Here to Serve

From the Bible to the Quran and other sacred religious texts in between, there are numerous references to helping the less fortunate in times of great need. It’s no wonder that many faith-based organizations have established robust operations that deliver humanitarian assistance to some of the most vulnerable populations and actively respond to crises around the world. To learn about the role of faith-based organizations, or FBOs, in providing humanitarian aid, Wilson Quarterly editor Stephanie Bowen spoke with Robert Hokanson, senior manager of Global Priorities at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hokanson has spent nearly two decades focused on the church’s humanitarian efforts—responding to natural disasters, health emergencies, and other crises around the world.

Stephanie Bowen: How long has The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints been providing global humanitarian assistance and how does this work fit into the church’s mission?

Robert Hokanson: Caring for those in need has been a core belief of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since its inception. In 1842, the church organized the Women’s Relief Society to provide relief to members in need and the broader community, laying the groundwork for future humanitarian efforts. During World War I and the Great Depression, the Relief Society sent grain to help feed the hungry, exemplifying their ongoing commitment to service. Building on this legacy, in 1985, the church responded to the Ethiopian famine, calling for a special fast and monetary donations from its members. Since then, the church has responded to global needs through the generosity of its members and friends.

There is a common misperception that faith-based organizations compete with each other; in reality, we have a strong awareness of each other’s strengths and rely on each other.

The church’s humanitarian efforts have expanded globally to include clean water, food security, maternal and newborn care, wheelchairs and mobility, strengthening medical services, and disaster relief. In 2021, it pledged $20 million to support UNICEF’s global COVID-19 vaccination efforts. In 2022, it donated $32 million to the World Food Program, aiding 1.6 million people in nine countries facing acute hunger. In 2023, the church’s humanitarian expenditures supported 4,119 projects in 191 countries. Most recently, in June 2024, the church announced a $55.8 million initiative led by the Relief Society General Presidency. This effort focuses on nutrition, maternal and newborn care, immunizations, and education. As part of this initiative, the church announced a $55.8 million donation to strengthen health and nutrition programs in 12 high-need countries. Working with 8 global humanitarian organizations, this effort is expected to benefit 12 million children and 2.7 million new and expectant mothers.

Stephanie Bowen: What can a faith-based institution do that a typical non-profit humanitarian response organization might find more difficult?

Robert Hokanson: Faith-based organizations have a unique and powerful connection with local communities. They understand the context, history, needs, hopes, and challenges of the people they serve, making them critical in identifying and addressing problems. FBOs leverage deep moral convictions to unify and motivate people toward the common good, often prioritizing long-term community needs over immediate personal desires.

Faith-based organizations also have a convening power that quickly multiplies impact. They can mobilize their members to take collective action, amplify messages, and engage in community service. Many FBOs are part of larger, often global networks, enabling them to quickly mobilize external resources for local use. Contributions from congregations worldwide allow the church to respond swiftly to local needs. FBOs are organized to address both immediate emergencies and ongoing, long-term needs. Because they are in the community, they can provide sustained responses to chronic issues and help rebuild institutions and infrastructure after crises, fostering community self-reliance. For example, in response to the conflict in Ukraine, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints collaborated with Catholic Relief Services and Adventist Development and Relief Agency to provide resources such as food, water, shelter, and medical supplies. Church members in nearby border countries opened their homes to refugees, gathered needed items, and found many ways to help those in need. In 2023, working with Project Hope, the church also provided funding to help reconstruct a new outpatient clinic in the Kyiv region of Ukraine that suffered significant damage during the hostilities. The clinic will serve 5,000 people from 13 surrounding villages with medical care.

Stephanie Bowen: The LDS church both funds and implements humanitarian assistance. How do you decide what to fund versus what to do yourself? Do the efforts ever overlap?

