The research is clear. Peer-reviewed studies conducted in multiple countries have shown that organized boxing programs provide measurable improvements in self-confidence, self-esteem, mental health and emotional regulation in every population studied – from at-risk youth in Bristol to middle-aged men in the American Midwest. There has never been a question whether boxing works as a tool for personal transformation. The question is who does it on a enormous scale.

The answer for the past two decades has been WBC Cares.

Founded in 2006 under the leadership of the tardy WBC president José Sulaimán. WBC care from a grassroots movement, it has become the largest philanthropic campaign in professional boxing. The program currently operates in 29 global chapters on six continents, coordinates the work of hundreds of volunteer ambassadors-athletes, and in 2024 alone organized over 1,000 events in communities from 171 WBC member countries. None of the athletes involved are paid. Every speech, school visit, hospital trip and social event is time devoted to current and former world champions who show up because they want to, not because they make money.

Operation after mission

WBC Cares is run by Jill Diamond, WBC international secretary and global chairwoman of the program, who has not received a salary since its inception. Diamond, a Modern York State Boxing Hall of Fame inductee (2023) and Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame honoree (2024), oversees the daily operation, which begins each morning with a review of the social media activity of all 29 chapters around the world. Interacts directly with at least one chapter each day, coordinating events, resolving logistical issues, and maintaining the ethical standards the program enforces for its chapters and ambassadors.

In 2024, the organization added four fresh chapters – Kazakhstan, Algeria, Poland and Hong Kong – continuing a steady expansion that has expanded the WBC’s philanthropic reach far beyond time-honored boxing corridors. Each chapter conducts unified monthly campaigns tied to global themes – child safety in January, Black History Month in February, mental health awareness in May, anti-bullying in September – while meeting the specific needs of local communities.

Structure matters because this is what distinguishes WBC Cares from the one-off charity appearances that are common in professional sports. This is not a player who shows up at a children’s hospital once a year to have his picture taken. It is a coordinated, year-round operation with established protocols, monthly programming, and accountability systems designed to keep work consistent and credible.

Programs that go where boxing usually doesn’t

The breadth of WBC Cares programs challenges the assumption that a boxing organization’s philanthropy begins and ends with gym access for disadvantaged children. The scope is much wider.

Since 2023, the program has enabled over 620 heart surgeries for children in China. In South Africa, WBC Cares has launched container gyms – modular boxing facilities built into shipping containers – for communities that do not have access to time-honored sports infrastructure. In Japan, the program includes adaptive boxing sessions and specialized training for blind athletes. In Mexico, the KO Bullying initiative works with local organizations to run anti-bullying programs in schools, while prison programs in both Mexico and Argentina exploit boxing as a tool for rehabilitation and structure.

In the United States, program partnerships include housing projects and public school initiatives in Modern York City, community events hosted by the Los Angeles Police Department in California, and a partnership with the Feet First Foundation – recognized as California’s leading nonprofit organization – to exploit boxing programs to boost school attendance. The link between boxing and school attendance may seem unlikely until you consider the research: same 2022 Scope Review in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine This documented effect of boxing on self-confidence also showed that programs targeting at-risk youth consistently improved educational engagement when boxing was the starting point.

In the UK, WBC Cares UK runs adaptive boxing programs, youth clinics and women’s boxing initiatives. In Germany, the organization supports gyms for refugees and fundraisers to fight cancer. In Belgium and Turkey, food distribution programs operate under the umbrella of WBC Cares. In Portugal, the branch combines educational programs with youth boxing tournaments.

Most recently, the program provided food and prosthetic limbs through Shriners Hospitals for children affected by the Gaza war being treated in Chicago, continued assistance to communities and animals affected by the war in Ukraine, and organized donations for first responders during the Palisades fires in California.

Champions as volunteers, not advocates

The athlete participation model makes WBC Cares unique within professional sports philanthropy. Current and former world champions – including Naoya Inoue, Oleksandr Usyk, Lennox Lewis, Regis Prograis, Danny Garcia, O’Shaquie Foster, Christy Martin and dozens of others – participate in the program’s activities solely on a volunteer basis.

According to the program’s internal report from January 2025, this approach goes deeper than public speaking. Champions visit schools and gyms where, as the report describes, they share personal struggles, talk about drug awareness, bullying and domestic violence, and connect with juvenile people through sincere conversation rather than scripted messaging. Players like Rocky Herron, Omar Juarez and Beca Roma regularly host educational sessions on topics that most public figures in sports avoid completely.

The evidence that this approach is popular is anecdotal but persistent. The program collected letters from participants in 2006 – children who later became teachers, patients who found that the fighters’ visits gave them the will to continue treatment, and families who described the experience as a turning point. WBC Cares president Mauricio Sulaimán emphasized that the program’s goal is not to raise funds in the time-honored sense, but rather to exploit WBC’s global platform to create what the organization calls “actionable positive change” through direct contact with people.

Mental health as a top priority

The program’s increasing focus on mental health is a natural evolution of its mission, which directly aligns with academic research on the psychological benefits of boxing. Diamond was appointed to the U.S. Congressional Mental Health Task Force, led by Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, and WBC dedicated the month of May to mental health programs through WBC University.

In 2024, WBC Cares established the Mental Health Consortium and introduced the Mental Health Belt, awarded at championship events in cooperation with Athletes for Hope. Future stated goals for the program include transforming the consortium into a more formalized organization, planning a Youth Mental Health Summit in partnership with community organizations, developing videos and educational materials, and producing booklets for boxing coaches that discuss how to identify psychological warning signs in athletes during certification training.

Working on mental health is especially vital given what current research shows about combat sports and mental well-being. Research documented in a review by the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine found that boxing functioned as a form of help-seeking that men perceived as consistent with their identity, giving people who would never have walked into a therapist’s office an avenue to improve their mental health through physical training. WBC Cares implements the same principle on a global scale, using the sport’s inherent resilience as a starting point for conversations that have historically been avoided by both players and fans.

A model that works for less

Perhaps the most striking aspect of WBC Cares is its operating model. The program operates with minimal staff, confined budgets and no paid athlete participation – a combination that would be considered unsustainable in virtually any other enormous sports philanthropy. Diamond, along with Chris Manzur as director of WBC Cares Mexico and a miniature team of coordinators, manage an operation spanning 29 chapters on six continents that has produced over 1,000 events in one year.

An organization survives on relationships, not revenue. Its affiliate partnerships include the Association of Suicidology, Athletes for Hope, Give a Kid a Dream Foundation, Feet First Foundation, Police Athletic League, Merging Vets and Players, UCLA Neurosurgery, Public Theater, Autism Speaks and the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Mental Health – a coalition that reflects the broad range of issues the program addresses far beyond boxing.

Thanks to the institutional support of WBC, this is possible. President Mauricio Sulaimán has been a consistent supporter of the program, and co-chair Christiane Manzur has enhanced the broader infrastructure of the WBC – its conventions, championship events, media platforms and relationships with 171 national federations – providing WBC Cares with distribution channels that a stand-alone nonprofit organization could never replicate.

Boxing has always been better at crafting stories of individual redemption rather than systemic change. WBC Cares is an attempt to achieve both goals – practicing the same sport that research confirms builds confidence, self-esteem and emotional resilience, which is the basis of a global operation that sends champions to schools, prisons, hospitals and disaster zones. Twenty-one years, over 1,000 events a year, 29 chapters, zero payments to athletes. In a sport that runs on money, WBC Cares is based on something the sanctioning body cannot charge a percentage of.