Weak Things · Humanitarian and welfare data · 1936 to 2025
Caring for those in need, counted.
A storehouse shelf in Salt Lake City, a wheelchair in Ghana, a counselor on a video call in Argentina. Every year the Church reports what it gave and where. Here are those reports side by side, with the welfare plan’s history from the Great Depression to now.
All figures are from the Church’s annual Caring for Those in Need reports, 2021 to 2025. Sources are listed in How we counted.
Chapter 1 · 2021 to 2025
Five years of giving
The Church began publishing an annual summary of its welfare and humanitarian spending in 2022, covering 2021. In four years the total grew by about three-quarters, while the number of projects stayed near 4,000. Switch the measure to compare.
Chapter 2 · Every minute
How fast it adds up
Spread 2025’s totals evenly over the year and they become a running meter. The counter below starts when you open this page.
Chapter 3 · 3,514 projects
What the projects were for
Health care led in 2025, followed closely by education, food and emergency relief. Many projects are run with partner organizations already working in a community.
Chapter 4 · Four consortia
Women and children first
In 2025 the Relief Society General Presidency convened eight global humanitarian organizations into four consortia focused on mothers and children. As of April 2025, they had helped:
“The Lord does not expect us to do more than we can do, but He does expect us to do what we can do, when we can do it.”Bishop W. Christopher Waddell, Presiding Bishop, in the 2025 report
Chapter 5 · 569 responses
When disaster strikes
In 2025 the Church took part in 569 emergency relief projects, working with trusted organizations and local leaders. A few of them, by the numbers.
Chapter 6 · Storehouses to job centers
The welfare system, in one year
Much of the work never makes the news: food from bishops’ storehouses, job training at Deseret Industries, counseling, loans for school and addiction recovery meetings every week. These are the 2025 totals.
Chapter 7 · Members and missionaries
The people who do it
Most of this is done by volunteers: Relief Society sisters, priesthood quorums, youth, and missionaries assigned to welfare and self-reliance work. Their numbers have grown every year the reports have counted them.
Welfare and self-reliance missionaries
Relief Society members worldwide
Chapter 8 · 1936 to today
From the Depression to 196 countries
The welfare plan began in April 1936, when about 88,000 Church members were on public relief. Humanitarian aid to people of every faith began in earnest after a famine in Ethiopia in 1985.
How we counted
Sources and notes
- Emergencies. From the Church’s 2025 Caring for Those in Need report.
- Annual totals. From the Church’s annual Caring for Those in Need reports: 2021, 2022 (Church News), 2023 (Newsroom Europe), 2024 (Church News) and 2025 (Newsroom), with the 2025 statistics pages from the full 2025 report. Spending includes humanitarian projects, donated goods, fast-offering assistance, bishops’ orders and welfare services.
- Pace. The running meter divides 2025’s reported totals evenly across 365 days. Real spending is not evenly spread; it rises with disasters and seasons.
- Projects. Project categories are as listed in the 2025 report. A project can serve more than one purpose, and the report presents these as examples of priorities.
- History. From the Church’s Church History Topics: Welfare Programs, A Look Back at the Church Welfare Plan, Ensign, June 2011 and Deseret Industries.
- Rounding. Dollar totals are rounded as the Church reports them. Hours over five years are our sum of the yearly figures.
- What the numbers can't say. A count shows size, pace and reach. It cannot measure faith, service or a changed heart. For those, read, serve and see.
Keep exploring by the numbers
See all the projects in one place