Robert Hokanson: Like any effective organization, the church has to know its strengths and the resources it can call on in different settings. Where the church does not have a presence, that strength might be the ability to respond quickly with financial contributions to another organization that is present where a disaster occurred and has a reliable supply chain in a difficult-to-reach location. Sometimes the strength is the ability to mobilize the church’s own network of storehouses to deliver food and water to people displaced by a hurricane—and then organize volunteers in neighboring communities to assist with cleanup and recovery. This happened in response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Southeastern US.

Faith-based organizations also have a convening power that quickly multiplies impact. They can mobilize their members to take collective action, amplify messages, and engage in community service.

Many times, the greatest asset the church has is members of local congregations who are ready to rally to assist their neighbors and strengthen local institutions. For example, in the Philippines, local church leaders realized that families in some communities faced malnutrition. Parents and local church leaders worked together to learn about malnutrition, how to avoid it, how to identify it, how to treat it, and what resources in the community can help a family that faces malnutrition. They shared this knowledge and resources with families in their congregation and others in their neighborhoods and worked with local clinics and caregivers to host nutrition screenings, teach fundamental nutrition, and connect families to local resources. As they work with local clinics and caregivers, they donate supplies and equipment that help to respond more effectively to those in need; this model is now being applied throughout the Philippines, and in parts of Africa and Latin America. These locally led efforts are complemented by financial donations the church has made—including the $55.8 million announced in June—to organizations addressing malnutrition in high need locations.

Stephanie Bowen: How do faith-based organizations come together during humanitarian crises? Can you share examples of working with other faith-based partners?

Robert Hokanson: There is a common misperception that FBOs compete with each other; in reality, we have a strong awareness of each other’s strengths and rely on each other. Our experience is that our differences in doctrine don’t divide us but unite us in the common trust we have in the goodness of God, and in the cooperation of his children.

A colleague at a Muslim aid organization that the church has worked with for years shared an experience about having difficulty getting visas for his staff for a particular country following a disaster. They had materials ready to be distributed but couldn’t get into the country. He reached out to his friends at a Catholic organization with a presence in the country and they were able to mobilize and distribute the relief on behalf of the Muslim organization. The assistance needed was delivered and no one was concerned about who received credit.

One of the things implicit in a faith community is trust. Individuals will donate to their church for a good cause because of that trust. When that faith-based organization demonstrates trust through collaboration with another faith-based organization, it illustrates that we can overcome differences and work together with others on shared values. Many people may be surprised to know the level to which faith-based organizations roll up our sleeves, lock arms, and work together. A great example of this is a mobile bakery project in Syria where we teamed up with the Greek Melkite Catholic church to provide freshly baked bread (using local recipes) to displaced people. This mobile bakery was  set up quickly and has been a lifeline for many—and shows how faith-based organizations can work together to make a real difference.

Another example where this is particularly evident is in refugee resettlement agencies that are often sponsored by faith-based organizations. Those agencies rely on volunteers from the community to welcome refugees, orient them to the community, introduce them to local services, and help them settle into a new home. Many of those volunteers will be from the faith community that sponsors the agency, but they also rely on countless dedicated volunteers who put their faith into action serving in those agencies. The church has a global presence and collaborates with various interfaith organizations like Catholic Relief Services, Adventist Development and Relief Agency, and Muslim Aid to provide both immediate and sustainable support to those in need. For more than a decade, the church has collaborated with Muslim NGOs on humanitarian projects worldwide. A memorable event was in May 2019, when church members and Jamiyah Singapore joined for a community Iftar, which built interfaith understanding and helped strengthen interfaith collaboration.

In terms of humanitarian efforts, the church made a significant impact during the COVID-19 crisis in India by donating $4 million worth of medical equipment through collaborations with organizations like ADRA and CRS. In Italy, the Episcopalian Friendship Center in Rome supported refugees by offering various skill-building classes to help them integrate into their new community. Many of the volunteers who taught the classes were members of the church. In New Zealand, church president Russell M. Nelson announced a donation of $100,000 in May 2019 to help rebuild mosques in Christchurch after the tragic attacks. And after the devastating tsunami in Indonesia in 2004, the church worked with several organizations to provide homes, schools, and essential supplies.

