2025 Year in Review

2/3/2026

responding with compassion around the world

Dear Friends,

“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” - Isaiah 43:18–19

As we reflect on 2025, these words feel especially true. This has been a year marked by profound challenge and deep disruption across the world — and yet also by unmistakable signs that God continues to make a new way, even through uncertainty, loss, and change.

In 2025, Week of Compassion responded alongside communities in 77 countries and US states and territories, providing support through 264 grants, totaling more than $4.2 million dollars. This is a 35% increase from 2024. These figures help tell part of the story, but they cannot fully capture what this year has revealed: that compassion endures, leadership rises from the margins, and hope persists even when systems falter.

Globally, this past year laid bare the strain on humanitarian response. Funding cuts, climate-driven disasters, protracted conflicts, and shrinking humanitarian space left many communities increasingly vulnerable. And yet, in gathering with colleagues from across the world late last year, I was struck by a shared clarity: even as resources shrink and uncertainty grows, there is a deep and growing commitment to finding a new way, one rooted not in control or charity, but in trust, equity, and local leadership.

Here in the United States, we also saw moments when fear and uncertainty weighed heavily on local communities. In response, churches stepped forward, offering presence, care, and practical support, especially for families navigating changing immigration realities. Week of Compassion accompanied these efforts by resourcing trusted partners and congregations seeking to remain places of welcome, safety, and hope.

Throughout 2025, Week of Compassion sought to live into that calling. Whether responding to storms and floods, accompanying people displaced by violence, supporting refugee communities rebuilding their lives, or walking with communities strengthening resilience in the face of climate change, our work was guided by a simple conviction: the solutions are already present among the people closest to the crisis. Our role is not to lead from afar, but to accompany — to trust, to resource wisely, and to remain present for the long journey.

This year also required us to hold real tension. In many places, long-standing, community-rooted work now faces uncertainty—not because it lacks impact, but because the global funding landscape is shifting. As a church ministry, we continue to discern how to balance sustainability with solidarity, best practice with deep relationships, and long-term vision with immediate need. These are not abstract questions. They are pastoral, ethical, and deeply human ones. And they call us to humility, prayer, and faithfulness rather than easy answers.

What gives me hope are the people we encountered again and again throughout 2025: women leaders, youth organizers, refugee-led groups, local volunteers, and faith communities who are already embodying the future many of us keep talking about. Their work is grounded, creative, resilient, and courageous. They are not waiting for permission. They are already walking a new way — shaping responses that honor dignity, protect life, and strengthen community from the ground up.

As we prepare to enter 2026, our offering theme, A New Way, feels less like a slogan and more like a calling. It invites us to release what no longer serves life and to follow where God is already at work — among communities claiming their own agency, among neighbors rebuilding together, among partners imagining systems that are more just, more equitable, and more human.

None of this work is possible without you. Your prayers, generosity, and trust make it possible for Week of Compassion to remain present in places of deep pain and profound hope. Together, we are part of a wider movement of faith — refusing to give up on compassion, and choosing again and again to follow God’s invitation into a new way.