The Independent Order of Foresters, operating as Foresters Financial, is a fraternal benefit society headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that provides life insurance and other financial solutions in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As of 2022, Louis Gagnon has served as the company's president and CEO.
A friendly society is a mutual association for the purposes of insurance, pensions, savings or cooperative banking. It is a mutual organization or benefit society composed of a body of people who join together for a common financial or social purpose. Before modern insurance and the welfare state, friendly societies provided financial and social services to individuals, often according to their religious, political, or trade affiliations. These societies are still widespread in many parts of the developing world, where they are referred to as ROSCAs, ASCAs, burial societies, chit funds, etc.
The Independent Order of Rechabites (IOR), also known as the Sons and Daughters of Rechab, is a fraternal organisation and friendly society founded in England in 1835 as part of the wider temperance movement to promote total abstinence from alcoholic beverages. The Order has been active in Australia from 1843, promoting temperance and as a benefit society. A branch was established in the United States in 1842, and also flourished for a time. In the United Kingdom, the Order trades under the name of Healthy Investment, being well connected in upper society and involved in financial matters; there it gradually transformed into a financial institution which promotes teetotalism.
The Slovene National Benefit Society, known in Slovenian as Slovenska narodna podporna jednota, and by its Slovene initials S.N.P.J. is an ethnic fraternal benefit and social organization for Slovene immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Founded in 1904, it is headquartered in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA near Imperial. SNPJ publishes a newspaper, Prosveta.
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, is an American Fortune 500 not-for-profit financial services organization headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Appleton, Wisconsin, and founded by Lutherans. As a member-owned fraternal benefit society, it operates under a chapter system, serving nearly 2.3 million members.
A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, friendly society, or mutual aid society is a society, an organization or a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief from sundry difficulties. Such organizations may be formally organized with charters and established customs, or may arise ad hoc to meet unique needs of a particular time and place.
WoodmenLife is a not-for-profit fraternal benefit society founded in 1890, based in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, that operates a large privately held insurance company for its members.
The Ancient Order of United Workmen (AOUW) was a fraternal organization in the United States and Canada, providing mutual social and financial support after the American Civil War. It was the first of the "fraternal benefit societies", organizations that would offer insurance as well as sickness, accident, death and burial policies.
Danish Brotherhood in America is a fraternal organization that was founded in 1882 in Omaha, Nebraska. It had about 8,000 members in 2010. A period report said of the Danish Brotherhood, "This is by far the strongest and most influential secular organization about the Danes in America."
Assured Life Association, formerly Woodmen of the World and/or Assured Life Association, having officially changed its name to on January 1, 2015, is a fraternal benefit society based in Denver, Colorado, whose beginnings can be traced to the same founder as Modern Woodmen of America and Woodmen of the World in 1890. Today, Assured Life Association is not affiliated with either organization. Aside from offering insurance benefits the organization is a non-profit Life Insurer organized to give back revenues to its member customers through direct benefits such as college scholarships and summer camp grants for youth and through discounts on other products and services. The Society also has a member-directed matching charitable giving program. Four national community service projects are promoted among Society member customers each year.
The American Fraternal Alliance (AFA) is an umbrella group of fraternal orders in the United States. It was founded as the National Fraternal Congress of America in 1913, in Chicago and adopted its current name in 2011.
Royal Neighbors of America is a Life insurance company targeted towards women.
The Neighbors of Woodcraft were a fraternal benefit society that originated as a splinter of the female auxiliary of the Woodmen of the World.
The town of Colorado Springs, Colorado, played an important role in the history of tuberculosis in the era before antituberculosis drugs and vaccines. Tuberculosis management before this era was difficult and often of limited effect. In the 19th century, a movement for tuberculosis treatment in hospital-like facilities called sanatoriums became prominent, especially in Europe and North America. Thus people sought tuberculosis treatment in Colorado Springs because of its dry climate and fresh mountain air. Some people stayed in boarding houses, while others sought the hospital-like facilities of sanatoriums. In the 1880s and 1890s, it is estimated that one-third of the people living in Colorado Springs had tuberculosis. The number of sanatoriums and hospitals increased into the twentieth century. During World War II, medicines were developed that successfully treated tuberculosis and by the late 1940s specialized tuberculosis treatment facilities were no longer needed.
The Modern Order of Praetorians, sometimes known as The Praetorians, was a fraternal organization founded in Dallas in 1898 or 1899 by Charles B. Gardner, who had formerly worked with the Home Forum and Woodmen of the World. Despite early setbacks the Order thrived and in the early built the Praetorian Building, the first skyscraper in Texas.
The Golden Age of Fraternalism is a term referring to a period when membership in the fraternal societies in the United States grew at a very rapid pace in the latter third of the 19th century and continuing into the first part of the 20th. At its peak, it was suggested that as much as 40% of the adult male population held membership in at least one fraternal order.