Stephanie Bowen: Are there any common misconceptions about the humanitarian work of faith-based organizations that you’d like to address?

Robert Hokanson: There is sometimes a perception or expectation that faith-based organizations have ulterior motives, that they are competing with each other, or that they’re only interested in serving their own. In practice, I have not observed this. It seems almost universal that when we see others in need and we are in a position to help, our differences melt away, we see others with empathy, and we want to provide relief, lift others, and help them back on their feet. This sentiment seems to be magnified and a focus of the faith-based organizations I am familiar with—they don’t let differences of belief get in the way of helping others.

Because of their place in the social fabric of their communities, faith-based organizations can raise awareness, teach principles of good health, help identify those who may be ill or malnourished and encourage parents to make use of local health services.

Stephanie Bowen: How have you seen humanitarian response needs change over time? How are the church and the sector more generally adjusting to these shifting needs?

Robert Hokanson: Natural disasters are growing in scope and impact. They are more difficult to prepare for, and as populations have grown in places where natural disasters occur frequently, more people are affected. Relief and recovery efforts are more complex, require more resources and are stretching aid agencies and donors alike. Looking beyond natural disasters, so many of today’s disasters are human-caused—the result of ongoing military or political conflict. There are more people displaced today than at any other time in history. The number of forcibly displaced persons has increased for 12 years in a row and now stands at 120 million. Each of these conflicts is the result of complex, difficult issues that are not resolved easily or quickly, displacing people and putting them in need of assistance for extended periods of time. There are a few high-profile conflicts that we’re all familiar with, but there are many conflicts that are long-running, overlooked or forgotten. Examples of these include Sudan—which has the highest number of internally displaced persons ever reported, followed closely by Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These massive disasters—natural or human-caused—have caused tremendous strain on aid agencies and donors. It sometimes seems agencies are forced to run from one disaster to the next while pleading for ever increasing donor funds. While the need for immediate response to emergencies grows and garners attention and resources, many of the world’s most pressing needs and issues are chronic and constant. The three biggest killers of children under age five are malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia—compounded by malnutrition that contributes to about half of all childhood deaths. These problems can be addressed through strengthened healthcare systems that help parents with the tools to consistently monitor children’s health, ensure timely vaccinations, help prevent malnutrition, and when malnutrition occurs, identify and treat it quickly.

These efforts don’t always grab the attention that the latest disaster does. But because of their place in the social fabric of their communities, faith-based organizations can raise awareness, teach principles of good health, help identify those who may be ill or malnourished and encourage parents to make use of local health services. They can rally together to bring support and resources to their local healthcare system. These things take time, and local faith-based organizations are in the community to stay. They are perfectly placed to address long-term change and instill principles of self-reliance.

There is an opportunity for international NGOs to connect with local organizations and institutions (including faith-based organizations) to tap into their connection to the social fabric of a community—their knowledge of the context, the history, the needs, the hopes and aspirations, and the real challenges. This will bring them closer to accurately identifying and defining the problems that need to be addressed and then tapping into the unifying and motivating power of faith to create solutions. Another effect of this kind of engagement is the potential for strengthening the capability, capacity, and self-reliance of local institutions and communities that will be there long after the international NGO moves on. 

Stephanie Bowen: Is there anything else you’d like to add on behalf of the church and their work?

Robert Hokanson: We strive to live the two great commandments: to love God and our neighbor. This love compels us to serve others and care for those in need around the world as Jesus Christ would. We can do this because we work through a broad network of local leaders and organizations, and can move quickly because of long-held trusted relationships throughout the community. It is that combination that makes our work possible.

Stephanie Bowen is the editor of the Wilson Quarterly. Robert Hokanson is senior manager of Global Priorities at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Cover photo by Bernd Wüstneck/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images.