ideas on how you can use quilting to make the world a better place

Here is a list of causes you can support through quilting. Click on the project name in blue to link to their website. If you know of a national or international cause we should add to our list, please let us know by emailing us at quiltforchange@me.com.

Action Kivu
Action Kivu provides the Democratic Republic of Congo’s victims of violence with the opportunity to rebuild their lives on a foundation of hope, dignity, and economic self-sustenance. Our approach is spearheaded through two programs, the Kivu Sewing Workshop and Eduction assistance for children. In an eight-month program, students, all victims of the Congo’s years of devastating conflict, learn to sew, knit and embroider and eventually acquire the skills and capacity to work on their own as seamstresses who can provide for themselves and their families.

The Advocacy Project 
The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. Quilting is an important part of their model because it offers women an outlet for their artistry and a way to express themselves. The Advocacy Project recruits volunteers (Peace Fellows) who travel overseas to help the group craft quilt blocks which tell their story. U.S. quilt guilds then help Peace Fellows assemble the blocks into a quilt. The quilts are then exhibited to raise awareness and call for action.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt
To preserve, care for and use, The AIDS Memorial Quilt to foster healing, advance social justice and inspire action.

Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative
The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative™ is a national, grassroots charity whose mission is to raise awareness and fund research. The AAQI auctions and sells donated quilts, and sponsors a nationally touring exhibit of quilts about Alzheimer’s.

American Hero Quilts
American Hero Quilts were born out of the love and compassion of one determined Washington State woman. Her dream is that each of our injured troops returning home from war through Madigan Army Medical Hospital and other military hospitals, receive a “hug” of appreciation. These “hugs” are exceptional patriotic, heirloom quality quilts. Each is unique, created by many loving hands, and many are long-arm quilted by the creator of this project.

Binky Patrol
We are an all volunteer, national, non-profit organization making and distributing homemade blankets to children born HIV+, drug-addicted, infected with AIDS or other chronic & terminal illnesses, those who are abused, in foster care or experiencing trauma of any kind. Our recipients are from 0-18.

Home of the Brave Quilts 

Throughout its history, the United States has remembered its military heroes in many ways, with plaques, parades, statues and memorials. The Home of the Brave Quilt Project was started to continue that proud tradition in a less than traditional way. We are a nationwide movement dedicated to honoring our fallen heroes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by making and presenting homemade quilts to their families. We use the quilts to honor and show our gratitude for their soldier’s service and provide a measure of comfort to their families.


Peace Quilts
PeaceQuilts is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), humanitarian organization relieving poverty in Haiti by establishing and supporting independent women’s quilting cooperatives. Currently we work with approximately 100 women organized into seven cooperatives in Lilavois, Croix-des-Bouquets, Cayes, Bel Anse, Roche-a-Batteau, and Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince, with plans to expand. PeaceQuilts provides training, materials, supplies, marketing assistance, and educational opportunities. We also market their one-of-a-kind art quilts in the United States, and are in the process of developing a product line of affordable quilted items which are now being sold in retail shops, online and at Macy’s as part of their “Heart of Haiti” initiative. Our goal is to help each cooperative to become self-managed and self-sustaining.

Project Linus
Project Linus is comprised of hundreds of local chapters and thousands of volunteers across the United States. Each volunteer and local chapter all work together to help us achieve our mission which is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.”

Quilt for a Cause
To use the art and business of quilting to pursue advances in breast and/or gynecological cancers by raising funds for research, by continuing the education of medical professionals, and by supporting clinical organizations that raise awareness, offer detection and provide treatment for all women.

Quilts for Kids
Transforming discontinued, unwanted and other fabrics into patchwork quilts that comfort children with life-threatening illnesses and children of abuse.

Quilts of Valor
The mission of the Quilts of Valor Foundation is to cover all combat servicemembers and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor. This foundation is not about politics. It’s about people.

Quilt for Change acts as a clearinghouse for this information and is not directly linked to or responsible for any of the information provided. We do not promote any specific projects or websites but provide this information in the hopes of encouraging quilters to become involved.