the study’s origins, its e...

David LaMotte is a songwriter, speaker, author, and activist who has performed over 3,500 concerts and released 13 albums. LaMotte was a Rotary Peace Fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia where he studied international relations, peace, and conflict resolution. Rotary International social media and audience development manager Andy Sternberg sits down with LaMotte to discuss the intersection of art and activism.

David ...

Growing up in Lucknow, India, Rashmi Rustagi was a member of Rotaract and acted in radio plays. After moving to the Bay Area in the United States, she joined a local Indian theater and then began a demanding transition into Hollywood. In California, Rustagi was invited to join the Rotary Club of Redwood City, where she’s a member today. Chicago journalist Linda Yu sat down with Rustagi to discuss her life, career in movies an...

In 2026, many Western governments have pulled back funding and reduced their commitments to the United Nations. And later this month, the United States will officially withdraw from the World Health Organization. Today, civic organizations like Rotary represent a powerful “third force” in global affairs. For example, in 1988, alongside UNICEF and others, Rotary and the WHO became founding partners of the Global Polio Er...

The Rotary Youth Exchange program has been promoting international understanding for 50 years. The program, which enables young people to live and study abroad for up to a year, serves as a bridge for cultural competence and builds the foundation for peace. In this episode, longtime exchange host Sabrina Barreto and one of the students her family hosted, Simon Foote, share their perspectives on the program. Holger Knaack, chair of ...

In 1952, Copenhagen’s Blegdam Hospital was overwhelmed by polio patients. Under immense pressure and surrounded by loss, two doctors were faced with a seemingly unanswerable question: What can we do if patients become too paralyzed to breathe? A saga of innovation followed leading to the modern intensive care unit, or ICU. In this episode, Rotary magazine senior editor Geoff Johnson sits down with Dr. Hannah Wunsch. Dr. Wunsc...

“Fear comes from unanswered questions.” After donating one of his kidneys to his brother, Anil Srivatsa has become a devoted advocate for the life-saving impact of organ donation. Traveling the world, he’s befriended countless other organ donors and recipients, all with complicated stories of their own. In this episode, you’ll hear about Srivatsa’s life as an advocate and a couple of stories from ...