The Church of Jesus Christ increases international relief to 12 ‘high-need' countries with $63.4 million donation
The expanded funding aims to 'continue this great work to improve the well-being of women and children in the world,' President Johnson said. 'Together, we look forward to brighter futures for these women and children as we collaborate collectively in lifting and serving and blessing their lives.'
This adds to a $55.8 million donation in 2024 to a collaboration of eight globally recognized nonprofits. Those organizations include CARE International, Catholic Relief Services, Helen Keller International, International Development Enterprises, MAP International (Medicine For All People), Save the Children, The Hunger Project and Vitamin Angels.
'There are only some things that a church can do,' said Sharon Eubank, director of Humanitarian Services, Welfare and Self-Reliance Services. 'And we need other partners to be able to bring their expertise — working with governments, helping in cultures where we don't have experience.'
Blaine Maxfield, managing director of Welfare and Self-Reliance Services, said there is 'an unprecedented need now, more than ever, to provide relief to those that are in need all over the world.' He suggested this united effort could represent 'a model that can be transferred to other groups in this time of need.'
The additional funding will allow the church and the eight organizations to continue working together in 12 especially 'high-need' countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zambia.
The primary target within each of those countries is women and children, who are so often at most risk of malnourishment, disease and other dangers. This initiative combines efforts to improve child nutrition, maternal and newborn care, health care access including immunization that seeks to prevent deadly infectious diseases, mobility and disability support, and life-long learning and family education.
'Any student of the New Testament knows that Jesus broke a lot of cultural traditions and reached out to women in a way that they haven't been reached out to before,' said Eubank during a panel discussion.
'Women are the cornerstones of society,' said Abena Amedormey, Ghana country representative for Catholic Relief Services. But along with children, she noted that women are 'the most vulnerable in the communities,' who also 'hold the highest potential for growth and development of the society.'
'Therefore every support that there is that can be given to women, we know there will be rippling effects across the society ... when you support a woman, you support a nation.'
Lizz Welch, CEO of iDE, said 'we have seen through our work time and time again, when you can help women to increase their incomes and the production of food for their families, they reinvest at much higher rates within their community.'
She said iDE is working to expand 'local production of food and diverse, nutritious foods that families can consume within their household.' When gardening improvements go well, families can then sell extra food in the market and bring that income back to reinvest in their families and communities.
Starting with this small investment in local gardens, Welch described the 'ecosystems of opportunities' that can result, allowing 'families to thrive in ways that they couldn't before.'
The church has membership in 170 countries and does humanitarian work in almost 200 countries every year, Eubank said.
'Politics in lots of those nations are going to go up and down,' she noted. 'But the church's mission doesn't really change very much. ... We're going to take care of people that are vulnerable.'
President Johnson told the Deseret News, 'I'm so grateful to be part of a church that, in a season of bounty and prosperity, is willing to commit its resources to the most vulnerable.' That includes donations in places where the church has few members, she explained — such as a significant investment in Nepal, with only 200 members in the country.
'Why?' she asked. 'Because those are Heavenly Father's children that need care and attention.'
Ana Céspedes, CEO of Vitamin Angels, described how a simple increase for children in vitamin A — even just a 'drop in their mouth twice a year' — can reduce premature death by 25%, while also preventing 'night blindness.'
After noting that 45% of deaths in kids are due to malnutrition and 1.2 billion women in the world today 'don't have the access to the right nutrients,' Céspedes emphasized the importance of finding ways to 'catch child malnutrition early.' Starting with the first 1000 days of life (0 to 3 years old), she expressed hope these combined efforts can make a significant difference on both 'child's nutrition rates and ultimately, child survival.'
Since the project launched, it has exceeded the expectations initially set. For instance, while project leaders originally aimed for 12 million children and mothers receiving vitamins, they reported this week being able to reach 21.2 million children and mothers with vitamin supplementation. In addition:
Screenings for malnutrition were conducted with 1.87 million children, with treatment provided if necessary. To track clinical cases of malnutrition and provide treatment, 125 health facilities were also trained.
Training in nutrition best practices was provided for 1.6 million mothers. More than 141,000 families also received seeds and training, many of whom now have home gardens with more nutrient-dense foods.
Training in improved hygiene behaviors was given to 41,000 people — with an estimated 6,800 benefiting from improved water and sanitation facilities.
