For more than 50 years, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has supported poor and low-income people. CCHD helps create permanent solutions to poverty by funding community programs that encourage independence and lasting change.
Through your generosity, $120,051 was raised during our diocesan CCHD collection in 2023. Thank you!
This year’s collection will be taken up in the parishes of our diocese Nov. 16/17. Please prayerfully consider how you can give this year.
Read Bishop Walkowiak’s letter to parishioners:
Give Online
If you prefer the ease of giving online, or if you miss the collection in our parishes Nov. 16/17, you can support the CCHD collection online through iGiveCatholic. Click the previous link, or the giving button below to get started.
Keeping it local
Our diocese keeps 25 percent of this collection to help fund local anti-poverty projects. Past local grant recipients have included Healthy Homes of West Michigan, Muskegon’s Community EnCompass youth program, and Catholic Charities West Michigan’s Pregnancy Support and Counseling Services. In total, nearly $40,000 in grant money was distributed because of your generosity to last year’s collection.
Local organizations awarded funding for anti-poverty work (November 2024)
How much do you know about poverty in the United States?
Take Poverty USA’s interactive quiz to find out. Featuring both multiple choice and true-false questions, this quiz will help you to learn more about poverty and its impact on people across the country.
About the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and its mission
Throughout its history, the CCHD collection and CCHD grantees have at times been subject to criticism originating from a misperception of CCHD’s mission. As a means of setting the record straight, we offer the following information and resources from the USCCB’s Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development:
Accountability, transparency, integrity
As the official anti-poverty agency of the Catholic bishops in the United States, the CCHD is accountable to them and operates at the highest levels of fidelity to Church teaching, integrity, and transparency in its mission to provide critical support to poor persons. In 2010-11, the bishops and CCHD officials conducted an in-depth investigation of how and to whom monies collected through the CCHD were being distributed. Their review led to the release of a 15-page document entitled “The Review and Renewal of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,” which affirmed the CCHD mission statement, but also added new layers of screening to ensure grant recipients’ adherence to Catholic teaching. Read more: Review and Renewal of CCHD
Each grantee is required to uphold the highest standards of accountability and conformity with the moral teaching of the Catholic Church. If a group commits offenses against Catholic moral teaching, the grant qualification is rescinded. CCHD monitors grant recipients through a reporting process in cooperation with grantees’ local dioceses. Only groups that have received formal approval from the local bishop may receive a CCHD grant.
Read more: FAQs about CCHD
Additional resources
Frequently asked questions about CCHD
CCHD Annual Report (2019)
Facts about poverty and stories of success
CCHD Newsletter
The annual CCHD collection coincides with World Day of the Poor – Read Pope Francis’ message for the 8th World Day
Contact:
Pedro Gomes, Mission and Advocacy Manager – pgomes@ccwestmi.org or 616.456.1443, Ext. 3778
