DONATIONS
Donations and Fundraisers allow the Knights to do their good work - providing for the poor, caring for veterans, giving students opportunities through our scholarship program, and providing events for families in our community.
Who we are
The Knights of Columbus is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight.
History
American Catholic priest Michael J. McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus at St. Mary's Church in 1882 as a mutual benefit society for Catholic immigrants in New Haven, Connecticut. As a parish priest in an immigrant community, McGivney saw what could happen to a family when the main income earner died. This was before most government support programs were established. Because of religious and ethnic discrimination, Catholics in the late 19th century were regularly excluded from labor unions, popular fraternal organizations, and other organized groups that provided such social services.
Although its first councils were all in Connecticut, the Order spread throughout New England and the United States in subsequent years. The Knights of Columbus is now a Global Organization, spreading charity and fellowship around the world.
The order is dedicated to the principles of charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism. Membership is restricted to adult male Catholics. As of 2020, there were 2 million knights.
Charity is the foremost important principle of the Knights of Columbus. At their 2019 convention, then-Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said that the organization had donated $185 million and 76 million volunteer hours toward charity projects in 2018. Charitable activities include support for refugees, aid for victims of natural disasters, and advocating Catholic ethics, such as opposition to same-sex marriage and opposition to abortion.
Beginning in 1897, the National Council encouraged local councils to establish funds to support members affected by the 1890s depression. Councils also offered employment agency services and provided aid to the poor and sick. Aid has also been dispensed to assist victims of natural and man-made disasters, starting with a flood in Kansas in 1903. In 2015 alone, the order donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to victims of typhoons and other natural disasters.
During times of war, the Order supports aid to refugees. Between 2014 and 2018, the Knights gave more than $2 million to provide food, shelter, clothing, and medical care to persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. The Knights donated $250,000 in 2018 to help refugees crossing over the Mexico–United States border who were seeking asylum in the United States and later expanded the program. Within days of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the 2,000 Knights of Columbus in the country worked to help those impacted. They began by providing food and clothing to those at train and bus stations in Lviv who were fleeing into Poland. They then began organizing buses to take people to the Polish border. In the first three months of the war, the Knights in Poland helped more than 300,000 people or 10% of those who fled to that country.
The Knights of Columbus has donated more than $600 million to those with intellectual and physical disabilities. One of the largest recipients of aid in this area has been the Special Olympics, where the Knights have been involved since the very first games in 1968.
After the Knights had donated more than 1,000 ultrasound machines to crisis pregnancy centers from 2009 to 2019, Anderson said, "Our ultrasound initiative is now the greatest humanitarian achievement in the history of the Knights of Columbus. ... We can, and I am confident that we will, save millions of unborn lives." Following the United States Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Supreme Knight Patrick E. Kelly called on the order to increase their support for women facing unplanned and crisis pregnancies with the Aid and Support After Pregnancy (ASAP) initiative.
The Knights also donate to the institutional church, including being a major donor to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Conference of Catholic Bishops. As of 2017, the Knights' Vicarius Christi fund has contributed more than $57 million to the charitable efforts of the pope. The Knights have supported the Vatican's news operation for decades.
In the field of education, the Knights of Columbus have a number of scholarships and other programs for seminarians, veterans, and students at The Catholic University of America, and at other Catholic colleges. Especially during World War I and World War II, the Order operated a number of "huts" to support troops serving in combat, regardless of race or religion.
