Page Title

• Members/Officers
  Current Members Club Leadership Past Presidents Paul Harris Fellows
• Club Projects
  Our Club's Project History Club Projects Ecuador Projects INTERACT
• Administrative
  RCWP Club Constitution RCWP Club Bylaws Membership Info Rotary Club Grants
• Archival
  Photo Albums Club Calendar (all meetings since 2001) Club Archives Club's Recent Files Member News (past) Biographies & Eulogies

  ---

  Rotary Int'l History Rotary Int'l Archive Trivia Quiz (for fun)
• Contact Us
  Email Us

  ---

  Mailing address
  P.O. Box 1712
  White Plains NY 10602

• Members Area
  Member Login Contributors Menu Logout

Rotary's official mottoes can be traced back to the early days of the organization.

In  1911, the second Rotary convention, in Portland, Oregon, USA, approved He Profits Most Who Serves Best as the Rotary motto. The wording was adapted from a speech that Rotarian Arthur Frederick Sheldon delivered to the first convention, held in Chicago the previous year. Sheldon declared that "only the science of right conduct toward others pays. Business is the science of human services. He profits most who serves his fellows best."

The Portland gathering also inspired the motto Service Above Self. During an outing on the Columbia River, Ben Collins, president of the Rotary Club of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, talked with Seattle Rotarian J.E. Pinkham about the proper way to organize a Rotary club, offering the principle his club had adopted: Service, Not Self. Pinkham invited Rotary founder Paul Harris, who also was on the trip, to join their conversation. Harris asked Collins to address the convention, and the phrase Service, Not Self was met with great enthusiasm.

At the 1950 Rotary International Convention in Detroit, Michigan, USA, two slogans were formally approved as the official mottoes of Rotary: He Profits Most Who Serves Best and Service Above Self.

In 1989, Service Above Self was established as the principal motto of Rotary because it best conveys the philosophy of unselfish volunteer service.

He Profits Most Who Serves Best was modified to They Profit Most Who Serve Best in 2004 and to its current wording, One Profits Most Who Serves Best, in 2010. 

[references www.rotary.org/en/rotary-mottoes and Wikipedia)

Wikipedia: The Rotarian's primary motto is "Service Above Self"; its secondary motto is "One Profits Most Who Serves Best" (until 2010 it was "They Profit Most Who Serve Best", changed in 2004 from "He Profits Most Who Serves Best")