Training in maternal and newborn care, child nutrition, breastfeeding and vitamin administration was provided for 17,000 government health workers. And 159 newborns were resuscitated at birth, while 219,000 pregnant mothers received prenatal care.
Over and over, leaders emphasized the collaborative nature of the project itself as the secret behind its success. For instance, Sarah Bouchie, CEO of Helen Keller International, highlighted the 'opportunity to be able to learn from each other's skill sets, improve consistently in the way that we approach our work, and continue that ripple effect by sharing the things that we know.'
This kind of collaborative learning together, Amedormey said, 'has been a wonderful approach to reach a lot more women and children.'
Welch likewise called this approach an 'incredible multiplier effect' to improve the well-being of families wherever they were working.
Once families increase the food they're producing and associated income (through the efforts of one organization), she explained, that benefit is then paired with partner efforts to improve the micronutrients the families are getting, along with improved education about breastfeeding and many other ways to strengthen families.
'We're really seeing one plus one equal three or five or eight,' President Johnson told Deseret News. 'Those dollars are going further with the collaboration, because people are bringing their strengths, they're bringing their resources, they're bringing their best contacts, they're bringing their experiences, both good and bad, to the table and saying, 'What can we do to improve upon what we've learned?''
Bishop L. Todd Budge, second counselor in the Presiding Bishopric of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, acknowledged that no one anticipated the current funding challenges in the world when the project was envisioned. At a time when organizations everywhere are having to be more cost-effective, he shared a sense among nonprofit leaders that 'we have to do more with less because of the situation.'
Bishop Budge reflected, 'This is perhaps a framework that can be applied with other organizations to really get the synergies from collaboration.'
At a time of greater estrangement across societies, Bouchie went on to describe the added benefit of 'shared values' that all members of the collaboration bring — 'a vision for a future together where every child, every woman, should have the right to a proper nutrition to live a healthy life.'
'Obviously the church is doing this out of a faith mission,' Eubank told Deseret News. 'We're trying we care for God and we care for his children all over the world.'
But whether people have 'any kind of a faith or no faith at all,' she added, people can come together and 'still get behind women and children' — especially the crucial needs that happen early on in a child's life.
'It's pretty galvanizing to look at the first five years of a child's life,' Eubank said, 'and know that if they don't get enough nutrition, their cognitive ability is forever stunted, and I can get behind that anytime.'
To outside observers, Bouchie acknowledged that the solution to all these problems can appear deceptively simple. 'It seems like something easy, right? You have a child who doesn't have enough nutrition, give them nutrition. It doesn't seem that complicated.'
But the problem, she went on to explain, is that 'if you only treat those things, you're constantly treating the symptom.' How do we really get at the underlying factors contributing to hunger, she emphasized — finding better ways to increase self-reliance and sustainability?
'If you don't build the whole ecosystem, you don't really get at these complex factors that lead to malnutrition itself,' said Bouchie.
'It isn't an easy fix,' Eubank agreed. 'Because you can make sure that that baby has all the nutrition in the world, and then they die of diarrhea or something.'
There are 'so many factors that add up to that child living and thriving when they're 5 years old,' she added. That explains why 'the only way we thought we could do that is through this new way of collaborating.'
'When systems are strengthened' through collaborative efforts, Amedormey said, 'you have not just one impact per family, but also you're able to impact the society.'
President Johnson returned this week from Nepal — describing firsthand 'what happens when these groups come together with a common objective … working so beautifully together in rhythm.'
First, she described seeing pregnant women getting vitamins needed for prenatal care. Once those children came into this world, these mothers were then supported to prioritize breastfeeding — contrary to cultural practices where children are immediately separated from mothers, missing the early initiation of crucial skin-to-skin contact and nourishment.
President Johnson then described seeing parents being taught in community groups about the kinds of food that they could prepare for their children using local resources. (Young children who were malnourished also received immediate care through therapeutic foods and fortified cereals.)
President Johnson described meeting a woman who had been assisted to start a small chicken farm. 'Every day those chickens lay eggs, she has a protein source for everyone that lives in her family unit,' she reported, with excess 'stacks of eggs' then taken to the market to sell.
'That gives her an opportunity to raise the standard of living for herself and for her children — that reinvestment that we're hoping for so that we lift not just women and children, but families and communities and nations.'
At the close of the event, President Johnson shared her hope with Deseret News that those reading these stories would be inspired, first of all, 'to look around and identify the needs closest to them.'
