Masonic Charity

There are four major masonic Charities: the Freemason’s Grand Charity, the Masonic Samaritan Fund, the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution and the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls & Boys.  Briefly, the main functions of these are:

1.   The Freemason’s Grand Charity as well as making donations to Masonic beneficiaries also donates £millions every year to non-Masonic charities.

2.  The Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution helps Freemasons and their dependants with housing and care and also runs 17 homes for the elderly including specialist nursing and dementia care.

3.  The Masonic Samaritan Fund helps Freemasons and their dependants with medical care.

4.  The primary function of the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls & Boys (RMTGB) is to assist Masonic families in serious financial difficulty, usually due to tragic circumstances or sudden reduction or loss of family income.

Every Masonic Province has a cycle of supporting these 4 major Masonic funds. When a Province is supporting a particular charity it is said to be involved in a Festival which lasts about 6 years.  Our present Festival is for the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys and culminates in 2016. Our next Festival for RMTGB will notbe for another 44 years (2060) so this is OUR only opportunity to support it in this special way.

There is quite a lot about the history of the RMTGB on the web site, but briefly since 1977 the 2 separate bodies of the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls and the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys were merged into one new charity the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys, the aims of which are to ”To relieve poverty and advance the education of children of a Masonic family and, when funds permit, support other children in need.”

The above information was kindly provided by W. Bro. Michael B. Culley