In 2025, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spent 7.4 million volunteer hours serving people in need in their communities. This represents an increase of nearly 1 million volunteer hours over the previous year.
“We see beautiful, beautiful things happening, but it’s the individuals that get my attention the most,” Blaine Maxfield, managing director of Church Welfare and Self-Reliance Services, said on the “Church News” podcast. “We’ve seen this at emergency response events, where you have two neighbors who probably don’t get along. And by the end of the day, before you know it, the heart, the hard, frozen heart, thaws and melts. And now they’re able to put that aside and come together because they’re working together to help someone else.”
Maxfield said she believes looking “outside yourself” and caring for others is an antidote to the current divisions in the world.
Members of the Church strive to live the two great commandments taught by Jesus Christ: to love God and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).
“We want to be more like him,” Maxfield said. “As disciples, we want to follow the Lord. So we do what He has done. What we have seen Him do, we should do likewise.”
The Church’s commitment to care includes both the Church’s efforts as an organization and the individual efforts of Latter-day Saints around the world. Many of the efforts undertaken by Church members around the world are organized through the Church’s JustServe platform and app. In 2025, JustServe reaches a new milestone of 1 million registered users.
build independence
In addition to offering self-reliance courses, the church upholds the principle of self-reliance for those in need, with special emphasis on raising hands rather than giving people alms. And those who receive help can in turn help others.
As an example, Maxfield shared the story of a woman named Future from Zimbabwe. When she first started attending literacy classes, she could only read at a kindergarten level. However, after six months in the class, she had improved to a third-grade level.
“She is now using what she learned from our experience to help children in the community learn some of the same principles that she is learning,” Maxfield said. “She wanted to give back as a disciple of Jesus Christ.”
Maxfield said the woman was recently called as a temple worker at the newly dedicated Harare Zimbabwe Temple.
“So we just see the trajectory of her life changing, the trajectory of the lives of the children who are learning from her, and her desire to better follow Jesus Christ as she serves in the Lord’s house,” Maxfield said.
divine identity
The Church’s commitment to care for those in need in 2025 includes $1.58 billion in spending, including supporting 3,514 humanitarian projects, donating 37,063,409 pounds of food through the Episcopal Storehouse, and supporting 569 emergency relief projects.
The Caring for Those in Need 2025 report is the fifth report released by the church detailing its recent efforts, and Maxfield said much has been learned from the first report to the latest.
“The first year we did this, we received some great feedback from the report,” he said. “In doing so, we were putting outward labels on people, such as ‘underdogs,’ and I was reminded that these are short-term labels that can actually perpetuate or undermine their most important identity as sons and daughters of God.”
Maxfield added that his ability to see God’s children as divine beings grew as he observed church members serving “the One.”
“We look at how the Savior ministered one by one, and we see the impact that is having on the lives of people around the world, those who are receiving aid, those who are reaching outside of themselves to help others,” he said.
help women and children
The organization Relief Society leads the Church’s efforts to care for women and children. In 2025, the Church donated $63.4 million to efforts to improve the health and well-being of women and children around the world, especially through child nutrition, maternal and newborn care, immunizations, and education.
The initiative groups four consortia, each focused on projects that benefit women and children in 12 high-need countries.
“We now think of ourselves as the conductor of a symphony, bringing all the great parts together,” Maxfield said of the four nonprofits in the consortium. “Some people are better in these countries, and some people are better in these areas. So we’re coming together and letting them know, ‘Let’s stop competing with each other and focus on helping God’s children.'”
