Donors more than doubled last year’s #iGiveCatholic total to support school, church and ministry projects in the archdiocese
Donors gave more than $2 million to parishes, schools and ministries in the Archdiocese of St. Louis through this year’s #iGiveCatholic campaign, more than doubling the amount raised in 2024.
#iGiveCatholic is a national effort to raise funds for Catholic organizations on Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday following Thanksgiving. This was the fifth year the Archdiocese of St. Louis participated, with 73 entities raising funds through the campaign, which encourages people to donate directly to organizations often to support specific projects or needs.
This year, 2,269 donors gave $2,273,956 total online and offline, an increase over last year’s $954,235. The total pushed the Archdiocese of St. Louis to the top of the national leaderboard, raising more money than any other participating archdiocese or diocese in 2025.
Within the archdiocese, the Annual Catholic Appeal’s Affordable Housing Fund raised the most with a total of $723,975 from 23 donors, including large gifts from Ascension, McKelvey Homes, RubinBrown and BSI Contractors.
The Affordable Housing Fund was created by the Archdiocese of St. Louis after its All Things New social outreach subcommittee identified in a 2023 report that affordable housing is among the most pressing unmet needs for struggling families.
Since the Affordable Housing Fund’s launch in 2024, it has awarded more than $2 million in grants. In 2025, recipients included Catholic Charities’ Festus Housing Development, The Care Service at Sts. Joachim &Ann, Peter &Paul Community Services and St. Joseph Housing Initiative.
The money raised from #iGiveCatholic will be combined with the $1 million allocated to the fund from the 2025 Annual Catholic Appeal to be distributed in the next round of Affordable Housing Fund grants in 2026.
“While no one effort can solve the affordable housing crisis, I am heartened by people who, with just a little support and encouragement from these fine organizations, have reached their housing goals,” Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski said earlier this year. “Over and over again, they describe to us their sense of hope after finding a safe, stable place for their family to call home, and how this stability frees them to focus on work, education, health and other important areas of their lives.”
Duchesne High School in St. Charles placed second on the local #iGiveCatholic leaderboard this year — after finishing first in 2024, 2023 and 2022 — with $570,038 raised by 270 donors, surpassing the school’s goal of half a million dollars.
Duchesne had planned to host a daylong livestream on Giving Tuesday to encourage donations but had to pivot when winter weather necessitated a snow day, Duchesne president Paul Boschert said.
“God works in mysterious ways — we think by having a snow day, people were at home, and they had nothing better to do, so they just called (and donated),” he said with a laugh. Boschert and a few others manned the phones and doors at school, meeting people in their cars to collect checks as they drove up.
The Duchesne team exceeded their goal with the help of two matching gifts of $100,000 and $50,000. The funds will be used to remodel the school STEM lab and teacher’s lounge and make improvements to the Trading Post student commons area. The money will also help address some immediate classroom needs that have arisen as Duchesne’s enrollment has grown this year and the school has hired a second learning consultant, Boschert said.
“Our Duchesne High School community is the best when called upon, when there’s challenges,” he said. “We ask, and our constituents deliver, and they did it again.”
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in St. Charles raised $261,666 to fund a new organ and other church improvements, coming in third in the archdiocese. Each of the archdiocese’s top three in “most dollars raised” also placed in the top 10 on the national #iGiveCatholic leaderboard.
Chesterton Academy of St. Louis, a classical high school in the Catholic tradition, had the highest number of donors with 441 people giving $70,965 to its cause. The school placed third in the nation in the “most donors” category.
#iGiveCatholic leaderboard
See the full list of all organizations that participated in #iGiveCatholic in the archdiocese and the amount they raised at https://www.igivecatholic.org/community/stl
