The Empress Shoken Fund was established in 1912 with a donation of 100,000 Japanese gold yen made by Empress Shoken, Empress of Meiji, to the International Red Cross in order to support peacetime activities by the Red Cross. At the time, 100,000 Japanese gold yen was equivalent to approximately 350 million yen in today’s terms. The establishment of an international fund to support peacetime activities such as infectious disease control and disaster relief was groundbreaking at a time when the Red Cross focused on wartime relief activities. Hence, the Fund is highly regarded for its pioneering nature as ‘the world’s oldest international humanitarian fund’. The Fund, run by the Joint Committee set up by the International Red Cross in Switzerland, operates as an endowment fund distributing annual grants to National Societies around the world on April 11, the anniversary of the Empress’s death. A total of approximately 2.7 billion yen has been distributed to 172 countries and regions around the world over the 103 years since its establishment in 1921 to 2023. Dr. Yoshiko Imaizumi researched the history of the Empress Shoken Fund and published the monograph entitled ‘Meiji nihon no naichingēru – Sekai o sukui tsuzukeru sekijūji “Shōken kōtaigō kikin” no 100 nen (Nightingales in Meiji Japan: 100 years of the Empress Shoken Fund that continues to save the world)’ in 2014. As part of the campaign to increase the value of the Fund, she has been giving lectures and organizing symposiums on the theme of ‘understanding the world today through the support of the Fund’. This lecture will trace the history of the humanitarian fund of the Red Cross, named after the Empress of Japan, over 100 years since its establishment, and discuss its historical and contemporary significance.