Giving Machines in 2023: ‘Miracles, and this is not hyperbole, every day’ (2024)

This article was first published in theChurchBeat newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night.

Here’s a brief look at the tremendous growth in the Light the World Giving Machines initiative, which raised $22 million in its first six years (2017-22). In 2023, the number of Giving Machines locations rose to 61, a big leap from the 28 locations in 2022.

The demand for the machines comes from all quarters — people who want to give, government leaders who want the machines in their cities, and charities that want to collaborate — said Karl Cheney, who manages the Light the World Giving Machine initiative for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Deseret News: You must be very busy.

Karl Cheney: I’m already working on 2024.

DN: Will you have another increase in locations next year?

KC: We’re always looking at growth. We’re always looking at innovating some new things. One of the reasons we can do 61 locations this year is because last year we tested a mobile-machine concept, where we take a Giving Machine and move it from city to city. So rather than a city having the machines for five weeks, last year they had them for five days.

DN: How did the pilot program go?

KC: We had two different routes in 2022, one in the southeast that covered five cities in five states. Then we had another test in Arizona, using a slightly different method of transporting the machines, that was in three cities in Arizona. Regardless of how the machines were transported, they did about the same. You would think that you wouldn’t have much enthusiasm or success with five days, but we found that those cities that had machines for five days did just as well, if not better, than cities that had machines for five weeks. There’s an urgency, you know, and so people want to go and get there.

DN: How did that change what you did this year?

KC: This year we have expanded the mobile program. For example, mobile machines for Mexico City are going to six different suburbs of Mexico City. The vast majority of Giving Machine cities this year are these mobile programs. That’s one way that we’re able to grow the program. It’s less expensive to do it by sharing machines.

DN: What else did you learn?

KC: When we realized that the mobile program was successful, I asked our team how we could do it on a less-expensive, more-scalable model. In February, we started looking at, how can we make a machine that is more flexible, and we came up with custom machines this year that can travel, that are weatherproof, that just look awesome. They literally have wheels on them. They can easily go inside of a shipping truck, but when you take them out, they are on casters that can easily be rolled into place, positioned, turned. They are completely self-enclosed. You put it into place and you plug it in and it’s ready to go. The vast majority of Giving Machine cities this year are these mobile programs. It’s less expensive to do it by sharing machines. We’re hitting about 35 to 40 cities with these mobile machines.

DN: What other challenges do you face?

KC: It’s a logistical challenge. We collaborate with multiple different local charities in every city we place a Giving Machine, and every charity has multiple items in a Giving Machine, so if you added up all the unique items across the world, we’re talking about 1,200. So we have to work with each of the charities as we create 1,200 different cards for the machines, and design and print them and distribute them.

DN: You also have global partners, right, like UNICEF?

KC: Yes, and in all, we worked with about 200 charities from 2017 to 2023. This year alone, we’re working with approximately 250 local and global charities, so now we’re more than doubling what we did for six years previous.

DN: So there has been a lot of change in what is available in the Giving Machines?

KC: Yes, we invite the locations that have had Giving Machines for a couple of years to mix up their charity list. A lot of them have done that. We’ve brought on new global charities, and we’ve rotated charities on the international side. The phone calls are off the hook; we’ve got so many people calling, both wanting to participate as a nonprofit as well as a city and location.

DN: How do you manage machines spread out over seven countries and 61 locations?

KC: Every city has a local team that we work with all year long, that we help train. They handle all the on-the-ground operations. We provide all the support, the training, the contracts, but the teams in every city just blow me away with their faith. We see miracles, and this is not hyperbole, every day. Every single day. I had an individual call me the other day and share with me an experience that just had happened two days before. He was crying. I was crying. I can’t share it right now ... .

DN: We know the church, as it does with all charitable donations, covers all overhead costs so that 100% of each donation goes to the charities. How much money have people given through the Giving Machines?

KC: I don’t focus so much on the money. I focus on how people are being served, but in total, we’ve raised $22 million since 2017. It was roughly $6 million, last year.

DN: What kind of responses do you hear from the charities?

KC: I took two trips this summer, one to Mexico for a week with one organization and then one in July and August to Africa with three different organizations. It was absolutely life-changing, no doubt, no doubt about it. Everyone is so grateful. Everyone, they tell me, “Please go back home and give them a hug for us. We’re so thankful.” None of these people are looking for a handout. Not any of them. They just need to get started, most of them, and it is changing lives in ways that you could never imagine.

About the church

What apostles and other church leaders posted about Jesus Christ on and around Christmas. Here’s what Elder Quentin L. Cook said on Christmas Day at the Provo MTC.

Read a year in review about the church in 2023. The latest Church News podcast also reviews the year in church news with Deseret News editors Doug Wilks and Hal Boyd.

Broadway singer Lea Salonga to join Tabernacle Choir during Philippines 2024 ‘Hope’ tours stop.

BYU’s winter 2024 devotional lineup includes two apostles.

The Church Historian’s Press has released two more volumes of the George F. Richards journals.

What I’m reading

A must-read piece by my colleague Jacob Hess: “We’re going to look at everything”: An 18,000-page monument to Joseph Smith, Jr.

This piece on deaths of prominent people in 2023 included a Latter-day Saint runner who ran 20 miles a day, six days a week for decades. One person estimated that Darryl Beardall ran more miles in his life than anyone else in history — 300,000.

Behind the scenes