Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional men and women. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, non religious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds. The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. 

Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development. 

The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.

As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving the professional and social interests of club members. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its principal motto: Service Above Self. Rotary also later embraced a code of ethics, called The 4-Way Test, that has been translated into hundreds of languages.

During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly involved in promoting international understanding. A Rotary conference held in London in 1942 planted the seeds for the development of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and numerous Rotarians have served as consultants to the United Nations.

An endowment fund, set up by Rotarians in 1917 "for doing good in the world," became a not-for-profit corporation known as The Rotary Foundation in 1928. Upon the death of Paul Harris in 1947, an outpouring of Rotarian donations made in his honor, totaling $2 million, launched the Foundation's first program — graduate fellowships, now called Ambassadorial Scholarships. Today, contributions to The Rotary Foundation total more than $80 million annually and support a wide range of humanitarian grants and educational programs that enable Rotarians to bring hope and promote international understanding throughout the world.

In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all of the world's children against polio. Working in partnership with non governmental organizations and national governments thorough its Polio Plus program, Rotary is the largest private sector contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized hundreds of thousands of Polio Plus volunteers and  have immunized more than one billion children worldwide. By the 2005 target date for certification of a polio free world, Rotary will have contributed half a billion dollars to the cause.

As it approached the dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked to meet the changing needs of society, expanding its service effort to address such pressing issues as environmental degradation, illiteracy, world hunger, and children at risk. The organization admitted women for the first time in 1989 and claims more than 90,000 women in its ranks today. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were formed or re-established throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Today, 1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 30,000 Rotary clubs in more than 160 countries.

An association of some 30,000 autonomous clubs in more than 160 countries, Rotary International is one of the world's largest service organizations. The goal for a club's membership is an up-to-date and progressive representation of the community's business, vocational, and professional interests. 

An important distinction between Rotary and other organizations is that membership in Rotary is by invitation. Rotary clubs invite individuals to join and become members. Membership is vital to a Rotary club's operations and community service activities. A primary goal of the club is to continually expand the club with committed members who have the interest and ability to get involved in service and humanitarian projects. Prospective members must:

• hold — or be retired from — a professional, proprietary, executive, or managerial position;
• have the capacity to meet the club's weekly attendance and community project participation requirements;
• live or work within the locality of the club or the surrounding area.

An individual who is interested in membership but doesn't know any Rotarians can contact the local club directly. Some Rotary clubs maintain an office and may be listed in your telephone directory. Other resources include a Rotary club in an adjoining community, the local chamber of commerce, the public library, or other non-profit service organizations. 

Classifications: professional representation - 
Rotary uses a classification system to establish and maintain a vibrant cross-section or representation of the community's business, vocational, and professional interests among members and to develop a pool of resources and expertise to successfully implement service projects. This system is based on the founders' paradigm of choosing cross representation of each business, profession, and institution within a community.

A classification describes either the principal business or the professional service of the organization that the Rotarian works for or the Rotarian's own activity within the organization. Some examples of classifications include: high schools, universities, eye surgery, banking, pharmaceutical retailing, petroleum distribution, and insurance agency.