How to Donate to the Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), founded in 1943 by the United States bishops, is the international relief agency of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. Primary uses of CRS funds in recent years included emergency aid to Sudanese refugees and resettlement of refugees from persecution and torture in places like Afghanistan and Burma. CRS is part of the international Catholic humanitarian movement known as Caritas Internationalis. Read on to learn more.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Funds to donate

Research the Efforts of Catholic Relief Services

1. Know that according to the Catholic Relief Services website, more than 60 million people were helped by the charity in 2006.
2. Recognize that according to the CRS website, 94 percent of all donations received by CRS go directly to program purposes, and each dollar in donations leverages more than 2 dollars in other resources.
3. Refresh your grounding in the Catholic social doctrine of Vatican II by reading "Living Justice: Catholic Social Teaching in Action" by Rev. Thomas Massaro, S.J. (see Resources below). Catholic social teaching plays a critical role in inspiring organizations such as Catholic Relief Services.
4. Learn about the worldwide mission of CRS by reading the materials available on the Catholic Relief Services website (see Resources below).

Donate to Catholic Relief Services and Maintain Accurate Records

5. Donate to CRS through your local parish during the special collection in the Lenten season each spring. On a single weekend, this collection sponsored by the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops provides about 10 percent of the donations and cash income received by the CRS each year, and helps to make CRS a priority of local parishes.
6. Donate online to Catholic Relief Services by visiting the Catholic Relief Services Make a Gift web page. Links on this page will also help you explore other giving options such as Matching Gifts, CRS Holiday Gifts, Corporate Gifts, Parish Gifts, Foundation Giving and Professional Organization Giving.
7. Keep a file of your Catholic Relief Services donation records, correspondence and other documents, whether you make your donations online or into a collection plate. These files should help you determine how much to give in future years, and can also streamline your preparations for tax filing.

Tips & Warnings

• As effective as the CRS is, it is also decidedly non-ecumenical. The organization is governed by a Board of Directors, consisting of 13 bishops, one monsignor and six lay people. It tends to direct much of its funding through other Roman Catholic organizations.