Marty Helman spent her career as a writer for business executives and as a magazine editor at McGraw-Hill and the American Management Association. Later, she served as president of the Otto and Fran Walter Foundation, a nonprofit that has helped build schools in developing nations, provided scholarships for at-risk youth, and supplied humanitarian aid to Holocaust survivors, among other initiatives. The Walter Foundation partnered with The Rotary Foundation to fund the Rotary Peace Center at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, which opened in 2025.

Helman and her late spouse, Frank, joined the Rotary Club of Boothbay Harbor in 2003. She has served Rotary as chair of the Peace Major Gifts Initiative and as a member of the working group that selected the site for the Rotary Peace Center at Bahçeşehir University.

Helman is also director-elect for zones 28 and 32.

A keen fundraiser for The Rotary Foundation, Helman initiated an effort to support the Sakuji Tanaka Rotary Peace Fellowship, which raised $1 million for the Rotary Peace Centers.

Helman is an Arch Klumph Society member, and she chooses to support Rotary as a member of the Paul Harris Society and PolioPlus Society. She and Frank were charter members of the Legacy Society of The Rotary Foundation.