What is Kiwanis?
Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to changing the world,
one child and one community at a time.
The name “Kiwanis” means “we trade” or “we share our talents.”
It was coined from an American Indian expression, Nunc Kee-wanis.
Kiwanians are volunteers changing the world through service to children and communities. Kiwanis members help shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, mentor the disadvantaged, and care for the sick. They develop youth as leaders, build playgrounds, raise funds for pediatric cancer research, and much more. No problem is too big or too small. Why? Because working together, members achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone.
When you give a child a chance to learn, experience, dream, and succeed, great things happen!
As Kiwanis clubs and members, we see it everyday!
About 7,700 clubs in 80 countries
More than 240,000 adult members
Approximately 320,000 youth
Mission - To serve children of the world
Service - Each year, clubs:
Sponsor nearly 150,000 service projects
Raise more than $107 million
Partnering with UNICEF, Kiwanis successfully completed its first global campaign for children to virtually eliminate iodine deficiency disorders (IDD), the leading cause of preventable mental disability. Kiwanis raised and leveraged more than US$100 million, which helped change lives in 103 nations. The number of households estimated to be consuming iodized salt has jumped from less than 20 percent in 1990 to more than 70 percent, and the effort has been heralded as one of the most successful health initiatives in the world.
Kiwanis International and UNICEF have now joined forces to save the lives of babies and their mothers by eliminating maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT), a disease that kills one baby every nine minutes.