For the second straight year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doled out more than a billion dollars in aid for its 17 million-plus members and millions more around the globe.
The $1.3 billion the church spent in 2023, according to the faith’s annual “Caring for Those in Need” report released Thursday, went to welfare and self-reliance assistance for members, and wider relief efforts throughout the word without regard to religious affiliation. The contributions come as the church continues to amass wealth (estimated by outside analysts at $265 billion) and faces increasing pressure from insiders and outsiders to give more to humanitarian causes.
“As followers of Jesus Christ, we consider this to be both a duty and a joyful privilege,” church President Russell M. Nelson and his counselors, Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring, in the governing First Presidency, said in a joint statement. “We gratefully acknowledge the selfless contributions of time and means from church members, friends and other trusted organizations that enable this work to progress and expand.”
Aid by the numbers
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Farmers harvest rice in their fields at daybreak in Gbarnga, Liberia, on Friday, Jan. 20, 2024. They often sing as they harvest to demonstrate to unity and harmony within the community. The church reported giving $1.3 billion in charitable aid in 2023.
Here’s a snapshot of how the church provided aid last year:
• $1.36 billion in total.
• 6.2 million volunteer hours.
• 4,119 individual projects.
• 191 countries and territories served.
• 11,368 welfare and self-reliance missionaries.
• 5,538 job placements supplied.
“[These] figures are, of course, an incomplete report of our giving and helping. They do not include the personal services our members give individually as they minister to one another in called positions and voluntary member-to-member service,” Oaks said. “And our [summary] makes no mention of what our members do individually through innumerable charitable organizations not formally connected with our church.”
Of the projects the church tackled last year:
• 601 provided health care.
• 530 addressed food insecurity.
• 415 supplied emergency relief.
• 206 helped secure clean water and sanitation.
“The church’s partnership is ... transforming lives,” Evelyn Mere, program director for WaterAid Nigeria, said in the report, “and ensuring no one is left behind.”
Empowering families
(Anny Djahova | Catholic Relief Services) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is supporting the efforts of Catholic Relief Services in various countries to provide girls and young women with nutrition education and counseling, micronutrient supplements and nutritious foods. The church reported giving $1.3 billion in charitable aid in 2023.
Serving women and children was a major goal for the faith during the past year. According to the report, the church prioritized child nutrition globally, mostly by donating to international nongovernmental organizations such as Save the Children and the World Food Program. The Utah-based faith also worked to boost maternal health care, especially through a collaboration with UNICEF in countries like the Central African Republic and Mozambique.
“We want to empower families … with greater understanding and resources,” President Camille N. Johnson, head of the nearly 8 million-strong women’s Relief Society, said in the report. “[Loving parents] are better equipped to make changes that can have a lasting impact.”
The faith also provided help in the latest Israel-Hamas war. Through coordination with other relief agencies, the report noted, it gave “significant” funding for critical physical and mental health care in Israel and Gaza.
The church also teamed up with other aid groups to assist refugees and immigrants worldwide. In Sacramento, California, for instance, the faith helped to buy 500 foam mats and other supplies for refugees who had been sleeping on the floor.
“I salute the people who in small, personal ways,” apostle Patrick Kearon said, “go and find those people on the margins — those who hurt, those whose pains are not understood, the hungry, the lonely, the downtrodden — and do their best to take care of them.”
In North America, Latter-day Saint aid focused on homelessness, food insecurity and abuse. In Montreal, the church donated more than $750,000 to help a homeless shelter bolster its emergency services.
The faith played a role in Maui’s recovery from devastating wildfires last year by providing emergency shelter in its meetinghouses and handing out hotel vouchers. It also sent psychologists to the island to help those affected by the fires.
On the environmental front, the church provided 140,000 trees in Mongolia, installed solar panels on many of its meetinghouses and began switching to 100%-recycled cups for use in its sacrament, or Communion.
Closer to home, Utah’s predominant religion also donated 5,700 water shares — or about 20,000 acre-feet of water — to help preserve the Great Salt Lake.
“We have an obligation to be good stewards,” said L. Todd Budge, second counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, which oversees the church’s vast real estate, financial, investment and charitable operations, “to pass to future generations an Earth better than we found it.”
The report highlighted the church’s JustServe program that allows members to set up their own, smaller volunteer projects, including one from a 10-year-old named Evan who ran a donation drive that netted 702 jars of jam for a food bank.