'Sometimes, I think we believe we have to do something grand that warrants this splash in the news. But I know that there are malnourished children in our community. There are children and mothers who can't read well. ...
'My invitation is look around you first,' she said, referencing the 'mandate from the Savior' in Matthew 25, where Jesus Christ 'describes those that will be on his right hand as those who saw the hungry and those who saw the thirsty and gave them something to drink.'
'I want to be counted amongst those on the right hand,' she said with emotion. 'There's opportunities for all of us.'
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'Once you reach the point where the subsidiary starts transferring money up to the parent and it gets reallocated, then it's going to be out of their control,' Bridgeland said. Johnson's concerns are rooted in efforts last decade by healthcare advocates to have Blue Shield declared a charitable organization and to dig into its assets to improve patient care as a condition of its approval to acquire Care1st. Johnson worked at Blue Shield from 2003 until 2015, when he resigned to mount a public campaign to pressure the insurer over its nonprofit mission. Johnson has been involved in litigation with his former employer, which sued him in 2015 alleging he disclosed confidential information, including Blue Shield's communications with the Franchise Tax Board. In a settlement, he agreed to no longer retain or disseminate such documents. In seeking to retain its state tax-exemption during its audit by the board, which began in 2013, Blue Shield argued that should it dissolve, its assets could be distributed only to another nonprofit. Yet, the insurer told the DMHC, when the agency reviewed the proposed acquisition in 2015, that as a nonprofit mutual-benefit corporation it served only its enrollees and had no such obligations. Ultimately, the department decided that Blue Shield did not have the charitable obligations though it required the insurer, in approving the acquisition that year, to refrain from making 'misleading or inconsistent' statements regarding the distribution of its assets if it ever were dissolved. 'Through this process there have been inconsistencies in what Blue Shield has said. It was frustrating because we had to spend a lot of time and energy to make sure what was true,' the department's then director, Shelley Rouillard, said at the time. The insurer pledged as part of the Care1st acquisition to spend $200 million over the next decade on several initiatives aimed at providing better patient care. Nevertheless, patient advocates criticized the DMHC's finding that Blue Shield did not have charitable obligations, saying the state lost the opportunity to regulate how the insurer spent its billions in assets — and then failed to impose tougher conditions on the insurer, such as limiting its ability to impose rate increases deemed unreasonable. In his March letter, Johnson called on the DMHC to require Blue Shield to spend annually at least 5% of its total assets on community benefits, which might go, for example, to grants to community clinics in underserved areas of the state. Blue Shield defended its charitable spending, noting that it caps its annual profit at 2% and allocates additional revenue to such services as delivering COVID vaccines at no cost to the state, and funding nonprofits that advance mental health. 'Blue Shield … has consistently supported its members and California communities throughout the state,' the company said. Johnson also contends newly public documents show Blue Shield has continued to argue before state tax authorities that it is a charitable trust. In the opening brief of its back taxes case in 2020, the insurer cites a state Supreme Court case that it said confirms 'Blue Shield operates exclusively for the promotion of social welfare,' his letter notes. Blue Shield told The Times that it has provided 'consistent information to DMHC about its corporate restructuring' and that Johnson's letter provided 'no new evidence' regarding Blue Shield's status as a 'tax-paying not-for-profit mutual benefit corporation.' Johnson and the DMHC traded additional letters last week, with Johnson questioning why the department had not reviewed the new tax appeal documents or why they had not reviewed Ascendiun's articles of incorporation or bylaws prior to approving the restructuring. Janet Rickershauser, a nonprofits lawyer at Hurwit & Associates, said that the bylaws are important to understanding the parent company's operations, including the relationship of the subsidiaries to each other and the holding parent company. In a letter sent June 23 to Johnson, Jonathon Williams, an assistant chief counsel at the DMHC, said the department concluded it was 'not necessary or appropriate' to review the tax-appeal documents in its review of Blue Shield's application to restructure nor conduct a 'full evaluation of Delaware's corporation statutory scheme.' The department told The Times that it conducted a 'comprehensive review' of the articles of incorporation of Blue Shield and its Medicaid Promise Health Plan as required by state law. Although it did not review Ascendiun's bylaws or articles of incorporation, the department said it retained its regulatory authority over Blue Shield. Blue Shield said it would not release it bylaws because they are 'confidential company documents.' However, Rickershauser said that 'hiding the ball on the bylaws is preventing transparency into important aspects of how they're operating.'
