Philanthropies
organization
Philanthropies, formerly LDS Philanthropies, is a department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and is responsible for facilitating donations to humanitarian and educational initiatives. The department works under the direction of the church's Presiding Bishop. The most widely known educational projects are the operation of church-owned schools, such as Brigham Young University (BYU). Humanitarian funds are given to Latter-day Saint Charities which sponsors and organizes relief efforts. In 2019, the church reported over 3,000 community-based projects with an excess of 2,000 partners, in locations around the world. A 2020 statistic reported a total of $2.3 billion that had been donated over Philanthropies' existence.
History
Founded in 1955, Philanthropies has evolved in both purpose and brand over the intervening 65 years. Initially called the BYU Destiny Fund, it became the Church Education Development Office in 1971, but then quickly changed to The Development Office in 1973. The name changed to the LDS Foundation in 1982 and then LDS Philanthropies in 2005. The current name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – Philanthropies, was changed in 2019 as part of a focus by the LDS Church to move away from the monikers 'LDS' and 'Mormon'.
“Philanthropies” enters the record as organization. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Philanthropies and organization can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6457529. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2019, 2020, 1955 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Philanthropies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.