Olayinka H. Babalola

President 2026-27

November 2026

Change within ourselves is the first step toward the impact we seek to make in the world.

I remember my first encounter with Rotary. I saw a Rotarian on television. I was a teenager with my thoughts elsewhere, when suddenly my full attention was on this man. I did not know it then, but that moment would change my life.

That is the thing about impact. We often imagine it as something we create out there, in a community we visit or in a project we fund. But that impact is brought about through the change within us as well.

Increasing our impact is the first priority of Rotary’s Action Plan, and it asks us not only to do good but to do good that lasts and can be measured. It means choosing sustainable, needs-based projects over comfortable ones and asking honestly whether a project will still be serving people five years from now without us in the room.

When I say we must Create Lasting Impact, I do not mean impact that fades once the ribbon is cut or the well is dug. I mean the kind of impact that changes the person doing the work as surely as it changes the person benefiting from it. Rotary changes all of us. It changed a teenager watching a television broadcast. It has changed millions of Rotarians and Rotaractors since 1905. And it will keep changing people, long after this Rotary year, if we do the work now to make sure it can.